John Dove

John Dove (–1664/5) [He died some time between October 1664 and March 1665] was a supporter of the Parliamentary cause and during the English Civil War and Interregnum, at the Restoration he was accused of Regicide, but after expressing contrition to Parliament for his part in it he was allowed to depart unpunished.Gordon Goodwin, ‘Dove, John (d. 1664/5)’, rev. Andrew Warmington, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7949, accessed 18 Feb 2008] . Cites:
* Benson and H. Hatcher, Old and New Sarum or Salisbury, 2 vols. (1843)
* R. C. Hoare, The history of modern Wiltshire, 2/1: Hundreds of Everley, Ambresbury, and Underditch (1826)
* CSP dom., 1650–51; 1655
* D. Brunton and D. H. Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (1954)
* C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait, eds., Acts and ordinances of the interregnum, 1642–1660, 3 vols. (1911)
* J. Easton, A chronology of remarkable events relative to the city of New Sarum, 5th edn (1824)
*Thurloe, State papers · will, TNA: PRO, PROB 11/316, sig. 24 · VCH Wiltshire, vol. 5]

Active in local politics in Salisbury, Wiltshire before the English Civil War. He was a zealous parliamentarian who was elected to the Long Parliament for Salisbury in 1645, replacing an ejected Royalist. although active on several parliamentary committees he took no part in the trial and execution of King Charles I other than to attend when the sentence was agreed, on 26 January 1649.

He commanded the Wiltshire militia during the Worcester campaign of September 1650 and in August the next year the Council of State commended him for his ardour in raising the militia against Charles II the previous year. During the Civil War and Interregnum he amassed a considerable fortune through the purchase of confiscated Church and Royalist estates. In 1655 he was captured by John Penruddock during the Penruddock uprising and narrowly escaped hanging. One of the men, John Lucas, who had intervened to save Dove's life was later tried and found guilty of rebellion as was Hugh Grove both were executed. The former for whom Dove does not seem to have reciprocated in trying to save his life and the latter — whose lands at Chisenbury Priors had been sequestered in 1650 and granted to Dove — accused "Mr Dove and the rest for so falsely and maliciously swearing against me", according to Gordon Goodwin, the author of Dove's entry in the ODNB, "graphically illustrated [Dove's] vindictive and grasping nature".

Dove was active in the Rump Parliament of 1659. At the Restoration he was contrite and after expressing contrition to Parliament he was allowed to depart unpunished. He remain active in local politics in Salisbury until 1662 when he was forced to step down under the terms of the Act for the Well Governing and Regulating of Corporations. He lived a further three years before dying some time between making his will in October 1664 and the proving of the will March 1665.

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