Francis and Hester Mahieu Cooke in Leiden

The name of Francis Cooke appears in the records of Leiden, The Netherlands, in 1603:
“Couk, Franchoys of England, Wool-comber, acc[ompanied] by Phillipe de Veau and Raphael Roelandt his acq[aintance]. betr[othed]. 30 June 1603 to Hester Mahieu of Canterbury in England, acc[ompanied]. by Jenne Mahieu her mother and Jenne mahieu her sister …”
Johanna W. Tammel, The Pilgrims and other people from the
British Isles in Leiden, 1576-1640 (Isle of Man: Mansk-Svenska
Publishing Co. Ltd., 1989), p. 152.
[Although Hester Mahieu is listed as “of Canterbury,” she was actually Walloon, French-speaking Belgian, and not English. Many Walloons lived in Canterbury, engaged in the textile trades.]

Hester Mahieu’s name also appears in records in Leiden in 1603 as having been accepted as a member of the French Reformed Church (known as the Walloon Church) of Leyden. Her name in this list reads “Esther de Mahieu.” The baptism of John Cooke, Francis and Hester Mahieu Cooke’s firstborn son, is also in the Walloon Church records.

Information taken from: Mayflower Descendant, Vol. 27, 145-153.

Hester Mahieu Cooke’s name appears in 1646 in a description of the relationship among the various Protestant churches of Europe:
“And for the French churches, that we held and do hold communion with them, take notice of our practice at Leyden, viz. that one Samuel Terry was received from the French church there into communion with us. Also the wife of Francis Cooke, being a Walloon, holds communion with the church at Plymouth, as she came from the French, to this day, by virtue of communion of churches.”

Edward Winslow’s Brief Narration (1646) as printed in:
Alexander Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1841), p. 393.

“On New Year’s Day, 1608, among those admitted to communion by letter of transfer from another Walloon congregation were `Francois Cooke et Esther sa femme, de Norwich’ … This entry informs us that before 1608, the Cooke-Mahieu couple had lived in Norwich among the Walloons there. They evidently left for Norwich on 8 August 1606, as a note in the Walloon Library of Leiden mentions their departure on that date with letters of transfer … Both the departure with attestation and the return to communion in Leiden with a similar letter indicate that Francois Cooke, as well as Hester his wife, was a member of the Leiden Walloon congregation. The Cookes evidently returned briefly to Leiden, between the quarterly dates of communion, which they missed, in order to have their son Jean baptized within the Leiden Walloon congregation with family as godparents to raise him in case he became orphaned.

“Scholars at the Leiden Municipal Archives discovered two other children of Francois and Hester besides their son Jean: Elizabeth, baptized on 26 December 1611, and a child, whose name is not given, buried in the Pieterskerk on 20 May 1608 … The burial record imparts the further information that at that time Franchoys Couck lived on the Levendaal, a canal on the southeast

side of Leiden. The Cookes’ other children, Jane, Hester, Jacob, and Mary, were presumably baptized in the Separatist congregaton of Leiden, for which no records are preserved, although it is possible that one or two might have been born in Norwich, or some may have been born in the colony of New Plymouth …
Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs. “The Pilgrims and other English in
Leiden records: some new Pilgrim documents.” The New England Historical
and Genealogical Register, July 1989, p. 195-214.
[Dr. Bangs’ article also discusses possible family connections between the Mahieus and other Pilgrim families, including the Delanos.]

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