Hope Cooke

Hope Cooke (born June 24, 1940) is an American woman who was the "Gyalmo" (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་མོ་, Wylie: rgyal mo ) (Queen Consort) of the 12th Chogyal (King) of Sikkim, Palden Thondup Namgyal. Their wedding took place in March 1963. She was styled Her Highness Hope La, the Gyalmo of Sikkim.

Palden Thondup Namgyal was to be the last king of Sikkim as a protectorate state under India. By 1973, both the country and their marriage were crumbling; soon Sikkim was annexed by India. Five months after the takeover of Sikkim had begun, Cooke returned to the United States with her two birth children and stepdaughter to put them in schools in New York City. Cooke and her husband divorced in 1980; Namgyal died of cancer 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.