Elizabeth Lucar

Elizabeth Lucar (Elizabeth Withypoll) (1510 – 29 October 1537) 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. Her short life as a woman of Christian piety, wife and mother, with so many excellent capabilities, has attracted comment in successive centuries for various reasons.

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 (1494–1574), 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 (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.
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.

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