Editing Francis Lovelace

{{Short description|Royalist, early proprietary governor of NY, US (1621–1675)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2010}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Francis Lovelace
| image               = FrancisLovelace.jpg
| caption             = 
| order               = 2nd
| office              = Colonial Governor of New York
| term_start          = 1668
| term_end            = 1673
| monarch             = [[Charles II of England|Charles II]]
| predecessor         = [[Richard Nicolls]]
| successor           = [[Anthony Colve]]
| birth_date          = circa 1621
| birth_place         = [[Kent]], England
| death_date          = 1675
| death_place         = England
| party               = [[Cavalier|Royalist]]
| spouse              = {{marriage|Blanche Talbot|1659}}
| parents             = Sir William Lovelace<br> Anne Barne
| relations           = [[Richard Lovelace (poet)|Richard Lovelace]] (brother)
| signature           = Signature of Francis Lovelace.png
}}
'''Francis Lovelace''' (c. 1621–1675) was an [[England|English]] Royalist and the second [[List of colonial governors of New York|Governor of New York colony]].<ref name="nycourts">{{cite web|title=Francis Lovelace Second Governor of New York, 1668-1673|url=https://www.nycourts.gov/history/legal-history-new-york/luminaries-legal-figures/lovelace-francis.html|website=nycourts.gov|publisher=[[New York City Courts]]|accessdate=29 September 2017}}</ref>

==Early life==
Lovelace was born circa 1621.  He was the third son of Sir William Lovelace (1584–1627) and his wife Anne Barne of Lovelace Place, [[Bethersden]] and [[Woolwich]], [[Kent]].  He was the younger brother of [[Richard Lovelace (poet)|Richard Lovelace]], the Cavalier poet. The Bethersden Lovelace lineage was founded in 1367 by John Lovelace, six generations before Francis, and has been confused over the years with the Hurley Lovelaces who were raised to the [[House of Lords]].<ref name="yale">{{cite web|title=Lovelace, Francis, - 1675 {{!}} Yale Indian Papers Project|url=http://yipp.yale.edu/bio/bibliography/lovelace-francis-1675|website=yipp.yale.edu|publisher=[[Yale University]]|accessdate=29 September 2017|language=en}}</ref>

==Career==
The five Lovelace brothers supported [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] in the [[English Civil War]].  Francis was a Colonel in the Royalist army and was governor of [[Carmarthen|Carmarthen Castle]] in [[Wales]] from June 1644 until it was surrendered to [[Roundheads|Parliamentary]] troops in October 1645 after a fierce battle in which his brother, William, was killed. He and another brother, Dudley, migrated to Europe and served with the French army later in the 1640s.  The brothers later supported [[Charles II of England|Charles II]], and spent time in exile like him, in his fight to be restored to the throne.<ref name="berkshirehistory">{{cite web|title=Francis Lovelace (1623-1675), Governor of New York|url=http://www.berkshirehistory.com/bios/flovelace.html|website=www.berkshirehistory.com|publisher=Berkshire History|accessdate=29 September 2017}}</ref>

Lovelace lived in [[Virginia Colony|Virginia]] where his sister, Anne Gorsuch, had migrated after marriage, from 1650 until after the colony was seized by the English Parliamentary commissioners in 1652 when the governor, [[William Berkeley (governor)|Sir William Berkeley]], dispatched him to France to inform Charles II. Though he is referred to in the administration entry as a bachelor,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pleasants |first=J. Hall |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4243768 |title=The Lovelace Family and Its Connections (Continued) |publisher=Virginia Historical Society |year=1920 |pages=185}}</ref> he is known to have married one Blanche Talbot secretly<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Robertson |first=Florance Alice Loveless Keeney |url=https://archive.org/details/lovelaceloveless00robe/page/55/mode/2up?q=blanche |title=The Lovelace-Loveless and allied families |publisher=Murray & Gee |year=1952 |pages=55,56}}</ref> at the age of 38 and was "later forced or persuaded to leave his wife".<ref name=":0" /> He returned to England in 1658, the year of [[Oliver Cromwell]]'s death.  In 1659, he was arrested and confined in the [[Tower of London]] until after the fall of the Parliamentary government and the restoration of Charles II in 1660.

Charles gave his brother, the Duke of York (later to become King [[James II of England|James II]]), rights to the colony of [[New Amsterdam|Nieuw Amsterdam]] when [[Richard Nicolls]] took it from the Dutch in 1667. Many English colonists did not like Nicolls because they thought Oliver Cromwell had been their savior.

