Henry Lyte was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 botanist and antiquary

Antiquarian

An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...

. He is best known for two works, A niewe Herball (1578), which was a translation

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

 of the Cruydeboeck of Rembert Dodoens

Rembert Dodoens

Rembert Dodoens was a Flemish physician and botanist, also known under his Latinized name Rembertus Dodonaeus.-Biography:...

 (Antwerp, 1564), and an antiquarian volume, The Light of Britayne (1588), both of which are dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

.

Life

Henry Lyte was born at Lytes Cary Manor

Lytes Cary Manor

Lytes Cary is a manor house with associated chapel and gardens near Charlton Mackrell and Somerton in Somerset, England. The property, owned by the National Trust, has parts dating to the 14th century, with other sections dating to the 15th, 16th, 18th, and 20th centuries...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, about 1529, and was the second and eldest surviving son of John Lyte, by his first wife, Edith Horsey, who died in 1566. Lyte became a student at Oxford about 1546, but it is not known whether he took a degree. Anthony à Wood writes of him: "After he had spent some years in logic and philosophy, and in other good learning, he travelled into foreign countries, and at length retired to his patrimony, where, by the advantage of a good foundation of literature made in the university and abroad, he became a most excellent scholar in several sorts of learning."

In 1558, John Lyte made over his property to Henry who managed the Somerset estate until his father's death in 1576, when his stepmother brought a writ of dower

Dower

Dower or morning gift was a provision accorded by law to a wife for her support in the event that she should survive her husband...

 against him. Lyte seems to have served as sheriff

Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

, or perhaps only as under-sheriff, of Somerset during the reign of Mary I

Mary I of England

Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...

, and perhaps until the second year of Elizabeth (that is, 1559).

Lyte was married three times: in September 1546 to Agnes, daughter and heiress of John Kelloway of Collumpton, Devon

Cullompton

Cullompton is a civil parish and town in Devon, England, locally known as Cully. It is miles north-north-east of Exeter and lies on the River Culm. In 2010 it had a population of 8,639 and is growing rapidly....

, who died in 1564, and by whom he had five daughters; in July 1565 to Frances, daughter of John Tiptoft, citizen of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, who died in 1589, and by whom he had three sons and two daughters; and in 1591 to Dorothy, daughter of John Gover of Somerton

Somerton

Somerton is a small town and civil parish in the South Somerset district of the English county of Somerset. It gave its name to the county of Somerset, was briefly, around the start of the 14th century, the county town, and around 900 AD was possibly the capital of Wessex...

, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. Lyte was a distant connection of antiquarian John Aubrey

John Aubrey

John Aubrey FRS, was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the collection of short biographical pieces usually referred to as Brief Lives...

, who says that Henry Lyte "had a pretty good collection of plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

s for that age," though an extant list in the handwriting of Lyte'e second son and successor, Thomas, enumerates only various fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

 tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

s.

Books

Lyte's first and most important work was his translation of the Cruydeboeck of Rembert Dodoens (Antwerp, 1564) by way of the 1577 French translation of Charles de L'Ecluse

Charles de l'Écluse

Charles de l'Écluse, L'Escluse, or Carolus Clusius , seigneur de Watènes, was a Flemish doctor and pioneering botanist, perhaps the most influential of all 16th century scientific horticulturists....

 (Histoire des Plantes). His copy of the French edition endorsed on the title page "Henry Lyte taught me to speake English" is now in the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

. It bears numerous annotations in Latin and English in his neat handwriting, including references to the works of Matthias de Lobel

Matthias de Lobel

Mathias de l'Obel, Mathias de Lobel or Matthaeus Lobelius was born in Lille, Nord-Pas de Calais, France, and died at Highgate, London, England after serving as a physician to William, Prince of Orange and James I of England.Lobel studied medicine in Leuven and Montpellier...

 and William Turner. The first edition of the translation was printed in folio

Book size

The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...

 at Antwerp, in order to secure the woodcut

Woodcut

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

s of the original; the blocks being too heavy and valuable to transport. It has 779 pages and 870 cuts, about thirty of which are original, and is mostly in blackletter

Blackletter

Blackletter, also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to well into the 17th century. It continued to be used for the German language until the 20th century. Fraktur is a notable script of this type, and sometimes...

. It bears the title, A niewe Herball or Historie of Plantes. . . . first set foorth in the Doutche or Allmaigne tongue by that learned D. Remburt Dodoens, Physition to the Emperour: And now first translated out of French into English by Henry Lyte, Esquyer. At London by me Gerard Dewes, dwelling in Pawles Church-yarde

St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...

, at the signe of the Swanne, 1578. On the back of the title-page is Lyte's coat of arms

Coat of arms

A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...

 and a crest

Crest (heraldry)

A crest is a component of an heraldic display, so called because it stands on top of a helmet, as the crest of a jay stands on the bird's head....

, "a swan volant silver upon a trumpet gold," which was not actually granted him by Clarenceux King of Arms

Clarenceux King of Arms

Clarenceux King of Arms is an officer of arms at the College of Arms in London. Clarenceux is the senior of the two provincial kings of arms and his jurisdiction is that part of England south of the River Trent. The office almost certainly existed in 1420, and there is a fair degree of...

 uпtil the following year. This is followed by a dedication to Queen Elizabeth, dated from Lytes Сarу, commendatory verses, and a portrait of Dodoens. Lyte added very little original matter to the text. A second edition, without any woodcuts, was printed in London by Ninian Newton, in square octavo

Book size

The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...

, in 1586, and a third by Edmund Bollifant, in the same size, in 1595. A folio edition, also without woodcuts, was published by Edward Griffin in 1619.

Lyte's second work was The Light of Britayne; a Recorde of the honorable Originall and Antiquitie of Britaine (1588), also dedicated to Elizabeth, and containing her portrait. Its object is to trace the descent of the British from Brutus of Troy

Brutus of Troy

Brutus or Brute of Troy is a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Æneas, known in mediæval British legend as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain...

. Lyte presented a copy of this work to the queen on 24 November 1588, when she went in state to St. Paul's

St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...

 to return thanks for the defeat of the Spanish Armada

Spanish Armada

This article refers to the Battle of Gravelines, for the modern navy of Spain, see Spanish NavyThe Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England to stop English...

.

Legacy

Lyte died in the house in which he was born, Lytes Cary Manor, on 16 October 1607, and was buried at the north end of the transept of Charlton Mackrell

Charlton Mackrell

Charlton Mackrell is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated three miles east of Somerton in the South Somerset district. The village has a population of 996....

 Church. A copy of his Niewe Herball is preserved at his family home, a property now managed by the National Trust

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

.