LOVE, Nicholas (1608-82), of Winchester and London.

The regicide Nicholas Love, who was baptised at St Swithun, Winchester, grew up in the privileged surroundings of the city’s college and cathedral. His father, Dr Nicholas Love, sometime chaplain to James I, was headmaster of Winchester College from 1601, and warden from 1613, and a canon of Winchester Cathedral.53Kirby, Winchester Scholars, 2; Wills, Administrations and Inventories, ed. Willis, p. 39. After Wadham College, Oxford, Love junior was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, with the assistance of Robert Mason†, a prominent barrister and a local powerbroker, who would soon become recorder of Winchester.54Lincoln’s Inn, Admiss. Bk. 6, f. 2v; Prest, Rise of the Barristers, 379. Love secured a share of William Lenthall’s* chambers, albeit through forcible means, and for this, together with his ‘insolent and peremptory manner’ towards the society’s council and a violent assault on one of the porters, he was expelled in June 1635. He was readmitted in November, upon his ‘humble submission’ and his payment of a £5 fine.55LI Black Bks. ii. 326, 331.

Love was called to the bar in February 1636, ‘upon the motion and earnest request’ of Lenthall.56LI Black Bks. ii. 338. It was probably through the latter’s influence – as master of the rolls – that in 1643 he secured one of the six clerkships in chancery, having apparently been attached to the office since the late 1620s.57HMC 4th Rep. 316. Clement Walker*, who recognised the connection between Love and Lenthall, now Speaker of the House of Commons, claimed that the position was worth £2,000 a year.58Walker, Hist. of Independency, 168. Subsequently, it was Lenthall who promoted Love’s advancement to the rank of associate bencher in November 1644, and perhaps also his elevation to the bench in November 1648.59LI Black Bks. ii. 365, 379.

That Love supported Parliament’s prosecution of Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford, was apparent when in June 1641, when he testified against one Richard Neville that he had said ‘much in commendation of’ the king’s lord deputy and threatened those who had clamoured for his punishment.60HMC Portland, i. 23. As the country prepared for war in July 1642, Love was among those named by Parliament to defend its cause in Hampshire and secure Winchester.61LJ v. 233b-234a; CJ ii. 686b. His contribution to the war effort was to be administrative rather than military, and he remained a stalwart of local commissions and the county committee.62A. and O.; Add. 24860, ff. 80, 83, 145. This record and his personal association with Winchester enabled him to secure election to Parliament for the city on 4 November 1645, as the replacement for Sir William Ogle*.63C219/43/160.

Love took his seat sometime before 17 November, when he was added to the committee for hospitals 64C231/6, p. 28; CJ iv. 345a. In time, he chaired that committee, and his concern for hospitals and more generally for the welfare of the poor, debtors and victims of the wars endured through his parliamentary career – including in the distracting times of January 1649 – into his post-Restoration exile.65CJ iv. 616b, 738b; v. 178b, 366b, 421a; vi. 113a, 131b, 171a, 179b, 190b, 209b, 262a; vii. 781b; Bodl. Eng. hist. c. 487, p. 980. Meanwhile, although initially the sum of his appearances in the Journal was modest, he rapidly assumed a leadership role at Westminster, doubtless helped by his links with Speaker Lenthall. He was named on 22 November 1645 to chair the committee to consider settling an establishment for the garrison at Abingdon, which was strategically important to the reduction of the royalist capital at Oxford (and perhaps not coincidentally, close to Lenthall’s property at Besselsleigh).66CJ iv. 351a. He reported on progress several times in December and on into February and March 1646, his remit expanding into the committee he chaired jointly with Bulstrode Whitelocke* charged with raising money for the war effort in the whole south central region (3 Mar. 1646), and taking in related matters.67CJ iv. 365b, 370a, 376a, 446a, 461a, 481b. Otherwise, he took his first steps into the religious and political controversies swirling around Parliament with membership of the committees investigating divisions within the Westminster Assembly of Divines (11 Dec. 1645) and MPs holding military and civil offices of profit under Parliament (16 Mar. 1646).68CJ iv. 373a, 477a. Having been perhaps distracted by the final onslaught on Oxford in the late spring and early summer of 1646, following the city’s fall he received a spate of committee nominations in areas that were to become characteristic, including the regulation of Oxford University (2 July), the treatment of radical army officer Robert Lilburne (3 July), the fate of sequestered ministers (8 July) and provision of ministers for new parishes in Westminster (4 Aug.).69CJ iv. 598a, 601b, 608a, 632a.

