Thomas Lyte (antiquary)
Thomas Lyte (1568–1638) of Lytes Cary was a Jacobean antiquary and historian.
Background[edit]
Thomas Lyte was the son of Henry Lyte of Lytes Cary in Somerset. He was educated at Sherborne, and a member of Clifford's Inn and Middle Temple.[1]
Antiquary and historian[edit]
A student of history and antiquity, Lyte is best remembered today for drawing up a most royally ennobled genealogy of James I, known as the Lyte Pedigree, which he presented to the king. In return James I gave Lyte a pendant jewel containing a miniature portrait of himself as a young man by Nicholas Hilliard in an oval gold frame set with twenty-five square table diamonds and four rose diamonds, with a cover in open-work with diamonds on the outside and enamel within. Known as the Lyte Jewel, the picture formed part of the Waddesdon Bequest and is now in the British Museum.[2][3]
The antiquary Anthony Wood of Oxford described Lyte as "a gentleman studious of all good knowledge".[4]
References[edit]
- ^ "The Sherborne Register 1550-1950" (PDF). Old Shirbirnian Society. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
- ^ "The Lyte Jewel". Retrieved 9 February 2019.
- ^ Arnold Hunt, Dora Thornton and George Dalgleish, A Jacobean Antiquary Reassessed: Thomas Lyte, The Lyte Genealogy and the Lyte Jewel, 2016
- ^ Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses: An Exact History of All the Writers, Volume 2, 1815
