2

learning in Charterhouse1 School near London, became a gent. commoner of Gloucester Hall in the beginning of the year 1634, and in that of his age sixteen, being then accounted the most amiable and beautiful person that ever eye beheld; a person also of innate modesty, virtue, and courtly deportment, which made him then, but especially after, when he retired to the great city, much admired and adored by the female sex. In 1636, when the king and queen were for some days entertained at Oxon, he was, at the request of a great lady belonging to the queen, made to the Archbishop of Canterbury [Laud], then Chancellor of the University, actually created, among other persons of quality, Master of Arts, though but of two years' standing; at which time his conversation being made public, and consequently his ingenuity and generous soul discovered, he became as much admired by the male, as before by the female, sex. After he had left the University, he re

tention in a similar direction: for the latter was on service in the Low Countries, perhaps under his father (of whose death we do not know the date, though Hasted intimates that he fell at the Gryll), when his friend Tatham, afterwards the city poet, addressed to him some verses printed in a volume entitled Ostella (printed in 1650).

Mr. A. Keightley, Registrar of the Charterhouse, with his usual kindness, examined for me the books of the institution, in the hope of finding the date of Lovelace's admission, &c., but without success. Mr. Keightley has suggested to me that perhaps Lovelace was not on the foundation, which is of course highly probable, and which, as Mr. Keightley seems to think, may account for the omission of his name from the registers.

2"He was matriculated at Gloucester Hall, June 27, 1634, as filius Gul. Lovelace de Woolwich in Com. Kant. arm. au. nat. 16.'"-Dr. BLISS, in a note on this passage in his edition of the Athena.

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tired in great splendour to the court, and being taken into the favour of Lord George Goring, afterwards Earl of Norwich, was by him adopted a soldier, and sent in the quality of an ensign, in the Scotch expedition, an. 1639. Afterwards, in the second expedition, he was commissionated a captain in the same regiment, and in that time wrote a tragedy called The Soldier, but never acted, because the stage was soon after suppressed. After the pacification of Berwick, he retired to his native country, and took possession [of his estate] at Lovelace Place, in the parish of Bethersden,1 at Canterbury,

1 Bethersden is a parish in the Weald of Kent, eastward of Smarden, near Surrenden. "The manor of Lovelace," says Hasted (History of Kent, iii. 239), "is situated at a very small distance south-westward from the church [of Bethersden]. It was in early times the property of a family named Grunsted, or Greenstreet, as they were sometimes called; the last of whom, Henry de Grunsted, a man of eminent repute, as all the records of this county testify, in the reigns of both King Edward II. and III., passed away this manor to Kinet, in which name it did not remain long; for William Kinet, in the 41st year of King Edward III, conveyed it by sale to John Lovelace, who erected that mansion here, which from hence bore his name in addition, being afterwards styled Bethersden-Lovelace, from which sprang a race of gentlemen, who, in the military line, acquired great reputation and honour, and by their knowledge in the municipal laws, deserved well of the Commonwealth; from whom descended those of this name seated at Bayford in Sittingborne, and at Kingsdown in this county, the Lords Lovelace of Hurley, and others of the county of Berks." The same writer, in his History of Canterbury, has preserved many memorials of the connexion of the Lovelaces from the earliest times with Canterbury and its neighbourhood. William Lovelace, in the reign of Philip and Mary, died possessed of the mansion belonging to the abbey of St. Lawrence, near Canterbury; after the death of his son

Chart, Halden, &c., worth, at least, £500 per annum. About which time he [being then on the commission of the peace] was made choice of by the whole body of the county of Kent at an assize, to deliver the Kentish petition to the House of Commons, for the restoring

William, it passed to other hands. In 1621, Lancelot Lovelace, Esq., was Recorder of Canterbury; in 1638, Richard Lovelace, Esq., held that office; and in the year of the Restoration, Richard Lovelace, the poet's brother, was Recorder. In the Public Library at Plymouth, there is a folio MS. (mentioned in Mr. Halliwell's catalogue, 1853), containing "Original Papers of the Molineux and Lovelace Families." regret that I have not had an opportunity of inspecting it. Mr. Halliwell does not seem to have examined the volume; at all events, that gentleman does not furnish any particulars as to the nature of the contents, or as to the period to which the papers belong. This information, in the case of a MS. deposited in a provincial library in a remote district, would have been peculiarly valuable. It is possible that the documents refer only to the Lovelaces of Hurley, co. Berks.

