Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/173

 warmth. A picturesque passage in Macaulay (Hist. popular edt. i. 579) describes the midnight conferences held in a vault beneath the hall of his mansion at Lady Place, Berkshire, ‘during that anxious time when England was impatiently expecting the protestant wind.’ A commemorative tablet was subsequently affixed to the walls of the vault, and was inspected by General Paoli in 1780, and in 1785 by George III ( and, England and Wales, i. 192). In September 1688 Lovelace made a hasty visit to Holland, returning the same month. Early in October a warrant was issued against him, on the information of a Roman catholic, as an abettor of the Prince of Orange. The truth of the charge was soon put beyond a doubt. On the news reaching him of William's landing, early in the second week of Nov. 1688, Lovelace set out with seventy followers to join the prince. He reached Gloucestershire, but encountered a strong force of militia, under Beaufort, at Cirencester. He resolved to force a passage, but after a short conflict was overpowered, and although ‘most of his men got clear,’ he himself was captured and sent to Gloucester castle (Lond. Gaz. 15 Nov. 1688, Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. v. 210). Vigorous efforts were made to procure his release, William threatening to burn Badminton unless he was set at liberty. Enlarged by Sir R. Dutton by the end of November, he entered Oxford at the head of three hundred horse on 8 Dec. He was well received, and occupied the city for William (Univ. Intelligencer, 11 Dec. 1688). A ballad was written to commemorate his triumphal entry by John Smith, second master at Magdalen School (, Miscellany Poems, 1716, pt. ii. p. 198; Poems on Affairs of State, ii. 268; State Trials, xii. col. 81). During the first days of February 1689, after the debate in the lords, in which the proposition that the throne was vacant had been rejected, Lovelace was suspected of encouraging the whig mob which clamoured in Palace Yard for the Prince and Princess of Orange to be declared king and queen. It is certain that, with his usual impetuosity, he set on foot a petition to that effect, in order to exert pressure upon the two houses (, Diary, 2 Feb. 1689;, Reports; , i. 643, and authorities there cited). On 28 April 1689 Lovelace was appointed captain of the gentlemen pensioners, and in the following August he was unenviably conspicuous as one of the tellers in the debate on the reversal of Oates's sentence (House of Lords' MSS. p. 259). He had previously been on the friendliest terms with Oates (cf., Life and Times, ed. Clarke, ii. 465). In September 1690 he was visited by William at Lady Place, Hurley (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. App. iv. 398), and was created chief justice of their majesties' parks and forests this side of Trent.

In May 1691 Luttrell relates that Lovelace had been recognised in the company of Lord Colchester, Lord Newburgh, and Sir John Conway, ‘scowring the streets,’ and committing ‘gross disorders.’ It is probably in allusion to some earlier exploits of this nature that Marvell described him in his ‘Last Instructions’ (1667) as

Lovelace young of chimney-men the cane.

His excesses were, in fact, rapidly undermining his health, as his inveterate fondness for betting and gambling had already dissipated his estate. He was constantly tipsy, and Hearne relates, on the authority of Dr. Brabourn, principal of New Inn Hall, that ‘he used every morning to drink a Quart of Brandy’ (Collect. ed. Doble, iii. 349). On 26 April 1692 he fell down stairs and broke his arm. In September of the following year James Cresset, writing to Lord Lexington prior to his departure for the Hague, said: ‘Going to take my leave of Lord Lovelace at his house, I found Harry Killigrew had carried him away in a chair to his lodgings at Whitehall, and there I saw him, a sad spectacle; he is probably dead by this time’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. v. ii. 146). The surmise was correct; Lovelace died on 27 Sept. 1693. By his wife Martha, daughter and coheiress of Sir Edmond Pye of Bradenham, Buckinghamshire, whom he married on 30 July 1662 (, London Marriage Licenses), he had a son, John, who died in infancy, and three daughters.

There is a portrait of Lovelace by M. Laroon in Wadham College Hall (, Reg. of Wadham Coll. Oxford, p. 209). Another, which represents him full of youthful vivacity, is among the Lovelace portraits at Dulwich. Ashmole calls him ‘A vitæ virtutis degener hæres,’ ‘an active zealot against James II, and very instrumental in the revolution, a prodigal of his large paternal estate.’ His tendency to drink and debauchery, however, would appear to have been an heirloom (, Letters and Memorials, ii. 490, 495). A decree of the high court of chancery ordered his estate to be sold in order to pay his debts, and it was purchased by Vincent Okeley for 41,000l. (, p. 207).

He was succeeded in the peerage by his cousin, (d. 1709), whose father, William, son of