Argumenta psalmorum Davidis dedicaion (Inglis 1608). Wikimedia Commons

30 August 2024 marked the four hundredth anniversary of the death in Leith, Scotland, of Esther Inglis, a Huguenot scribe of extraordinary talent, whose career reached its pinnacle in her adopted city of Edinburgh. The daughter of Huguenot parents of the name of Langlois, and the second of five children, Esther was born in the safe haven of London shortly after her parents left their native Dieppe to escape the turmoil of the Wars of Religion (1562-98), which was soon to culminate in the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of August 1572. Religious refugees from Dieppe, a port town well known for its intricate carving of ivory, had been taking refuge in Rye, Dieppe’s natural port of arrival, since the early 1560s, with full boatloads arriving frequently, and many of their passengers then making their way to London. But by 1574, Esther’s family had left London behind in order to settle in Edinburgh, where her father, Nicholas Langlois, a schoolmaster, was appointed master of the French school by James VI, later James I of England; this was to enable Langlois to support his growing family, while his wife, Marie Presot, a talented scribe in her own right, dedicated herself to the education of their young daughter, who showed precocious talent as a scribe and calligrapher. Unlike her elder brother, David, who, ultimately, was able to study at Edinburgh University, founded in 1583, Esther, as a girl, was confined to the home. Yet her parents did everything they could to nurture their daughter’s exceptional talent as she grew up in the Scottish capital. No Huguenot Church existed in Edinburgh during the Jacobean period, and nor was there any evidence of a structured Huguenot community in the city at that time; however, a Huguenot church had been founded in Edinburgh by the time that another talented Huguenot, the ivory carver, David Le Marchand, also left his native town of Dieppe to settle there, c.1696. By then, the church’s existence was well documented in the consistory minutes of the Threadneedle Street Church of London, the mother church of the Reformed religion in England.

Esther’s surname underwent a series of mutations during her life, as she went from describing herself as Esther Langlois, françoise – (Esther Langlois, a Frenchwoman), to adopting a translated version of her name, and ultimately, ‘Inglis’, the Scottish translation of ‘English’.

Huguenot women were traditionally literate, and brought their daughters up to be likewise, but Esther Inglis was to take this to an entirely new level, mastering over forty different styles of handwriting, learning not only from her mother but from the books of eminent writing masters, and copying religious texts and poetry as well as writing works of her own, all of which she decorated with multiple intricate devices. Some of her early books contained over thirty styles of handwriting, and were written in miniature script only millimetres high. In her later works, she favoured plainer decoration, often watercolour paintings of flowers, and added self portraits in ink. Occasionally, verses of tribute by admirers such as Andrew Melville were included, a Scottish theologian, poet and religious reformer, much appreciated by Theodore de Bèze, with whom he spent some time in Geneva. Inglis was also an accomplished needlewoman, often using embroidery incorporating pearls to embellish the covers of her books, as in the example shown above. As a highly skilled artisan, she naturally aspired to attract patrons and to earn a living as a professional calligrapher. How successful she was on the financial front is not documented, but at her death in 1624, having returned to Scotland after a creative period spent in London, she was near to poverty, leaving debts of £156. The same impecunity was suffered by her fellow Dieppois, David Le Marchand, who having returned to London to pursue his career, and despite an impressive list of distinguished patrons, was to die a pauper in the French Protestant Hospital in Old Street, Clerkenwell, in 1726.

To some extent, the elaborate script and skilful decoration practised by Inglis can be seen as a reaction against the uniform appearance of many printed works then in the ascendant, though some of her creations are so finely executed that they are indistinguishable from decorated printed texts of high quality; yet pitted against the unstoppable progress of the mighty printing press, the labour-intensive production of such virtuoso manuscripts would inevitably become a niche activity, producing objects of beauty ultimately destined to be collected for their aesthetic quality only. However, it has been suggested that by dedicating her manuscripts to people of influence who shared her Calvinist faith, Inglis sought to demonstrate the strength of her own beliefs, and hence exert influence within the Protestant circles in which she and her husband moved. Moreover, It seems that Bartilmo or Bartholomew Kello, a minor government official whom she married in 1596, and who was occasionally called upon to go abroad in the royal service, may have sought to harness her influence as a means of promoting his own career as a political messenger between Edinburgh and London - the seats of the Jacobean and Elizabethan courts.

Pages from two of Inglis’s manuscript books, the first a facsimile of a page from the 'Book of Psalms' presented to Elizabeth I in 1599, the second a page from 'Fifty Octonates on the Vanity and Inconstancy of this World', 1607, dedicated to Henry, Prince of Wales, were recently displayed in the 2024 exhibition at Tate Britain entitled ‘Now you see us, Women in art, 1520-1920’, featuring women who practised art as a livelihood rather than as an accomplishment; and charting their struggle over the centuries to be accepted on equal terms with male artists, many of whom were their husbands, fathers or brothers. There is no doubt that Esther Inglis did indeed achieve significant visibility during her lifetime, due to the unique quality of her work,  even producing a series of promotional self portraits – the first such works by a woman in Britain; yet other women artists featured in the exhibition had been publicly accused of acting in an unseemly manner by attempting, like their male counterparts, to sell their works for profit, and such entrenched chauvinism may also have affected Inglis’s financial prospects.  

Towards the end of this year, as part of the ‘Esther Inglis 2024’ project marking this significant anniversary, Edinburgh University Library paid tribute to this exceptional Huguenot artist with an online exhibition entitled ‘Rewriting the Script’ which features almost half of Inglis’s known 63 manuscript books, and charts in great detail both her life and the diversity of her work. Curated by Anna-Nadine Pike, this fascinating exhibition can be accessed via the link below, under ‘Further reading’.

Barbara Julien

Further reading

W.J. Hardy, ‘Foreign Refugees at Rye’, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society, Vol 2,1 (1886), pp.406-27.

Elspeth Yeo, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry for Esther Inglis, published 23 September 2004.

L. Gwynn, ‘Esther Inglis and the French Manuscript Psalter at Christ Church, Oxford’, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society, Vol 29, 2 (2009), pp.284-7.                 

Online exhibition now live: Rewriting the Script – Esther Inglis 2024