Henry Lyte

Henry Lyte (1529? – 16 October 1607) was an English botanist and antiquary. He is best known for two works, A niewe Herball (1578), which was a translation of the Cruydeboeck of Rembert Dodoens (Antwerp, 1564), and an antiquarian volume, The Light of Britayne (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 to Henry who managed the Somerset estate until his father's death in 1576, when his stepmother brought a writ of dower against him. Lyte seems to have served as sheriff, or perhaps only as under-sheriff, of Somerset during the reign of Mary I, and perhaps until the second year of Elizabeth (that is, 1559).