Esther Inglis, 1570-1624Franco-Scottish Creative Woman
£95.00
Pre-order
Published 31 December 2026
About this book
The life story of Esther Inglis, a French Huguenot refugee and one of the most creative women working in early modern Britain
- Contextualizes Inglis and her French refugee family within the Scottish, English and European courts and politics of the time
- Situates her, as a woman, among the Scottish professional class, including humanists and theologians
- Draws on multiple Scottish, English, and European archival sources and makes several new discoveries
- Publishes for the first time the short poems she wrote in French and English and that others wrote about her in Latin, with new English translations
Esther Inglis was a calligrapher, artist, embroiderer, translator and poet, and the first woman in Scotland or England to include a self-portrait with her works. She developed a career making gift manuscripts, in partnership with her husband Bartilmo Kello – intelligencer and clergyman – that brought her into the political realm. She is important to Scottish religious and literary history as part of the network of theologians and humanists, including Andrew Melville, John Johnston and Robert Rollock.
The careers of Esther Inglis and her husband exemplify those of Scots who travelled to England with King James VI and I, returning again when their personal lives became untenable in the south. Her life as professional woman and mother to nine children, as set out in this book, sheds new light on this important transitional Jacobean period of British history.
The book also contextualises Inglis and her French refugee family within the Scottish, English and European courts and politics of the time.
Reviews
A sparkling biography of the uniquely talented Esther Inglis, it unites all her exquisite works with Esther’s own history of migration, motherhood and above all her calligraphic, embroidery, poetic and painterly skills. Richly illustrated, we get a full sense of her ‘most rare and curious writes and workes’.
In this beautifully written and carefully researched book, Georgianna Ziegler provides a rich and evocative account of the interwoven life and work of Esther Inglis; she skillfully places into broader Elizabethan and Jacobean context this notably transnational and multimedia premodern female artist and ensures that Inglis' superlative contributions to textual and visual culture gain the recognition they deserve.
Ziegler expertly interweaves the remarkable life and career of the multi-talented Esther Inglis, while revealing themes of female authorship, creativity and self-promotion. Combining meticulous archival research with in-depth analysis of her work, this seminal biography firmly situates Inglis within the cultural and religious-political networks that operated throughout the Jacobean period.
Table of contents
Notes on Usage
List of Figures
Esther Inglis in Her Time and Ours, an Introduction
Chapter 1. Beginnings – Flight from France to Scotland, 1570–1590
Chapter 2. The Calligraphic Hand, and Gifts for Women of Power, 1586–1591
Chapter 3. Marriage to an Intelligencer: A Husband and Wife Team, 1595–1600
Chapter 4. The French Connection, 1600–1602
Chapter 5. Following the King to London, 1604–1607
Chapter 6. Court Connections and the Art of Limning, 1605–1607
Chapter 7. A Rural Retreat in Essex, 1607–1614
Chapter 8. Homeward Bound, 1614–1620
Chapter 9. Last Works and Heritage, 1621–1624: 'my totering right '
Appendix I. Verses by Esther Inglis
Appendix II. Verses about Esther Inglis
Bibliography
Index