Hope Cooke

Hope Cooke (born June 24, 1940) is the former Gyalmo (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་མོ་, Wylie: rgyal mo; Queen consort) of the 12th and last Chogyal (King) of Sikkim, Palden Thondup Namgyal. Their wedding took place in March 1963. She was termed Her Highness The Crown Princess of Sikkim and became the Gyalmo of Sikkim at Palden Thondup Namgyal's coronation in 1965. She is the first American-born Queen Consort. In 1975 Namgyal was deposed and Sikkim merged into India as a result of internal turmoil, Indian intervention and a referendum. She had left her husband and the palace in the Himalayan kingdom in July, 1973, and returned to New York. Cooke and her husband divorced in 1980. Namgyal died of cancer in New York City in 1982. Cooke wrote an autobiography, Time Change (Simon & Schuster 1981) and began a career as a lecturer, book critic, and magazine contributor, later becoming an urban historian. In her new life as a student of New York City, Cooke published Seeing New York (Temple University Press 1995); worked as a newspaper columnist (Daily News); and taught at Yale University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Birch Wathen, a New York City private school.