Henry Lee of Ditchley
Sir Henry Lee KG (1533 – 12 February 1611), of Ditchley, was Master of the Ordnance under Queen Elizabeth I of England.
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[edit] Life
Lee became Queen Elizabeth I’s champion in 1570 and was appointed Master of the Royal Armouries in 1580, an office which he held until his death. As Queen's Champion, Lee devised the Accession Day tilts held annually on 17 November, the most important Elizabethan court festival from the 1580s. He retired as Queen's Champion in 1590, and his poems "His Golden Locks" and "Time's Eldest Son" were set to music by John Dowland and performed at the lavish retirement pageant. He was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1597.
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Sir Henry, like most courtiers of the day, had a portrait painted by a leading artist. In Lee's picture, his sleeves are decorated with armillary spheres, a symbol of wisdom and also his device as queen's champion. His sleeves are also decorated with lovers knots which, combined with the armillary spheres can be seen to represent his love for learning (the wisdom of the armillary spheres) and for the Queen (his symbol as her champion). Lee also wears several rings tied to his arm, and has his finger through a third ring around his neck. This may represent his marriages, and the third ring, which is not quite on his finger, may represent his relationship with Anne Vavasour.
After the death of his wife Ann Paget in 1590, Lee openly lived with his long-time mistress, Anne Vavasour, formerly one of the Queen's Ladies in Waiting.
Sir Henry commissioned the famous Ditchley Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, which shows her standing on a map of the British Isles, surveying her dominions. One foot rests near Ditchley in Oxfordshire, to commemorate her visit to Sir Henry Lee there, as sign of particular favour. Sir Henry was later famous for refusing to receive his monarch a second time, because of the enormous expense.
Three suits of armour were made for Sir Henry Lee by the renowned Greenwich armoury, and are depicted in the album of drawings left behind by that workshop. Portions of the armour survive to the present day. One of the armours currently stands in the hall of the Armourers and Brasiers company in London.
He was the uncle of Captain Thomas Lee, a troublesome soldier on whose behalf he allowed himself to be bound over and who was put to death in 1601 for an involvement in the treason of the 2nd Earl of Essex.
[edit] Family
He was the son of Sir Anthony Lee and Margaret Lee (lady-in-waiting), sister of the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt.
His heir and cousin, also Sir Henry Lee, became 1st baronet of Quarendon. He died on February 12, 1611.
[edit] Trivia
- Anthony Lee was apparently descended from the Lee family of Lee Hall, Staffordshire, England; it is unknown if this family was related to the Lee Family of Coton Hall, Nordley Regis, Shropshire, England from whom the Lee family of Virginia was allegedly descended.
- A descendant of Henry Lee of Ditchley was Edward Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield-ancestor of Mary Custis Lee-wife of Robert Edward Lee.
- Allegedly his 1st cousin seven times over was Charles Lee (general) of the Continental Army.
[edit] References
- Sir Henry Lee Accessed July 26, 2008