Having obtained leave to go into the country on 30 July 1646, Love probably took it in the latter part of August.70CJ iv. 629b. By early September he had returned, and apparently took up more regular committee work. His professional expertise underlay appointments relating to such matters as arrangements for the probate of wills (17 Oct.), the regulation of chancery (21 Oct.), the custody of the great seal (24 Oct.), and the personnel of and instructions for the judiciary (21 Jan. 1647).71CJ iv. 662a, 696b, 701a, 703b; v. 60a. His religious commitment was reflected in appointments to consider allowances for bishops who had remained loyal to Parliament (2 Nov. 1646) and to increase maintenance for ministers (11 Nov.), and in his continuing involvement with the visitation of Oxford University (13 Jan., 10 Feb. 1647).72CJ iv. 712a, 719b; v. 51b, 83a. Named to work on the ordinance for justifying and expediting the sale of episcopal land (27 Feb.), he was also involved in other moves to deal with delinquents.73CJ iv. 712b; v. 61b, 99b.

Included at the end of December 1646 in the delegation of prominent MPs who looked into the plot to rescue James, duke of York, from parliamentary captivity, Love was probably already visibly aligned with the political Independents.74CJ v. 27a, 28a. He had sponsored the admission to Lincoln’s Inn of their apologist and draftsman John Sadler* and appears to have been a friend of fellow member Gabriel Becke*.75Lincoln’s Inn, Admiss. Bk. 7, f. 41v; C54/3368/29. Among several important committee appointments over the spring and early summer of 1647, he probably brought an Independent perspective to the parliamentary representation of Newcastle (vacated by the departing Scots; 11 Sept. 1646, 6 Apr. 1647), divisions on the Warwickshire county committee (24 Mar. 1647), and especially the ordinances on the London militia (2 Apr.) for indemnity for those who had served Parliament (7 May) and for raising money for military service in England and Ireland (12 May).76CJ iv. 666b; v. 122b, 132b, 134a, 166a, 168b, 170b, 187a.

After a period of relatively intense activity the threats of violence in and around Westminster as the summer of 1647 unfolded led Love to absent himself from the House. He was presumably present for his one nomination in June – to consider the ordinance establishing days of recreation for scholars and apprentices to compensate for the loss of other public holidays – but did not reappear in the Journal before the Presbyterian coup of late July.77CJ v. 221b. Taking refuge then with the army, he signed the declaration of those who had fled the Commons.78Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 755. Indeed, his presence is not recorded until late November, although this may have been caused in part by illness, judging by his excusal at the call of the House on 9 October.79CJ v. 330a, 366b.

Love returned to Westminster to be added on 23 November to a committee investigating the ‘force upon both Houses’.80CJ v. 367a. He joined Independent grandee Sir Arthur Hesilrige* in a fruitless attempt to prevent a reading of the ordinance that had empowered the ‘committee of safety’, the Presbyterians’ military executive that summer – a reading presumably intended to weaken the case of those like Love and Hesilrige who were eager to punish the committee’s leading members (9 Dec.).81CJ v. 378a. Included among MPs discussing the expansion of the powers of the Westminster militia at the expense of those of London, which had been so helpful to the Presbyterians (31 Dec.; 14 Jan. 1648), it was he who reported the ensuing ordinance the following June; and he would be on hand to counteract an attempt to undo the reform at a height of Presbyterian influence on 10 July.82CJ v. 413a, 433a, 610a, 613a, 630a. In the meantime, amid other business, he was added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers (27 Dec. 1647), and in the spring he was involved in attempts to make amends for the Laudian suppression of the feoffees for impropriations, the scheme to buy up livings and place godly preaching ministers for which Lenthall had once been counsel (28 Mar. 1648).83CJ v. 383a, 407a, 410a, 519a. Love’s own tastes at this juncture evidently lay in the puritan mainstream: on 29 March he was ordered to request Stephen Marshall to preach at the next monthly fast day.84CJ v. 519b.

