VIII - Imprisonment in London

Summary

Imprisonment in the Tower must have proved very irksome to the high-spirited knight, and as early as October 1645 we find the House considering “The humble Petition of Sir Lewis Dyve, Knight, desiring more Liberty, and some competent Allowance out of his sequestered Estate the Petition was read on 17th “and nothing done upon it.” Five months later, however, the House modified its attitude and on 27 March 1646 resolved “That Sir Lewes Dive, a Prisoner in the Tower, shall have allowed unto him out of his own Estate in Bedfordshire for the Maintenance of himself and Children Four Pounds per Week; And that the Committee of Bedfordshire do pay him out of his own Estate the said Four Pounds per Week accordingly.” It will be noted that this resolution does not mention Sir Lewis’ wife. The explanation of this is that she was dead; she had been buried at Bromham on 24th of the preceding month. On the subject of her death the royalist paper ‘Mercurius Academicus’ was very touching :—

The Patriots, so called, of this Kingdome (of this Confusion) having Sir Lewis Dives their prisoner, though they have licensed a Book for many Wives would not yet give him leave to have the company of one, but denied her accesse to him and him the comfort of her : This, though barbarous enough, might be borne by magnanimous Spirits in time of health, and might be done by men in a fit of Passion; but to divorce them against their wills and upon deliberation to deny them the sight each of other at such a time when the Wife was in Travayle, upon such earnest Importunities as shee made That unlesse shee saw her Husband shee could not be delivered, or if shee was both her selfe and Infant must perish, and therefore humbly desired that favour, as they rendered either her selfe, or the burthen shee then groaned with, argues the Deniers to be worse then Men, and the sufferer, if he beares it like a Christian and forgives these injurious persons, more then a man; and the bloud of the Mother and Infant (for they both dyed) will cry aloud for vengeance, How long, Lord, how long? and will not, very likely, be long without it.