Elizabeth Lucar

Elizabeth Lucar (Elizabeth Withypoll), (1510 – 29 October 1537) was an English calligrapher.[1]

Lucar, born in London, was multi-talented. She was the author of Curious Calligraphy (1525) the first English essay on calligraphy,[2] she was also fluent in Latin, Spanish, and Italian, and an accomplished musician and needleworker.

She died in London and is largely known from an inscription on her tomb at St. Michael, Crooked Lane church, London, (originally in St Laurence Pountney, until that church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666) written by her husband, Emanuel Lucar (1494–1574), a member of the Merchant Tailors Company.[3]

Every Christian heart seeketh to extoll The glory of the Lord, our onely Redeemer: Wherefore Dame Fame must needs inroll Paul Withypoll his childe, by love and Nature, Elizabeth, the wife of Emmanuel Lucar, In whom was declared the goodnesse of the Lord, With many high vertues, which truely I will record.


She wrought all Needle workes that women exercise, With Pen, Frame, or Stoole, all Pictures artificiall, Curious Knots or Trailes, what fancy would devise, Beasts, Brids, or Flowers, even as things naturall: Three manner hands could she write, them faire all. To speake of Algorisme, or accounts, in every fashion, Of women, few like (I thinke) in all this Nation.


Dame Cunning her gave a gift right excellent, The goodly practice of her Science Musicall, In divers tongues to sing, and play with Instrument, Both Viall and Lute, and also Virginall; Not onely upon one, but excellent in all. Foe all other vertues belonging to Nature, God her appointed a very perfect creature.


Latine and Spanish, and also Italian, She spake, writ, and read, with perfect utterance; And for the English, she the Garland wan, In Dame Prudence Schoole, by Graces purveyance, Which cloathed her with Vertues, from naked Ignorance: Reading the Scriptures, to judge light from darke, Directing her faith to Christ,

the onely Marke.[4]

Family

Elizabeth Wythipoll was the daughter of the London merchant Powle Wythipoll (c. 1485–1547), prominent businessman, member of Parliament[5] and third son of John Wythipoll of Bristol and his wife Alyson, daughter and heiress of John à Gaunt of Cardiff; that John Wythipoll of Bristol was the son of Robert Wythipoll of Wythipool in Shropshire, origin of the surname. Elizabeth's mother was Ann, daughter of Robert Curson of Brightwell, Suffolk.[6] Elizabeth was the sister (possibly the only sibling?) of Edmund Wythipoll, who, after their father had purchased the site of the Holy Trinity Priory of Augustinian canons in Ipswich, built Christchurch Mansion as a private house there in 1548–50.[7] In 1532 Elizabeth received a bequest of £50 from her extremely wealthy uncle Robert Thurne or Thorne, merchant of London and Bristol (who had married her aunt Ellen Wythipoll), in his will.[8] Elizabeth married (as his second wife) Emanuel Lucar (b. Bridgwater, Somerset, 1494), the great-grandson of Richard Lucar, Steward to the Duke of Exeter in the time of Henry VI of England (brother of William Lucar, Forester of the Forest of Exmoor to Henry VI), from John Lucar of Bridgwater, son of John Lucar of Wythecomb.[9] She was aunt to the 18 children of her brother Edmund Wythipoll of Ipswich and his wife Elizabeth Hynde (several of whom did not survive infancy).[10] Her own children – Emanuel, Henry, Mary, Jane, and another daughter – and those of her husband's first wife (Joan Turnbull) are shown in the 1568 Herald's Visitation of London[11]

Heraldry

The following arms are recited for Elizabeth in the 1568 Visitation:

Quarterly. 1 & 4, Per pale or and gules, three lions passant in pale within a bordure counterchanged. 2. Azure, three bars or, over all or a bend engrailed gules three pheons argent. 3. Azure, a cross moline between four crosses patté or.

References

  1. ↑ Hays, Mary; Mason Mary E. , Contributor (1807). "Elizabeth Lucar". Female biography; or, Memoirs of illustrious and celebrated women, of all ages and countries: Alphabetically arranged. Philadelphia, 37, South second-street.: Burch and Small, Fry and Kammerer, printers. p. 469. Retrieved May 2009.
  2. ↑ Carvalho, David N. (2007). Forty Centuries of Ink. Echo Library. p. 68. ISBN 1-4068-4413-6.
  3. ↑ "Elizabeth Lucar". The Dinner Party database of Notable Women. Brooklyn Museum. 19 March 2007. Retrieved 20 May 2009.
  4. ↑ Strype, John (1598). "12". 2 A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster Book. The Stuart London Project, Humanities Research Institute, The University of Sheffield,. ISBN 0-9542608-9-9.
  5. ↑ Eliana Greenberg, "Elizabeth Lucar," Project Continua, http://www.projectcontinua.org/elizabeth-lucar/
  6. ↑ Thus, Hervey (Clarenceux King of Arms) Suffolk 1561 Heraldic Visitation, see W.C. Metcalfe, The Visitations of Suffolk 1561, 1577, 1612 (Private, Exeter 1882), p. 82.
  7. ↑ J. Renton Dunlop, Pedigree of the Withipoll family of Somersetshire, Shropshire, Essex and Suffolk, (Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, London 1925).
  8. ↑ Thomas Procter Wadley, Notes or abstracts of the wills contained in the volume entitled the Great orphan book and Book of wills, in the council house at Bristol (Bristol c1882), p. 180, item 291.
  9. ↑ Thus, Pedigree of Lucar of Bridgwater in the 1623 Herald's Visitation of Somersetshire (Harleian Soc. Vol. XI, 1876), Ed. F.T. Colby, p.71.
  10. ↑ Hervey (Clarenceaux) Suffolk 1561 Heraldic Visitation, see W.C. Metcalfe, The Visitations of Suffolk 1561, 1577, 1612 (Private, Exeter 1882), p. 82.
  11. ↑ J.J. Howard and G.J. Armytage (Eds), 'The Visitation of London in the year 1568 taken by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux King of Arms,' Harleian Society Vol. I (1869) p.49.