For Love as for some other Hampshire MPs, the confinement of the king on the Isle of Wight had repercussions in 1648, when he received relatively few, but by no means insignificant, mentions in the Journal. In January Love was to the fore both in the punishment of royalist insurrection in Newport – and especially Captain John Burley, who had attempted to effect Charles I’s escape – and in conveying the thanks of the House to well-affected local inhabitants who had helped to suppress it.85CJ v. 414b, 429a, 442a. Later, with fellow local MPs Robert Wallop* and John Lisle*, he was made responsible for ensuring the implementation of parliamentary orders for the remodelling of Winchester corporation (18 Apr.), he helped justify public thanksgiving for the suppression of rebellion in Kent (13 June) and he chaired a committee to determine the fate of a lease from the bishop of Winchester, affected by the forthcoming sale of episcopal lands (20 June).86CJ v. 535a, 597a, 608a. It was doubtless as both a lawyer and a representative from a south coast county that he was included on the committee for settling the jurisdiction of the court of Admiralty (20 Mar.), while his particular role in taking care of the office of the great seal again surfaced (12 Apr.).87CJ v. 505b, 527a. But his work on the ordinance raising £8,000 a year to settle on the king’s nephew Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, which he took to the Lords on 17 March, his involvement in sequestration of delinquents in Wales (6 June), and his taking to the Lords the order for thanksgiving for victory over rebels in the north (8 July) argue wider personal interests.88CJ v. 500a, 502b, 587a, 628a-b.

However, given leave to go into the country on 25 July, Love may have spent much of the late summer and autumn in Hampshire, not least in overseeing the collection of assessment money.89CJ v. 647b, 673a. He returned to Westminster sometime before 13 November, when he was a messenger to the Lords regarding particular legal appointments.90CJ vi.75a-b. While subsequent indications render it plausible that he supported, at least up to a point, the negotiations with the king at Newport, by 4 December he had evidently concluded that the current trajectory was leading nowhere. In a crucial division that day he joined Edmund Ludlowe II*, a more implacable critic of Charles, as a teller in an unsuccessful attempt to force a vote on whether or not the king’s answers to Parliament’s propositions were acceptable.91CJ vi. 93b. By so doing, Love helped to precipitate Pride’s Purge two days later, although his precise role in all its ramifications, while potentially significant, is somewhat obscure. According to Bulstrode Whitelocke, he and others pursued their business in chancery on 6 December even after Sir Thomas Widdrington* had been ‘called away’, until

Mr Love, a Member of the House, and one of the Six Clerks, came to us in the court, and brought an intimation (as he said) from the House that we should not sit, in regard that clients and counsel could not with freedom attend.

Whether Love had indeed been entrusted with an order from a body of fellow MPs, or whether this was some factional or personal initiative, cannot be determined. However, his intervention apparently caused the court to rise.92Whitelocke, Memorials (1732), 360.

Tellingly, on 13 December Love was among a small group selected to put the record of the Commons straight as to the votes in pursuit of a treaty.93CJ vi. 96a. He was also appointed to committees to reply to the propaganda produced by the imprisoned members (15 Dec.) and to draw an ordinance for settling the national militia (16 Dec.).94CJ vi. 97b, 98b. A slew of nominations to most of the important standing committees followed, including the Committee for Advance of Money, the Committee for the Army, the Committee of Navy and Customs and the Committee for the Revenue.95CJ vi. 99a, 101b, 103b, 107b, 109a, 110a, 112a, 112b, 113b; CCC 135; HMC 7th Rep. 67b. Alongside this he was also a chairman or draftsman in relation to a variety of other business.96CJ vi. 103b, 107a, 107b, 113a, 120b, 124a.

