Find out more about the extraordinary woman behind the memoirs. I’m so excited to be speaking in Nottingham on June 27th at the
Lucy Hutchinson Conference
Family Ties: How Lucy Hutchinson’s Royalist Family Impacted her Puritan Reality
Lucy Hutchinson was born into a life of power and privilege at the Queen’s House in the Tower of London. In her formative years she lived the highly advantaged life of a young girl whose father, Sir Allen Apsley, was a trusted advisor to King Charles I. Her station came as result of her mother’s aristocratic connections – Lucy St.John was born into an ancient English family proud of its royal ancestors, and Hutchinson’s aunt, Barbara St.John Villiers, leveraged the patronage of her brother-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham, to facilitate Apsley’s purchase of the office of Lieutenant of the Tower. By the time Lucy married Colonel John Hutchinson, civil war was imminent. But, despite Lucy embracing Colonel Hutchinson’s parliamentary views, and ultimately his role as a regicide, she maintained loving ties with her Royalist brother Allen, and favourite cousin Anne Wilmot, Countess of Rochester. And, throughout the interregnum and the subsequent restoration of the monarchy, Lucy Hutchinson accepted assistance from her influential Royalist relatives to secure a death sentence pardon for her husband, the king-killer. In this presentation, Elizabeth St.John explores Lucy Hutchinson’s powerful Royalist family connections, and how the St.John, Wilmot and Villiers families impacted Lucy’s life—ultimately securing the fate of the Memoirs.
