[3] Elizabeth I was greatly pleased with his Thesaurus, generally known as Cooper's Dictionary; and its author, who had been ordained about 1559, was made Dean of Christ Church, in 1567.
[1] Cooper was a stout controversialist; he defended the practice and precept of the Church of England against the Roman Catholics on the one hand and against the Martin Marprelate writings and the Puritans on the other.
He took some part, the exact extent of which is disputed, in the persecution of religious recusants in his diocese, and died at Winchester on 29 April 1594.
[3] Cooper's literary career began in 1548, when he compiled, or rather edited, Bibliotheca Eliotae, a Latin dictionary by Sir Thomas Elyot.
[3] John Aubrey in "Brief lives", gave the following glimpse into the creation of this dictionary: Dr. Edward Davenant told me that this learned man had a shrew to his wife, who was irreconcileably angrie with him for sitting-up late at night so, compileing his Dictionarie, (Thesaurus linguae Romanae et Britannicae, Londini, 1584; dedicated to Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, and Chancellor of Oxford).