Biography

Married by the age of 20, Mary lived her life in Charlecote Hall with her husband, George Lucy. While she reluctantly married George, Mary eventually "came to love her husband and home." Mary and George dedicated much of their livelihood to renovating the Hall and investing time and money into its furnishings, gardens, and art collection. The Lucys returned the Hall to its original Tudor style--suggestive of the first owner, Sir Thomas Lucy, famous for his alleged prosecution of William Shakespeare for deer poaching. Mary birthed eight children within her lifetime, five of which passed away causing acute grief. Nevertheless, Mary kept detailed diaries of her life, with accounts of "balls and outings, visits, matchmaking and gossip, and brief descriptions of many personages mostly within the landed aristocracy, all recounted with vigor and humor."  Mary's memoirs and dedication to renovating and maintaining Charlecote Hall preserve a vibrant history of the Victorian era--and especially women--in the nineteenth-century. Her life has been described as something "drawn from a [Jane] Austen novel."