Lucy Cary (c. 1619 – 1 November 1650) was an English Benedictine nun and biographer, under the religious name Lucy Magdalena.
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Family and early life
Cary was born in about 1619 and was baptised on 23 December 1619 at St Bartholomew-the-Great in London. As a child she frequented the courts of Kings James I and Charles I.
Her parents were Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland, and his wife Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland. Elizabeth Cary was the only child of lawyer, politician and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Sir Lawrence Tanfield, and his wife Elizabeth Symondes of Norfolk.
Cary was fourth of eleven children and one of her sisters was Anne Cary, the Benedictine nun and writer. She was also a kinswoman of Penelope Longueville.
Catholicism
Elizabeth Cary converted to Catholicism in 1626, guided by Father John Fursdon, and was placed under house arrest. Before her own conversion on Fridays Cary would wait until her mother was on the verge of eating meat and then would remind her that it was a fast day.