Walter Cope

Sir Walter Cope (circa 1553 – 30 July 1614) was an English government official of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Walter Cope was probably born at Hardwick Manor near Banbury, Oxfordshire, third son of Edward Cope of Hanwell, Oxfordshire and his wife Elizabeth Mohun, daughter of Walter Mohun of Overstone, Northamptonshire (who married Walter's stepfather, George Carleton of Wollaston, Northamptonshire, after Edward Cope's death in 1557). He was the grandson of Sir Anthony Cope and Jane Spencer, and a second cousin of Lady Burghley.

In 1570 he was entered at Gray's Inn, and he became Gentleman Usher to Baron Burghley, and an official of the Court of Wards and Liveries in 1574. In 1580 he was appointed as the court's feodary for Oxfordshire. He was described as Burghley's secretary by 1593, and had become the trusted friend of Burghley's son, Sir Robert Cecil. In 1601 he was also appointed feodary for the City of London and Middlesex.

In 1603 Cope travelled to Edinburgh to welcome James I at his proclamation as the King of England, and was subsequently knighted at Worksop. He later arranged for Cuthbert Burbage's theatre company to revive William Shakespeare's play Love's Labour's Lost to entertain James' consort, Anne of Denmark, at the home of Cecil. In 1604, Cope was elected Member of Parliament for Westminster in James' first Parliament of England, and was begged for assistance by Dudley Carleton, 1st Viscount Dorchester when he was incorrectly suspected of involvement in the Gunpowder Plot.