===Governor of New York===
The Duke of York appointed Lovelace the second governor of the [[New York Colony]] in 1668 after the departure of [[Richard Nicolls]].<ref name="nycourts"/> While in office he purchased [[Staten Island]] from the local [[Native American peoples|Native Americans]], among whom he sent [[Church of England]] missionaries, granted 'freedom of conscience' to the English, Dutch and Swedish populations of the colony, organised [[infantry]] and [[militia]] companies and expanded [[New York City]]'s defences.<ref name="yale"/><ref name="coins">{{cite web|title=The New Yorke in America Token: Introduction|url=https://coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinIntros/NewYorke.intro.html|website=coins.nd.edu|accessdate=29 September 2017}}</ref> During his time in NY, he ran and operated the King's House tavern (also known as Lovelace Tavern) in lower Manhattan. The tavern was built in 1670 in the [[Stadt Huys Site|Stadt Huys Block]] and rediscovered by archeologists in 1979–1980.<ref name="tavernunearthinggotham">{{cite book|last1= Cantwell |first1=Anne-Marie|title=Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City|date=2001|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300097993 |page=156|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-b3IU_iWZ6kC&q=%22King%27s+House+Tavern%22+lovelace&pg=PA156|language=en}}</ref><ref name="tavernnytimes">{{cite web|title= Home on the Corner of Boom and Bust |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/arts/02expl.html|website=nytimes.com|accessdate=21 January 2018}}</ref>

Despite his defensive preparations, his administration was terminated by the temporary [[Reconquest of New Netherland|recapture]] of the colony by the Dutch in 1673 when, for a brief period the Dutch Admiral [[Cornelis Evertsen the youngest]] seized New York City, to little opposition, and re-established [[New Amsterdam|Nieuw Amsterdam]].<ref name="Trager2010">{{cite book|last1=Trager|first1=James|title=The New York Chronology: The Ultimate Compendium of Events, People, and Anecdotes from the Dutch to the Present|date=2010|publisher=Zondervan|isbn=9780062018601|page=12|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xvGhQoNT27IC&pg=PA12|language=en}}</ref> At the time of the invasion, Lovelace was out of the colony, meeting with the Governor of Connecticut, [[John Winthrop Jr.]] in [[Hartford, Connecticut]], in the course of planning the first postal system from New York to [[Boston, Massachusetts|Boston]]. From 1673 to 1674, Dutch [[Netherlands Marine Corps|marine]] Captain [[Anthony Colve]] acted as military governor-general until England recovered the colony under the terms of the [[Treaty of Westminster (1674)|Treaty of Westminster]] in 1674.<ref name="newenglandhistoricalsociety">{{cite news|title=Francis Lovelace Founds the Boston Post Road in 1673 - New England Historical Society|url=http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/francis-lovelace-founds-boston-post-road-1673/|work=New England Historical Society|date=6 February 2015}}</ref>

===Return to England===
Lovelace, whose property in New York had been confiscated by the Dutch, was sent home in disgrace to England.<ref name="newenglandhistoricalsociety"/> The Duke of York, blaming Lovelace for the loss of his namesake colony, confiscated his plantation on [[Staten Island]] and his English estates for a £7,000 debt. In January 1675 he was committed to the [[Tower of London]], where he was interrogated by commissioners.  His answers were deemed unacceptable, but no further proceedings were brought against him. He contracted [[dropsy]] and, because of his health, was released in April.  He went to live at [[Woodstock, Oxfordshire]] and died, in [[penury]], by 22 December 1675 when [[intestacy|administration]] of his estate was granted to his brother Dudley.<ref name="yale"/>

The third new Governor of New York after Francis Lovelace was [[John Lovelace, 4th Baron Lovelace]] of [[Hurley, Berkshire|Hurley]] – no kin to Francis of the Bethersden Lovelaces. Early genealogists confused Francis with an identically named son of [[Richard Lovelace, 1st Baron Lovelace]] of Hurley, due to a pamphlet issued at the time of his appointment mistakenly asserting that he was the brother of the said Richard. The confusion has also spread to more modern historians.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

=== Sources ===
*{{ODNBweb|id=17053|title=Lovelace, Francis|first=Paul David|last=Nelson}}
*Paltsis, Victor Hugo (ed.) (1910). Minutes of the Executive Council of the Province of New York: Administration of Francis Lovelace 1668–1673. State of New York, Albany. (including collateral Documents and Illustrations)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20121221180110/http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/kingsv1/NYGovs.htm The British Governors of Colonial New York]

{{s-start}}
{{s-gov}}
{{s-bef | before=[[Richard Nicolls]]}}
{{s-ttl | title=[[List of colonial governors of New York|Proprietary Governor<br>of the Province of New York]] | years=1668–1672}}
{{s-aft | after=[[Anthony Colve]]|as=[[Director-General of New Netherland]]}}
{{end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lovelace, Francis}}
[[Category:1620s births]]
[[Category:1675 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Kent]]
[[Category:People from Livingston, Staten Island]]
[[Category:Governors of the Province of New York]]
[[Category:Deaths from edema]]