LOVELACE, Richard (c.1568-1634)

One of the leaders of Berkshire’s county community, Lovelace was seated at Lady Place, in Hurley, which had been built by his paternal grandfather in the mid sixteenth century on the site of a former priory.22 VCH Berks. iii. 155. Four times elected to the Commons, twice as a knight of the shire, he was chairman of the county bench from 1621 and high steward of the boroughs of Windsor and Maidenhead. In 1608 he married the sole daughter and heir of a wealthy London merchant, but not until 1621, on the death of her mother, did he take full possession of his wife’s estate, consisting of numerous London properties.23 PROB 11/82, ff. 304-6v. His newly acquired affluence allowed him, in 1624, to purchase the Oxfordshire manor of Water Eaton for £13,000.24 VCH Oxon. xii. 192; C54/2561/5. It also enabled him to lend money at interest,25 LC4/52, m. 3; 4/62, m. 2; C54/2615/114. and to make charitable donations. In 1625 he granted £6 13s. 4d. p.a. to the vicar of Hurley on condition that he preach a sermon in the parish church every other Sunday, and provide ten quarters of rye for ten poor persons in the parish.26 VCH Berks. iii. 158.

Lovelace was evidently considered a safe pair of hands by the crown. In 1626 he was appointed one of the commissioners of the Forced Loan for Berkshire. At the same time he was required to serve a second term as sheriff of Oxfordshire. His term was cut short, however, because on 31 May 1627 he exploited the crown’s pressing need of money for its forthcoming expedition to France by purchasing a barony for ‘a round sum’.27 Holles Letters ed. P.R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxv), 353; C231/4, f. 225. CP gives the date of his creation as 30 May 1627, but is incorrect. As noblemen were too grand to serve as mere sheriffs, Lovelace was discharged as sheriff in June 1627. His local standing nevertheless remained high, particularly in Berkshire, where he was one of only three holders of English peerages. When, in February 1628, the crown decided to levy Ship Money, it was Lovelace who was given sole responsibility for its collection in Berkshire.28 APC, 1627-8, p. 284.

In the event the king abandoned the Ship Money scheme and decided instead to summon a Parliament. Lovelace entered the Lords on 17 Mar. 1628, and was formally seated three days later, being brought in by Charles Stanhope^*, 1st Lord Stanhope of Harrington and William Grey^*, 1st Lord Grey of Warke. Like another newly created peer, Thomas Belasyse^*, 1st Lord Fauconberg, he was placed on the barons’ bench below Mountjoy Blount^*, 1st Lord Mountjoy, whose grant of ennoblement, though more recent, contained a clause giving him precedence over any English peer created after 20 May 1627. However, unlike Fauconberg, Lovelace did not complain but instead obtained leave of absence on 26 Apr., when the matter was ordered to be debated. He did not resume his seat until 1 May, by which time the issue had been resolved.29 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 349, 350, 358. Lovelace also missed, with permission, the final stages of the Petition of Right, being absent between 30 May and 12 June inclusive, a total of 12 consecutive business days.30 Ibid. 44, 563, 565.

Lovelace was appointed to eight committees during the 1628 session, out of a total of 52. At least two of these nominations reflected Lovelace’s charitable instincts, as they were concerned with bills to confirm and maintain existing hospitals and almshouses, in which subject he had shown an interest while in the Commons in 1621. The reason behind his nomination to the committee for the bill to put London’s Charterhouse hospital on a statutory footing is unclear, but the measure undoubtedly interested Lord Grey of Warke, one of the two peers who had brought him into the House and who sometimes lived in Charterhouse Yard. His remaining legislative committee appointments concerned Dutton Gerard^*, 3rd Lord Gerard, the reform of prisoners, the lands of the late Richard Sackville^*, 3rd earl of Dorset, unlicensed alehouse-keepers and the estates of the customary tenants of Henry Parker^*, 14th Lord Morley. On 28 May, as the session entered its final phase, he and seven other lay peers were added to the committee for petitions.31 Ibid. 120, 151, 189, 272, 474, 550, 554, 679, 684.

Although he missed the first three days of the 1629 session (20-22 Jan. inclusive), Lovelace was reappointed to the committee for petitions on 20 January. Shortly after resuming his seat he was again named to consider a bill for the better maintenance of hospitals and almshouses. This was presumably the same measure as the second of the two bills on this subject which he had been required to help consider in 1628, as four other peers who had been appointed to the earlier committee were also named.32 Lords Montagu, Noel, Paulet and Mohun: LJ, iv. 6b, 10b; HP Commons 1604-29, v. 63. On 3 Feb. he was placed on the committee for the apparel bill, which was required to meet on the 6th. However, the House adjourned on the 5th and did not reconvene until the 7th, when he was absent. His final appointment of the session, on 21 Feb., was to consider Lady Coningsby’s petition concerning the breach of an order made by the Lords in the last session. However, the committee, which was instructed to assemble on the afternoon of the 25th, probably never met, as on the morning of 25 Feb. the House was adjourned to 2 Mar., and was dissolved following a further adjournment on 10 March.33 LJ, iv. 19b, 37b.

During the early 1630s Lovelace was active on the Berkshire commission for fining those who had not compounded for knighthood at the coronation.34 CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 334. In August 1631 one George Amy served him with a subpoena in his local parish church, ‘to his disgrace and the disturbance of the minister’, for which affront he had Amy brought before High Commission the following year.35 Reps. of Cases in the Cts. of Star Chamber and High Commission ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxix), 277. On 16 July 1633 Lovelace, now in his mid sixties, drew up his will, in which he bequeathed £3 8s. 6d. to the poor of the nine parishes (in Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire) where he owned land. He also left £4,000 to one of his three daughters, as yet unmarried, and £3,000 to his younger son Francis, though this money was then on loan to the East India Company, in which he owned shares. His leases of houses and tenements in the London parishes of St James Garlickhythe and St Martin Orgar were given to his widow, from whom he had obtained them.36 PROB 11/166, ff. 39v-42v.

Lovelace died at his house in Hurley in April 1634, a few days after his daughter Elizabeth, who had married the future regicide Henry Marten^‡ of Longworth, Berkshire, eldest son of the admiralty court judge Sir Henry Marten^‡.37 Coll. of Arms, I.8, f. 43. Buried, at his request, in the local parish church, there appears to be no evidence to support the claim that he was accorded an expensive funeral, although he left his eldest son an inheritance reputedly worth £7,000 a year.38 Coll. of Arms, I.8, f. 43; L. Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 577; Strafforde Letters (1739) ed. W. Knowler, i. 260. A monument depicting him kneeling in full armour alongside his father was subsequently erected against the north wall of the chancel but never completed.39 VCH Berks. iii. 158.