On 20 December 1648 Love took the dissent to the vote two weeks earlier to continue negotiations with Charles I.97PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, pp. 473-4. From 23 December, he signalled his support for the trial of the king by his consistent participation in the establishment of the high court of justice, to which he was himself named, and by defending its legitimacy both domestically and internationally.98CJ vi. 102a, 106a, 110b, 113a, 118a; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1380. This enthusiasm for legal proceedings against Charles I must be understood, however, in the light of Love’s confidence, reported on 28 December, that the charge would involve ‘nothing but what he knew the king could clearly acquit himself of’.99Bodl. Clarendon 34, f. 17v. This does not betoken an enthusiastic king-killer. Rather, Love’s revolutionary zeal was directed towards spearheading constitutional change, targeting the institution of monarchy more than the person of the monarch, as a member of the committee charged with formulating the statement of Commons supremacy (4 Jan.), and by reporting, from the committee for the settlement of the kingdom, the reformulation of legal writs and proceedings in order to remove references to a ‘single person’ (9 Jan.).100CJ vi. 111a, 112b, 114b, 115b. From mid-January 1649, Love also participated in plans for the sale of crown property.101CJ vi. 119b, 120b, 128b. That Love may have envisaged the trial leading to nothing more than the deposition of the king, or perhaps his constitutional emasculation, is suggested by the fact that, although he attended all four days of the judicial proceedings, and continued to sit among the commissioners after the sentencing of the king on 27 January, he refused to sign the death warrant.102Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1395, 1416.

After the pronouncement of the death sentence, Love was among the core of MPs who sought to implement measures to prevent the proclamation of the prince of Wales as king and to repeal key statutes relating to treason and to crown jurisdiction (30 Jan.).103CJ vi. 124a, 126a. In an extraordinarily busy fortnight after the king’s execution, he was also involved in deliberations regarding the royal funeral, preparing for further measures against delinquents, and (an ongoing task) in the trials and executions of other notorious royalists.104CJ vi. 126b, 127a, 127b, 130a, 131a, 149b, 165a, 167b; C. Walker, Complete History of Independency (1660), 2 (E.1052.4). Later, he was nominated to the committee regarding the abolition of monarchy (7 Mar.), and eventually to the committee charged with considering legislation aimed at taking away titles of honour granted by Charles I (16 Apr. 1651).105CJ vi. 158a, 562b. Such activity probably explains the later characterisation of Love as ‘an abjurator against kingly power’.106The True Characters (1661) 2 (E.1080.15).

Love would also be described as ‘a constant and contumacious Rumper’.107True Characters, 2. He was certainly active in the service of the regime. From early in the life of the republic, he was a zealous member of the Committee for Revenue, and over the course of the Rump he sat on committees on related issues (including assessments and accounts, and also excise, where he was well nigh invisible); in this context a radical streak may be apparent in his responsibility for the act to reduce interest rates from 8 per cent to 6 per cent (12 Mar. 1649).108CJ vi. 130b, 132a, 159a, 162a, 198a, 204b, 213a, 219b, 229b, 251b, 263b, 368a, 369b, 400a, 524a; vii. 138b, 268b; Berks. RO, D/ELl/O5/18, 22; E306/12/27; CCC 2143; Stowe 184, f. 239; Add. 21482, f. 15; Add. 21506, f. 67; Eg. 2978, f. 250; HMC 6th Rep. 473a; Bodl. Rawl. C.386. This may also explain his involvement in preparing legislation regarding the sale of crown lands and delinquents’ estates, and their subsequent distribution.109CJ vi. 269b, 336a-b, 358b, 448b, 457b, 563b, 576b, 589a, 595a, 611b; vii. 11b, 67b, 75b, 76b, 104a, 112a, 151b, 156b, 158b, 245a, 263b. More distinctive and more vital was his oversight of the legal and constitutional changes which the new regime necessitated, involving alterations to legal jurisdictions, proceedings and oaths, both centrally and locally, and the reform of county and judicial benches.110CJ vi. 129a-b, 133b, 134a, 134b, 148b, 152b, 153b, 164a, 206b, 239b, 251a, 263b; vii. 44b; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 238. Building on his earlier work, Love had a particularly important recurrent role in altering the great and lesser seals which were used in relation to official business, as well as in the creation of a seal for Parliament.111CJ vi. 130b, 133b, 134b, 135a, 136b, 143b, 151b, 206a, 251b, 271b, 524b, 527a; vii. 56a. He also proved active in developing the iconography of the commonwealth, in terms of the redesigning of coins, and of the mace.112CJ vi. 138b, 185a, 186a; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 166; Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 3 (1-8 May 1649), sig. C2 (E.554.12). The strength of his support for the new order was also evident from his involvement in drafting declarations regarding the maintenance of the ‘fundamental law’ and justifying Parliament’s recent proceedings, and from his attempts to prevent the appearance of scandalous attacks upon the regime.113CJ vi. 131b, 134b, 135b, 143b-144a.

