Richard Lovelace

Richard Lovelace 1618-1657?, one of the English Cavalier poets . He was the son of a Kentish knight and was educated at Oxford. In 1642 he was briefly imprisoned for having presented to Parliament a petition for the restoration of the bishops. An ardent royalist, he served with the French army during the English civil war. On his return to England in 1648, he was imprisoned by the Commonwealth. His royalist sympathies lost him his entire fortune, and he died in extreme poverty. He is remembered almost solely for two extremely graceful, melodic, and much-quoted lyrics, "To Althea, from Prison" and "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars." The first volume of his poems, Lucasta: Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs, &c., appeared in 1649; the companion volume, Lucasta: Posthume Poems, in 1660.

Bibliography: See edition of his poems ed. by C. H. Wilkinson (1930); biography by M. Weidhorn (1970).

Lovelace, Richard (1618–58) English Cavalier poet. A flamboyant and ardent royalist, he was imprisoned in 1642 and 1648, during which time he wrote To Althea, from Prison and To Lucasta, Going to the Wars. Another collection, Lucasta: Posthume Poems, appeared in 1659.

Lovelace, Richard (1618–57/8), heir to great estates in Kent, was a courtier, and served in the Scottish expeditions of 1639. Having presented a ‘Kentish Petition’ to the House of Commons in 1642, he was thrown into the Gatehouse prison, where he is supposed to have written the song ‘To Althea’. He rejoined Charles I in 1645, and served with the French king in 1646. According to A. Wood, his betrothed Lucy Sacheverell married another on a false report of his death. He was imprisoned again in 1648 and in prison prepared for the press his Lucasta; Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs etc. which includes the well-known lyric ‘On going to the wars’. He died in extreme poverty. Percy reprinted two of his lyrics in his Reliques (1765), since when his reputation as a Cavalier poet has steadily increased.