Henry Lyte

Henry Lyte (1529? – 16 October 1607), also known as Henry the Elder, was an English botanist and antiquary. He is best known for two works, A niewe Herball, which was a translation of the Cruydeboeck of Rembert Dodoens (Antwerp, 1564), and an antiquarian volume, The Light of Britayne: a Recorde of the honorable Originall and Antiquitie of Britaine (1588), both of which are dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I.

Life Henry Lyte was born at Lytes Cary Manor, Somerset, 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 The first edition of the translation was printed in folio at Antwerp, to secure the woodcuts 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. 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, at the signe of the Swanne, 1578. On the back of the title-page is Lyte's coat of arms and a crest, "a swan volant silver upon a trumpet gold," which was not actually granted him by Clarenceux King of Arms 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, 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 honourable 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. Lyte presented a copy of this work to the queen on 24 November 1588, when she went in state to St. Paul's to return thanks for the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

List of selected publications

Lyte, Henry (1588). The Light of Britayne: A Recorde of the honorable Originall & Antiquitie of Britaine. London.

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