Love also had a hand in developing the republic’s religious policies. He assisted in extending the commonwealth’s influence over church and university appointments by acting as a teller in favour of the sale of dean and chapter lands to support the ministry in Winchester; by participating in plans for the visitation of Cambridge University and Winchester College; and by playing a leading role in consolidating ecclesiastical patronage which had previously belonged to the crown, the church, and delinquents. Such activity was naturally related to his personal association with Hampshire affairs, which was also manifest in other committee appointments.114CJ vi. 179b, 201a, 213a, 263b, 267a, 269b, 354a, 359a. Love also participated in discussion of bills to reform the recusancy laws and to encourage the propagation of the Gospel.115CJ vi. 180b, 245b, 352a, 458b; vii. 12b, 147a. Judging by this evidence, by the ministers he invited to give sermons to Parliament – Lincoln’s Inn preacher Joseph Caryl in 1649 and William Strong in 1652 – and by the fact that he subscribed in 1654 to the repair of Winchester Cathedral, at this juncture he was almost certainly an Erastian Independent, and a supporter of a nationally maintained ministry.116CJ vi. 190a, 251a, 261a; vii. 137b; ‘Joseph Caryl’, ‘William Strong’, Oxford DNB; Docs. Hist. Winchester Cathedral, 98. He was nominated to the committee to consider the proposals for limited toleration submitted by John Owen and others in February 1652, but his perspective on this is unknown.117CJ vii. 86b.

After months of high visibility, between late July 1649 and late January 1650 Love made only three appearances in the Journal, although he was active in local sequestration matters.118CJ vi. 271b, 335a, 352a; SP23/248, p. 69. In 1650 his pattern of attendance seems to have been somewhat spasmodic, accounted for at least from later August by an order to settle the militia in Hampshire.119CJ vi. 455a, 458a-b. Twice his return to Westminster coincided with the launching of consideration of reform and regulation of the law (2 Nov. 1649, 25 Oct. 1650), while nomination to refine a bill for the more effectual recovery of debts and relief of creditors marked a reappearance after another two-month absence (18 June 1650).120CJ vi. 318a, 488a. Despite his initial prominence in the Rump, his zealous support for the commonwealth, and his involvement in council of state elections, Love was not elected to the council himself until February 1651; this followed a few weeks of greater visibility in the House, containing some familiar activity on seals and the militia, but he came towards the bottom of the poll.121CJ vi. 363b, 512b, 515a, 517a, 523b, 524b, 527a, 528b, 532b-533a.

From the outset Love was among the most assiduous attenders at council meetings, his overall record for the ten months of its existence being surpassed only by John Bradshawe* and Henry Darley*, although within this there was a temporary falling-off in late September and October 1651.122CSP Dom. 1651, pp. xxv-xxxv. For several weeks initially his service appears to have distracted him from the Commons, but from 10 April he resumed for a while his regular appearances in the Journal, engaged in a variety of business – there as on the council – from delinquents and land sales already mentioned to negotiations with the king of Portugal, the soap monopoly and private bills.123CJ vi. 560a, 562b, 563b, 567a, 576b, 581a, 589a, 595a, 598b, 611b, 616b, 618b; vii. 5a, 11b, 12b, 13b, 20a; CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 63, 67, 77, 94, 159, 168, 200, 238, 239, 267, 494, 505; 1651-2, p. 16; HMC Laing, i. 269; SP25/21, p. 64. In particular, Love reported from the council to MPs on measures to counter the current royalist threats (27 June) and the state of garrisons and fortifications (10 July), while as a member of the conciliar committee for Scottish affairs, in the aftermath of the republic’s victory at the battle of Worcester, he presided over the committee preparing legislation for the incorporation of Scotland into the commonwealth (9 Sept.) and reported on Scottish prisoners (19 Nov.).124CJ vi. 593b, 600b; vii. 14a-b, 37a; CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 66, 171, 211, 223, 237, 238, 272, 274, 354, 431. In late August and early September he also chaired the committee of the whole House during debates on the landmark Navigation Act.125CJ vii. 4b, 7a, 11b, 15b, 19b.

