Bryskett, Lodowick (1546?–1612?), writer and official, was born possibly in Hackney, Middlesex, third son of Antonio Bruschetto of Genoa (a London merchant since the 1520s) and his wife Elizabeth, also Italian. Educated at Tonbridge and Trinity College, Cambridge, he entered the family business. In the service of Sir Henry Sidney (qv), lord deputy, he visited Ireland (1565) and Italy (1565×1570), toured Europe (1572–4) with Sidney's son Philip, and returned to Ireland as clerk of the council (1575), becoming also clerk in chancery for faculties (1577) and controller of customs on wines (1579), and taking part in negotiations with Turlough Luineach O'Neill (qv). Bryskett was well regarded as an administrator, but complained of low rewards, left much work to his deputies, and spent much time in England. A watershed in his life came in the lord deputyship (1580–82) of Arthur, Lord Grey de Wilton (qv): Bryskett was passed over for the new post of secretary of state in favour of Geoffrey Fenton (qv), and befriended Edmund Spenser (qv). Intending to concentrate on scholarship, he took an estate at Macmine, near Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, but fiscal changes reduced his income and he became clerk of the presidential council of Munster (1583), with Spenser as his deputy; steward to Sir Henry Wallop (qv) (1589); sheriff of Wexford (1591); and clerk of the casualties (1594).
In c.1584 Bryskett began composing A discourse of civill life (1606). Originally dedicated to Grey and modelled on several Italian treatises, it presented the views of fellow members of the administration in Ireland – all were committed protestants, including Robert Dillon (qv), John Long (qv), Thomas Norris (qv), Warham St Leger (qv), and Spenser. Spenser, for his part, addressed one of his ‘Amoretti’ to Bryskett and included two Bryskett elegies in his collection Astrophel. The Munster rebellion (1598) drove both men and their families from Ireland; despite government help, Bryskett's career and fortunes never recovered. As an agent on the Continent he was imprisoned in Flanders (1601–2); the earl of Lincoln, landlord of his Chelsea house, created further difficulties for him. Bryskett died before the end of 1612. His widow Ellen may have been of the Fox family, related to the Dillons; they had a son and a daughter.