Elizabeth Lucar


Elizabeth Lucar was an English calligrapher. A multi-talented person, she was fluent in Latin, Spanish, and Italian, and an accomplished musician, needleworker and algorist. A member of a very prominent and wealthy mercantile family holding royal favour and civic office, her marriage united common interests within the Company of Merchant Taylors.

Epitaph

Elizabeth Lucar was born and died in London and is largely known from an inscription on her tomb in St Laurence Pountney church, London, written or commissioned by her husband Emanuel Lucar, a man held in high esteem among the Merchant Taylors. This was recorded by John Stow.

"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 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.

For 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."

"The said Elizabeth deceased the 29 day of October An. Dom. 1537. Of yeares not fully 27: This Stone, and all hereon contained, made at the cost of the said Emanuel Merchant-Taylor."
After the destruction of St. Laurence Pountney church in the Great Fire of London of 1666, the brass plate inscription was moved to St. Michael, Crooked Lane.

"Curious Calligraphy"

In a work published in 1904, D.N. Carvalho referred to an essay on the subject of calligraphy written by Elizabeth Lucar in 1525, at the age of 15, entitled Curious Calligraphy. This, he claimed, was the first English essay on that subject, and this claim has been repeated elsewhere. However the bibliographic or manuscript original of this supposed work Curious Calligraphy is not cited or apparent, and the term 'calligraphy' itself appears anachronistic for English usage of that date. Ballard, in his 1752 Memoir of Elizabeth Lucar, does not mention an essay but described her as 'a curious calligrapher'. It is possible that Carvalho, reading the line of her epitaph 'She wrought all Needle workes that women exercise', interpreted it to mean 'she wrote all needle workes'. The duality of meaning of 'wrought' and 'wrote' has been recognized elsewhere, but in either sense, that line may only mean that she herself delineated the patterns which she afterwards rendered in needlework. The line 'Three manner hands could she write, them faire all' does however indicate that she could write beautifully in three different scripts.

Reformist connections

Elizabeth Lucar's date of death is noted in the Calendar of the 15th-century Book of Hours known as The Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours. A closely similar text is annotated into the Calendar of a 1535 printed copy of William Marshall's Prymer. The textual identity of the inscriptions in these two calendars indicates that they belonged to someone deeply interested in Reformation psalm-readings to whom Elizabeth was well-known.
Elizabeth's father Paul Withypoll's patronage of religious art is illustrated by the Withypool Triptych, a devotional painting of the Virgin and child with Saints Catherine and Ursula, including a portrait of Paul Withypoll. An attendant female figure is shown playing the lute. This masterpiece was commissioned by Paul from the Italian artist Antonio Solario and completed in 1514.

Family

Elizabeth was the daughter of Paul Withypoll, Master Merchant Taylor, Alderman and M.P. for London and his wife Anne, daughter of Robert Curzon of Brightwell, Suffolk. Paul was the third son of John Withypoll of Bristol and his wife Alyson, daughter and heiress of John à Gaunt of Cardiff; that John Withypoll of Bristol was the son of Robert Withypoll of Wythipool in Shropshire, origin of the surname.
Elizabeth was the sister of Edmund Withypoll, M.P., 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. Edmund Withypoll of Ipswich and his wife Elizabeth Hynde had 18 children to whom Elizabeth was aunt. In 1532 Elizabeth received a bequest of £50 from her extremely wealthy uncle Robert Thurne or Thorne, merchant of London and Bristol. The Thorne and Withypoll families were engaged in an international trading syndicate and were conspicuous collectors of precious objects.
Elizabeth married Emanuel Lucar, the great-grandson of Richard Lucar, Steward to the Duke of Exeter in the time of Henry VI of England, from John Lucar of Bridgwater, son of John Lucar of Wythecomb. Elizabeth's children – Emanuel, Henry, Mary, Jane, and another daughter – and those of her husband's second wife Joan Turnbull or Trumball are shown in the 1568 Herald's Visitation of London.
A painted portrait of Elizabeth Lucar is referred to in the will of Emanuel Lucar.

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.