Thereafter his unexplained autumn absence from the council of state was almost exactly replicated in the Commons. His resurfacing on 19 November was soon followed by re-election to the council (24 Nov.), this time as joint foot of the poll.126CJ vii. 42a. The previous year’s pattern was largely repeated: very good overall conciliar attendance with a notable period of absence in the autumn, more or less mirrored by his appearances in the Journal.127CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. xxxv-xlvii. On 28 November Love reported from the council to Parliament regarding the judges of the Admiralty, and for most of the year his activity in the House was concerned with familiar issues including the legal system, delinquents, money, religion and Oxford University; he brought in bills for continuing the powers of the commissioners for compounding (13, 21 Jan. 1652), for reforming buildings (11 Mar.) and settling land in Ireland on Sir John Reynolds* (12 Mar.).128CJ vii. 44b, 49b, 56a, 67b, 75a, 76b, 86b, 104a, 104b, 105b, 112a, 137b, 138b, 141a, 147a, 151b, 156b, 158b; CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 43, 81, 85, 119, 164. On 20 May the council recorded that he was to report to the Commons the state of the public treasuries, according to the estimate he had already delivered to them.129CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 250. However, less familiar business – perhaps partly arising from his appointment to the conciliar committee for trade and foreign affairs – later in 1652, when he was named to committees for petitions concerning markets (20 May), the Merchant Adventurers (26 Aug.) and relief from hardship (27 Aug.), while on 31 August he reported from the council a letter from Virginia.130CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 67; CJ vii. 134a, 169b, 171b, 172b. The limits of radicalism of an MP from the heart of the legal establishment had been demonstrated in his participation in moves to exile the Leveller leader John Lilburne (21 Jan.), while on 13 May the council noted ‘the draft of an act for reviving an act against unlicensed and scandalous books to be presented to the House by Mr Love’.131CJ vii. 75b; CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 239.

Love was re-elected again to the council on 24 November 1652, this time by a somewhat more comfortable margin; only three other members were to attend more of its meetings.132CJ vii. 200a-b; CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. xxviii-xxxiii. Previously a member of its Admiralty committee and an advocate from the council to the Commons of the national need for saltpetre, on 4 November, in the context of the Anglo-Dutch war, he had been placed on the committee to consider how merchants might be encouraged to fit out warships for public advantage.133CJ vii. 210a; CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 177, 281, 392; 1652-3, p. 82. He was duly included on the committee for the bill to constitute navy commissioners (9 Dec.), and once victory had been obtained over Tromp’s fleet he drafted congratulatory letters to the English admirals (1 Mar. 1653) and with Thomas Scot I* was also responsible for preparing a day of thanksgiving (15, 24 Mar.).134CJ vii. 227b, 263a, 266b, 271a. Meanwhile, among other matters, he reported on the regulation of markets (18 Jan.) and on proceedings against customs farmers (17 Mar.), and received a last committee nomination on 19 April, the day before the Rump was dissolved.135CJ vii. 245b, 248b, 257b, 263b, 268b, 280a. The assertion in Edmund Ludlowe’s Memoirs that Love opposed the dissolution seems very plausible.136Ludlow, Mems. i. 357.

Love, who probably felt little sympathy for either the Nominated Assembly or the protectorate, appears to have retired to Hampshire, where he continued to be named to some local commissions.137C181/6, pp. 9, 50, 85, 115, 132, 138, 167, 211, 235, 274, 308, 378. He may have been alienated by the 1654 reform of chancery, which abolished his lucrative clerkship, and Major-general William Goffe* was suspicious of Love’s loyalty. Although in January 1656 Goffe reported that Love was willing to attend the quarter sessions, he told the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, that he was ‘somewhat fearful’ of Love’s influence during preparations for the 1656 Parliament. Love had ‘grown more moderate’, and was ‘very civil’, but only God ‘knoweth his heart’.138TSP iv. 408; v. 215. Love was also named in connection with rumoured plots in the region, although perhaps without substance.139TSP v. 396-7. Indeed, there is no firm indication of Love’s political activity until the elections for Richard Cromwell’s 1659 Parliament, to which he was returned in the second place at Winchester.140Hants RO, W/B1/5, f. 131v. He made no impression on the record of proceedings.

