Anthony Cope (author)

Sir Anthony Cope (c.1486 – 5 January 1551) was an English author.

Anthony Cope was a younger son of William Cope (c.1440–1513), esquire, Cofferer of the Household to Henry VII.

According to most sources, William Cope had two wives:

By his second wife, Jane Spencer, William Cope had three sons:

The monument to William Cope in Banbury church records the death of his widow, Jane, on 12 February 1525.

According to other sources, however, William Cope had three wives. Chambers says he married 'twice if not three times', and that his monument names his second and third wives Agnes and Jane, while a 'troublesome pedigree' from the Visitation of Hampshire shows a first wife, Barbara Quarles, daughter of George Quarles of Ufford, Northamptonshire, as the mother of his son, Stephen Cope. The online Dictionary of National Biography does not name William Cope's first two wives, but states that Anthony Cope was his 'second recorded son... by an unknown second wife', and that Anthony had 'at least one elder half-brother, Stephen, one brother, and four younger stepsisters (one of whom became Stephen's wife) who were the daughters of William Cope's third wife, Johane Spencer'.

Anthony Cope attended Oxford, perhaps Oriel Oxford as Anthony Wood states, but does not appear to have taken a degree. He subsequently travelled to France, Germany and Italy. During his time on the continent he visited several universities, and is said to have written a number of books at that time, which may have included translations from Galen and Hippocrates mentioned by Erasmus in 1516. Wood states that his writing were the subject of an epigram by Johannes Baptista Mantuanus, seen at the one time by John Bale, but now lost.

He was twenty-six years of age when his father died on 7 April 1513. He was heir to 'the manor of Hanwell, near Banbury, and other property near by'. He completed the building of Hanwell Hall, begun by his father. The Hall was later described by John Leland as 'a very pleasant and gallant house'.