Mary, Lady Cheke (née Hill; c. 1532 - 30 November 1616) was an English courtier, poet,[1] and epigrammatist.
After her father's death, her mother remarried Sir John Mason.
On 11 May 1547,[3] she married Sir John Cheke of Mottistone Manor, an English classical scholar and statesman.
[2] She is remembered as an important attendant to Elizabeth I, and for a "witty poetic exchange" at her court.
[2] In the late 1590s,[5] Harrington wrote an epigram with negative connotations regarding women in the Bible, and Cheke wrote back a lyrically-clever counter-epigram, "Erat quaedam mulier (a reply to John Harrington's poem, Erat quidem homo)".