John Hoyle (died 1692)

The Temple Church is a late 12th-century church in the City of London located between Fleet Street and the River Thames, built by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters.

John Hoyle (died 1692) was a bisexual lawyer in London and a lover of the writer Aphra Behn.[1][2][3] Behn's relationship with Hoyle was the "dominating one" in her life.[4]

Family

John Hoyle was the eldest son of Thomas Hoyle (baptised 29 January 1587 - died 30 January 1650) who was a member of the Parliament of England during the English Civil War (1642–1651) and became lord mayor of York when the city surrendered in July 1644.[5] Thomas Hoyle was among those who supported the execution of King Charles I (1649), and he hanged himself one year later.[5]

Career and personal life

John Hoyle was a lawyer who received his training at Gray's Inn[2] and was a member of the Inner Temple,[6] London. He was openly republican and follower of Thomas Hobbes.[4]

While still a law student, in 1663, or possibly in 1665,[2] he stabbed an unarmed watchmaker, who died six days later.[4] Despite a number of witnesses against him, he escaped the murder charge with a verdict of ignoramus, i.e. there was not sufficient evidence to convict him.[4] Hoyle was arrested again in 1687, this time for the crime of "sodomy with a poulterer".[7] The grand jury returned again a verdict of ignoramus.[3]

Aphra Behn

In the 1670s, he was an intimate of the pioneering woman writer and playwright Aphra Behn. Their relationship was tumultuous.[8][3] Tom Brown published a letter from Aphra Behn to John Hoyle in "Letters of Love and Gallantry",[9] Behn was asking Hoyle to exculpate himself in regards of the accusations made against him; she was upset about his behaviour, and asked him to try to restore his reputation.[10] He figures in much of Behn's writings[11] and is thought to be one of the two models for the promiscuous protagonist of Behn's 1677 play The Rover.[8] Behn died in 1689 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. It has been said that John Hoyle wrote her epitaph: "Here lies a proof that wit can never be / Defense enough against mortality."[2]

Death

Around 1692, he was stabbed to death "after a drunken brawl in a tavern"[3] and is buried in the vault belonging to the Inner Temple Church.

References

References

  1. ^ Melanie McGrath (2 November 1996). "Restoration kerfuffle". The Independent.
  2. ^ a b c d Cynthia Caywood (1997). "A Tour of Aphra Behn's London" (PDF). (updated 2010)
  3. ^ a b c d Atchley, Amy Margaret (1995). Aphra Behn and Susanna Centlivre: A Materialist-Feminist Study (PhD dissertation). Louisiana State University. doi:10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.5940. Paper 5940.
  4. ^ a b c d Todd, Janet (19 September 2013). The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. A&C Black. p. 169. ISBN 9781448212545. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  5. ^ a b "Hoyle, Thomas (1587-1650), of St. Martin-cum-Gregory, Micklegate, York; later of Broad Sanctuary, Westminster"
  6. ^ "Sentence of John Hoyle of Inner Temple, Middlesex". The National Archives (United Kingdom). 8 July 1692.
  7. ^ Hersey, William Robert (1985). A Critical Old-Spelling Edition of Aphra Behn's "The City Heiress" (PhD dissertation). University of New Hampshire.
  8. ^ a b Castle, Terry (2003). The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall. Columbia University Press. p. 171. ISBN 9780231125109. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  9. ^ Letters of love and gallantry. And several other subjects. All written by Ladies. Vol. I. London : printed for S. Briscoe, over against Will's Coffee-House in Russel-sttreet [sic], Covent-Garden. 1693. OCLC 1121365550.
  10. ^ Bridget G. MacCarthy (1994). The Female Pen: Women Writers and Novelists, 1621-1818. NYU Press. p. 252.
  11. ^ Mary Ann O'Donnell. "Aphra Behn: the documentary record (excerpt from The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn)".