Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Love, Nicholas
LOVE, NICHOLAS (1608–1682), regicide, was born in Winchester, and baptised in St. Swithun's Church on 26 Oct. 1608 (par. reg.) His father was Dr. Nicholas Love, head-master of Winchester College in 1601, warden 29 Oct. 1613, canon of Winchester 15 Oct. 1610, and chaplain to James I. His mother Dousabell, or Dowsabel, was daughter of Barnabas Colnett of the Isle of Wight. Dr. Love died on 10 Sept. 1630, and was buried in the college chapel, where a brass tablet, with a Latin inscription by his son Nicholas, was placed to his memory.
On 3 Nov. 1626 Nicholas matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, as a fellow-commoner. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 4 Feb. 1635-6, and on 31 Aug. of the same year was created M.A. of Oxford. On 16 Nov. 1648 he became a bencher of his inn. Love was an able lawyer and an eminent financier. From 1643 to about 1647 he was recorder and steward of the town of Basingstoke, and early in 1644 obtained from the parliament a grant of the office of one of the six clerks in chancery. He is said to have made 20,000l. out of the post (Cal. State Papers, 1660, Dom. Ser. p. 343). He was appointed on 4 Nov. 1643 (and again on 30 March and 15 June 1644) one of the committee in Hampshire for levying contributions for the maintenance of the parliamentary troops. He was elected M.P. for Winchester on 4 Nov. 1645, and retained his seat during the sitting of the Long parliament (Official Lists of Members of Parliament, i. 493). He was one of the judges at the trial of Charles I, was present at most of the sittings both in the Painted Chamber and Westminster Hall, and served on the committees to consider the order and method of the trial, and advise about the charge against the king. He was one of those chosen on 25 Jan. 1648-9 to prepare the draft of the sentence, and was in Westminster Hall on 27 Jan., when sentence was delivered, but did not sign the warrant. On his own showing (Petition, Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 119) he was in favour of further conference before proceeding with the sentence, and in consequence was 'clamorously reviled as an obstructor.'
Among the many committees appointed by the Long parliament on which Love served may be mentioned those for compounding for the advance of money, for sequestrations, for the regulation of printing, for the militia commissions,and for the affairs of Ireland and Scotland. On 24 Nov. 1651 he was elected a member of the third council of state, and also served on the fourth and fifth councils. He was present in the council chamber on the afternoon of 20 April 1653, when Cromwell put an end to the sitting of the council. He did not sit in the parliaments of 1653, 1654, or 1656. In the restored Rump of 1659, as 'Nicholas Love of Wolvesey on the Soake,' he again represented Winchester. He was elected member of the council of state on 31 Dec., and was president in the following month.
As a member of the Hampshire committee he had lost no opportunity of acquiring on easy terms the sequestered estates of royalists, and was before the Restoration a wealthy man. Before Monck's arrival at Westminster, Love escaped to the continent (cf. Bramston, Autobiog., p. 113, Camd. Soc.), and he was absolutely excepted in the Act of Indemnity in December 1660. He settled in Switzerland, where he was well treated and protected by the government. He finally joined the regicides Edmund Ludlow [q. v.] and Andrew Broughton [q. v.] at Lausanne, and removed with them to Vevey. He died there on 5 Nov. 1682, aged 74, and was buried in the church of St. Martin. Love married, on 6 Oct. 1655, Elizabeth Buggs of Lambeth (Chester, Westminster Abbey Marriage Register).
Pictures of considerable value and books formerly the property of Charles I were discovered in his house at Winchester after his flight at the Restoration. It is said to have been greatly owing to his exertions that the buildings of Winchester College were spared during the occupation of the town by Waller's horse.
[Woodward's Hampshire, i. 121n., 146, 187, 203, 204, 206; Berry's County Genealogies (Visitation of Hampshire, 1634), p. 267; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), iii. 34; Gardiner's Reg. of Wadham College, pp. 76-7, 482; Baigent and Millard's Hist. of Basingstoke, p. 492; Wood's Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford (Gutch), ii. 504; Nelson's Trial of Charles I, pp. 9, 10, 12, 16, 61, 81, 82; Milner's Hist. of Winchester, pp. 122-3 (Love's epitaph on his father); Cal. of State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1649 to 1663 passim; Willis's Notitia Parliamentaria, iii. 292; Thurloe State Papers, vii. 811; Mason's Milton, iv. 273, 300, 354-5, 413, 449, v. 454, 519, vi. 44, 54; Commons' Journals, vii. 42, 800; Noble's Lives of the Regicides, ii. 6-8; Hist. of King Killers, pt. v. p. 60; Ludlow's Memoirs, 1698, ii. 461, iii. 115-120; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. vi. 13; Proc. of Soc. of Antiq. of Scotland, 1883, new ser. v. 286-9 (account of the graves of the regicides at Vevey, with copies of the inscriptions); Cal. State Papers, Committee for Compounding, pp. 135, 1625, 2143, 2463 (3), 2479; Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. pp. 89-91; information from Joseph Foster, esq.]