Motivated by religious piety and a remarkable education, Anne Cooke Bacon was one of the most prominent and prolific women writers in Renaissance England. Scholars have called attention in particular to the transformation her writing underwent after the death of her husband, Sir Nicholas Bacon, in 1579. While he lived, Cooke Bacon translated religious works, modestly keeping the focus on the ideas of others. When she became a widow, she assumed a new voice and tone-assertive and often domineering-in letters of advice not only to her adult sons but to prominent male political figures as well.