Love may not actually have returned to Westminster until May 1659 and the reassembly of the Rump, where he was immediately prominent. Upon resuming his seat Love’s first concern (from 9 May) was to oversee the creation of a new great seal, and he participated in the theatre of the breaking of the old one in the House on 14 May.141CJ vii. 647b, 648b, 650b, 654a-b. He was then entrusted with the preparation of a seal for the council of state, and went on to liaise between the House and the commissioners for the great seal.142CJ vii. 655a, 671b, 672a. Not for the first time, he was among those instructed to inspect Parliament’s official record with a view to expunging certain details from the protectorate era (18 May).143CJ vii. 657a. In company with Hesilrige, Ludlowe and Cornelius Holland*, among others, he was nominated to the committee reviewing the continued confinement of prisoners of conscience (10 May).144CJ vii. 458a. Otherwise, most of Love’s committee appointments reflected issues with which he had become closely associated or at least of which he had experience, including the probate of wills, the admiralty and the navy, assessments, customs and excise, hospitals, and receiving a foreign ambassador.145CJ vii. 648b, 656b, 714b, 717b, 762a, 769a, 772a, 780a, 780b, 782a; Clarke Pprs. iv. 280. Responsibility for forests and timber, with their importance for the navy, had local aspects when he, Wallop, Lisle and John Reynolds* were constituted wardens for the New Forest (15 Aug.).146CJ vii. 648b, 759b. However, he was also involved in discussing the sensitive political matters of the moment: the appointment of Charles Fleetwood as commander-in-chief (4 June); the sequestration of those involved in the rebellion of Sir George Booth* (24 Aug.); the proposed Engagement to the new regime (6 Sept.); and the settlement of the government (8 Sept.).147CJ vii. 672b, 767b, 774b, 775b. Having received a committee nomination on 20 September, on the 24th Love was designated to give notice to Joseph Caryl to preach at a thanksgiving to mark the collapse of the rebellion, but as political tension rose between civilian and army republicans, it seems that he may have withdrawn from Westminster: on the 30th he narrowly avoided being fined for his absence at a call of the House.148CJ vii. 781b, 786a, 790a.

Following the interruption of the Rump’s sitting by the army in October 1659, Love returned to Hampshire, and by early December was in Portsmouth, which he subsequently helped to secure for Parliament, alongside Hesilrige, Wallop, Valentine Wauton*, Harbert Morley* and Henry Neville*.149Clarke Pprs. iv. 170; Portsmouth RO, CE 1/7, p. 136. The gratitude of the Commons was evident after his return to Westminster at the end of the year, both in the order to reimburse the £1,800 which he had spent at Portsmouth (29 Dec.), and in his election to the council of state; he also counted the votes and reported the result (30, 31 Dec.).150CJ vii. 799a, 800a-b, 823b. Granted lodgings in Whitehall (5, 9 Jan. 1660), he was once again among the most assiduous councillors and served as ‘lord president’ between 16 and 27 January.151CJ vii. 823a; CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. xxv, 300, 305, 327, 359, 362, 591; Add. 4197, ff. 119, 121, 122.

Love was likewise busy in the Commons. He apparently recruited one of the two preachers for the day of thanksgiving for the new turn of events on 4 January, and was involved in re-establishing the keystones of the republic.152CJ vii. 803b. Looking back, he was on committees to investigate the cases of persons arrested during ‘the interruption’ (30 Dec.), to offer indemnity to those who had supported Parliament in the face of the threat from the army officers (1 Feb.), to revisit the Commons Journal entry on the dissolution of the Rump in October (7 Jan.) and to examine the papers of the executive set up in its aftermath, the committee of safety (13 Feb.).153CJ vii. 800a, 805a, 829b, 842a. Addressing still-present dangers, he was among those who conferred with the lord mayor and aldermen over the safety of London (31 Dec.) and reported from the council of state the presence in the City of disaffected army officer John Lambert (8 Feb.).154CJ vii. 801a, 837a. Looking forward, he was placed on committees to strengthen the fortifications of the Tower of London (11 Jan.) and determine the criteria for selection of a new common council (9 Feb.); to return to the question of the Engagement (10 Jan); to set the qualifications for intending MPs and to disable the disaffected (3, 11 Jan.; 18 Feb.); and to nominate justices of the peace (24 Jan.).155CJ vii. 803a, 806b, 807a, 821a, 838b, 846a. Once again, he brought in the great seal, in pursuit of the reconstitution of the judiciary (18 Jan.).156CJ vii. 815a. In the midst of this he was also concerned with raising money, and named to consider the post office, army matters and a financial settlement on General George Monck.157CJ vii. 811a, 813a, 823a, 833b.

