LLOYD, LUDOVIC (fl. 1573-1610), courtier, versifier, and compiler

Fifth son of Oliver Lloyd, lord of the manor of Marrington, Salop, by Gwenllian, daughter of Griffith ap Howel ap Ieuan Blayney (see Blayney family), Gregynog, and grandson of David Lloyd Vychan, an hereditary burgess of Welshpool, and owner of Nantcribba in the parish of Forden, Montgomeryshire. The date of his birth is unknown, but he was old enough in 1587 to have been successful in gaining the favour of queen Elizabeth I and securing from her the reversion of the chapel and tithes of Forden. Five years later he had a grant from the queen of the reversion to the rectory of Llanfair Caereinion for thirty-one years. Although it came to the knowledge of Sir Edward Coke, attorney general, that Lloyd had falsified the deed by altering 'vigint(i)' into 'trigint(a),' thus gaining a ten years' extension of his tenure, the latter escaped legal proceedings, a fact which may be taken to attest his popularity at court. His sale of his interest in the rectory and tithes of this parish to an agent of Richard Herbert, father of Edward, lord Herbert of Cherbury, led to protracted proceedings in the court of exchequer. The story that he financed the poet Spenser's funeral may or may not be true - it is discredited by Grosart (Life of Spenser, 239). According to his own account Lloyd continued to be Sergeant-at-Arms after the accession of James I. But little is certainly known of the last years of his life, except that practically all his known verses were composed during that period. It would seem that he had, voluntarily or otherwise, retired from court, but in what circumstances it is impossible to say. To the list of his works in the B.M. Catalogue of Printed Books, the D.N.B. adds another entitled Hilaria, or the triumphant feast for the fifth of August (London, 1607). His works are largely compilations of curiosities from Biblical, classical, and British antiquities, interspersed by verses of his own composition. He also contributed commendatory verses to several contemporary works, such as Twyne's translation of Lhuyd's Breviary of Britaine, 1573, William Blandy's The Castle or picture of pollicy, 1581, and Henry Perry's Egluryn Phraethineb, 1595. In the same way, contemporary poets like Thomas Churchyard and Edward Grant contributed verses to Lloyd's work, The Pilgrimage of Princes, 1573. In B.M. Add. MS. 14965 (6) there is a long eulogy, in twenty-six verses, of queen Elizabeth, with a note, probably by Lewis Morris, implying that Lloyd was the author. But another note, in the hand of W. Owen Pughe, attributes the poem to Owen Tudor, 'who wrote it in honour of queen Catherine '. The poem has been printed in Mont. Coll., xxii.

Author

• John James Jones, (1892 - 1957)

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Edward Owen, Ludovic Lloyd. A contemporary and probable acquaintance of William Shakespeare, and the possible exemplar of Shakespeare's 'Fluellen'; Reprinted from the North Wales Guardian (Wrexham 1931)
• Anthony Wood, Bliss (ed.) Athenae Oxonienses (1813–20)
• Thomas Tanner, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica, sive de scriptoribus, qui in Anglia, Scotia, et Hiberia ad sæculi XVII. initium floruerunt, literarum ordine juxta familiarum nomina dispositis commentarius (London 1748)
• Collections Historical and Archaeological relating to Montgomeryshire, iii, xxii
• Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1597
• Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, 3rd Report, 1872
• Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, ii. 43
• The National Library of Wales Journal, 1952, 283-309

Further Reading

• Wikipedia Article: Ludovic Lloyd

Additional Links

• VIAF: 24948395
• Wikidata: Q16933937

Published date: 1959

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