Lucy Hutchinson

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Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681) was an English biographer.

The daughter of Sir Allen Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower of London and Lady Lucy St. John, she married on July 3rd 1638 in St. Andrew Holborn, London England to Colonel John Hutchinson, one of those who signed the death-warrant of King Charles I of England, but who afterwards protested against the assumption of supreme power by Oliver Cromwell. She has a place in literature for her biography of her husband Memoirs Of The Life Of Colonel Hutchinson. In the book she records that he had many notable victories in that conflict, including his victory at Shelford Manor. In this battle he defeated his kin Colonel Philip Stanhope. Colonel Stanhope was the fifth son of the Ist Earl of Chesterfield. Colonel Stanhope was killed in the battle on Oct. 27, 1645. Lucy writes of this in the book, she may have even seen the battle. As Owthorpe was only a few miles away from the battle site. After the English Civil War he retired to his estate of Owthorpe. With the restoration he was arrested but not tried of the regicide of King Charles I for which he was imprisoned in Sandown castle Kent, England. Lucy went before the House of Lords to gain his release, but to no avail.

The Biography is one of the most interesting in the language, not only because of its immediate subject, but of the light which it throws upon the characteristics and conditions of the life of Puritans of good family. Originally intended for her family only, it was printed by a descendant in 1806, and cleared away many false impressions about the narrowness and austerity of the educated Puritans.

Hutchinson's works included 'Order and Disorder', possibly the first epic written by a woman in the English language. The work is a verse rendition of the book of Genesis, offering parallel's to John Milton's 'Paradise Lost'. Although only five cantos of the work were published in her lifetime, in 2001 the critic David Norbrook published the work in full.

John and Lucy had nine children:

  • son John Hutchinson, born 1650 in Owthorpe, Notts, England.

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This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.