"The Humble Petition of the Gentry, Ministers, and Commonalty, for the county of Kent, agreed upon at the General Assizes for that county." See Journals of the House of Lords, iv. 675-6-7. The "framers and contrivers" of this petition were Sir Edward Dering, Bart., of Surrenden-Dering; Sir Roger Twysden, the well-known scholar; Sir George Strode, and Mr. Richard Spencer. On the 21st May, 1641, Dering had unsuccessfully attempted to bring in a bill for the abolition of churchgovernment by bishops, archbishops, &c., whereas one of the articles of the petition of 1642 (usually known as Dering's Petition) was a prayer for the restoration of the Liturgy and the maintenance of the episcopal bench in its integrity. A numerously signed petition had also been addressed to both Houses by the county in 1641, in which the strongest reasons were given for the adoption of Dering's proposed act. From 1641 to 1648, indeed, the Houses were overwhelmed by Kentish petitions of various kinds. This portion of Wood's narrative is confirmed by Marvell's lines prefixed to Lucasta, 1649:—

the king to his rights, and for settling the government, &c. For which piece of service he was committed [April 30, 1642] to the Gatehouse at Westminster,1

"And one the Book prohibits, because Kent

Their first Petition by the Authour sent."

"Sir William Boteler, of Kent, returning about the beginning of April 1642, from his attendance (being then Gentleman Pentioner) on the king at Yorke, then celebrating St. George's feast, was by the earnest solicitation of the Gentry of Kent ingaged to joyn with them in presenting the most honest and famous Petition of theirs to the House of Commons, delivered by Captain Richard Lovelace, for which service the Captain was committed Prisoner to the Gate House, and Sir William Boteler to the Fleet, from whence, after some weeks close imprisonment, no impeachment in all that time brought in against him [Boteler], many Petitions being delivered and read in the House for his inlargement, he was at last upon bail of £20,000 (£15,000] remitted to his house in London, to attend de die in diem the pleasure of the House."-Mercurius Rusticus, 1646 (edit. 1685, pp. 7, 8). The fact was that, although on the 7th of April, 1642, the Kentish petition in favour of the Liturgy, &c. had been ordered by the House of Commons to be burned by the common hangman (Parliaments and Councils of England, 1839, p. 384), Boteler and Lovelace had the temerity, on the 30th of the same month, to come up to London, and present it again to the House. It was this which occasioned their committal. In the Verney Papers (Camd. Soc. 1845, p. 175) there is the following memorandum :

"Captaine Lovelace committed to the Gatehouse Concerning

Sir William Butler committed to the Fleete

Deering's

petition."

"Gatehouse, a prison in Westminster, near the west end of the Abbey, which leads into Dean's Yard, Tothill Street, and the Almonry "-Cunningham's Handbook of London, Past and PreBut for a more particular account, see Stow's Survey, ed. 1720, ii. lib. 6.

sent.

"The Gatehouse for a Prison was ordain'd,

When in this land the third king Edward reign'd:
b

where he made that celebrated song called, Stone Walls do not a Prison make, &c. After three or four months' [six or seven weeks'] imprisonment, he had his liberty upon bail of £40,000 [£4000?] not to stir out of the lines of communication without a pass from the speaker. During the time of this confinement to London, he lived beyond the income of his estate, either to keep up the credit and reputation of the king's cause by furnishing men with horses and arms, or by relieving ingenious men in want, whether scholars, musicians, soldiers, &c. Also, by furnishing his two brothers, Colonel Franc. Lovelace, and Captain William Lovelace (afterwards slain at Caermarthen)1 with men and money for the king's cause, and his other brother, called Dudley Posthumus Lovelace, with moneys for his maintenance in Holland, to study tactics and fortification in that school of war. After the rendition of Oxford garrison, in 1646, he formed a regiment for the service of the French king, was colonel of it, and wounded at Dunkirk; and in 1648, returning into England, he,

Good lodging roomes, and diet it affords,

But I had rather lye at home on boords."

TAYLOR'S Praise and Virtue of a Jayle and Jaylers, (Works, 1630, ii. 130).

By an inadvertence, I have spoken of Thomas, instead of William, Lovelace having perished at Caermarthen, in a note at p. 125.

2 It appears from the following copy of verses, printed in Tatham's Ostella, 1650, 4to., that Lovelace made a stay in the Netherlands about this time, if indeed he did not serve there with his regiment.