Following the readmission to the House of the secluded members on 21 February 1660, Love withdrew, reportedly displaying his republican credentials by attending meetings with Hesilrige, Neville, Wallop and Thomas Scot III*.158CJ vii. 846a; Ludlow, Voyce, 89. As the Restoration of the monarchy approached, Love’s participation in the trial of Charles I made him a marked man, and although he protested that he had not signed the death warrant, his presence at the king’s sentencing classified him as a regicide. By May Love realised that ‘his life and fortune’ were at stake, and that ‘many eyes’ were on him.159Grand Memorandum (1660, 669.f.24/37); CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 5. In a petition to the new king Love claimed that he had pleaded for further conferences before sentence was passed, and that he had refused to sign the death warrant despite being ‘menaced’.160CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 8.

Briefly Love sheltered with Ludlowe at the house of Wallop, but he then escaped to the continent.161Ludlow, Voyce, 103. Having arranged a passage with Wallop and Hesilrige, ‘resolved not to trust the mercy of enraged beasts of prey’, he alone took ship after they turned back, and after a hazardous voyage in which he narrowly avoided capture by pirates and experienced a severe storm, Love reached Norway before mid-July, when he issued petitions to both the Lords and the Commons.162Ludlow, Voyce, 281. He told peers that his ‘consternation of spirit’, and ‘confusion’ had prompted him to ‘unadvisedly venture beyond the seas to places so remote’ that he did not learn of the proclamation requiring his surrender; he pleaded for the chance to return in safety in order to submit to the will of the authorities. To the Commons, Love explained that he had been ‘deluded’ into participating in the trial by ‘the specious pretences of evil minded persons’, insisting that he had supported the motion for a conference before sentence was passed, but that he was ‘violently opposed by Oliver Cromwell, [Henry] Ireton* and others’, and that he was ‘clamorously reviled as an obstructer of that black design’. Thereupon, Love claimed, he withdrew from the proceedings, and ‘absolutely refused to act any further with them’, and though ‘menaced by Cromwell and many other officers’, to ‘sign their contrived warrant’, he ‘did resist and peremptorily denied to have a hand in so great a wickedness’.163HMC 7th Rep. 119.

These petitions evidently failed to find favour with either the king or the Convention. The seizure and valuing of Love’s estate revealed the extent of his acquisitions from crown and church property, and allegations were made regarding the manner in which valuable paintings from the royal collections found their way into his possession.164LR2/266, f. 1v; CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 330, 340-1, 343, 416; 1661-2, p. 88; HMC 7th Rep. 89a, 91a. Amid the scramble for his property, his royalist brothers themselves made a claim, on the grounds that Love had no heir; their limited success resulted in protracted legal battles.165CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 333; 1675, p. 159. Love himself made his way to Hamburg and then went on to the Swiss territory of the Pays de Vaud, arriving with Andrew Broughton* to join other regicides in Lausanne in October 1662 and then moving on with them to greater safety in Vevey. In 1663 Love and Broughton accompanied Edmund Ludlowe to Bern, to give thanks to the authorities for their protection.166Ludlow, Voyce, 281-2; Bodl. Eng. hist. c. 487, pp. 964-5, 979-88. A long-time companion of Ludlowe, Love was apparently among the more reliable and less timorous of his friends; like Ludlowe, he was by no means cut off from the outside world, receiving, for instance, a letter from fellow fugitive Algernon Sydney*.167Bodl. Eng. hist. c. 487, pp. 994, 1068, 1115. Love died on 5 November 1682, at the age of 74, and was buried at Vevey, where a memorial was erected in his honour.168MI, St Martin, Vevey.