Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/421

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
415

being gazetted to serve for co. Londonderry on 12 March. In the winter he embarked for the Mauritius, where he had been appointed (23 Nov.) lieutenant-governor and colonial secretary. Here unfortunate differences with the governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy, led to his transfer to the Seychelles (a charge which he never took up) in August 1886, and eventual resignation of office in 1887. For some time he remained without a post, and employed his leisure in writing a ‘Narrative of Personal Experiences’ in Ireland during the struggle with the land league. On 15 Sept. 1889 he was appointed consul for Kurdistan, where his exertions in the cause of the Armenians were cordially appreciated by Sir William White, the English ambassador at Constantinople. He died of pleuro-pneumonia at Erzeroum on 7 June 1891.

An autobiographical fragment, with a brief biographical preface, appeared in 1892 under the title, ‘Ireland under the Land League: a Narrative of Personal Experiences,’ London, 8vo. It covers the period from the summer of 1880 to the winter of 1881–2, and presents an extremely lively picture of the state of Ireland at that crisis as seen from the point of view of an eminently humane, capable, brave, and resolute official. Though a staunch unionist, Lloyd was by no means a partisan of the landlords, and was strongly in favour of the decentralisation of the Irish administrative system (cf. his letter to the Times of 21 Aug. 1885, headed ‘Political Necessities in Ireland’).

[Besides the works noticed above, see Parl. Papers (H. C.), 1884, vol. lxxxviii., Egypt, No. 1 p. 73, No. 5 pp. 16–19, vol. lxxxix., Egypt, No. 18 p. 27, No. 25 pp. 38–42, and 94–103, 1887 vol. lviii. c. 5101; Times, 18, 19, and 27 Sept. 1883, 22 and 27 March, and 7–10 April 1884, 21 Feb., 7 and 14 March, and 21 Aug. 1885, 25 Aug. 1886, 20 May, 16 June, and 28 Dec. 1887, 26 Nov. 1888, 18 March, 15 Sept., and 8 Nov. 1889, and 8 and 10 Jan. 1891; Dublin Gazette, February 1874 and March 1885; London Gazette, November 1885; Foreign Office List, 1890; Ann. Reg. Chron. p. 136.]

J. M. R.

LLOYD, DAVID (1597–1663), author of the ‘Legend of Captain Jones,’ born at Berthlwyd in the parish of Llanidloes, Montgomeryshire, in 1597, was son of David Lloyd. His uncle, Oliver Lloyd, fellow of All Souls, advocate of Doctors' Commons, and a benefactor of Jesus College, Oxford, was appointed dean of Hereford in 1617, and held that preferment until his death in 1625 at the age of fifty-four. David matriculated from Hart Hall, Oxford, on 30 Oct. 1612, graduated B.A. 22 June 1615 (he was incorporated at Cambridge in 1616), was elected fellow of All Souls 9 May 1618, and proceeded B.C.L. in 1622, and D.C.L. in 1628. He obtained the post of chaplain to William Stanley, sixth earl of Derby, and was also, Wood suggests, comptroller of his household. He was made a canon of Chester in 1639 and was instituted on 2 Dec. 1641 to the rectory of Trefdraeth in Anglesey, upon resigning which he was in July 1642 instituted to Llangynhafal, and on 21 Dec. following to the vicarage of Llanfair Dryffyn Clwyd. In 1642 he was also appointed warden of Ruthin, Denbighshire. Deprived, and for a time imprisoned by the Long parliament, he was reinstated in his benefices upon the Restoration, and promoted to the deanery of St. Asaph in succession to Andrew Morris (1660), being two years later presented to one of the comportions of Llansannan. He died on 7 Sept. 1663 at Ruthin, where he was buried without any inscription or monument, though a humorous rhyming epitaph, said to have been written by himself, is printed by Wood (Athenæ, iii. 653). The epitaph bespeaks a jovial ecclesiastic who spent considerably more than his revenues on the pleasures of the table.

Lloyd is exclusively remembered by the jeu d'esprit which he produced very soon after leaving Oxford, entitled ‘The Legend of Captain Jones; relating his Adventures to Sea … his furious Battell with his sixe and thirty Men against the Armie of eleven Kings, with their overthrow and Deaths,’ &c., London, 1631, 4to. The legend or ballad, which opens with

I sing thy arms (Bellona) and the man's
Whose mighty deeds outdid great Tamerlan's,

is a genial, if somewhat coarse burlesque upon the extravagant adventures of a sea-rover called Jones, who, says Wood, ‘lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and was in great renown for his high exploits.’ The poem relates how with his good sword Kyl-za-dog Jones slew the mighty giant Asdriasdust, how eleven fierce kings made a brave but futile attempt to stay his triumphant progress, and how at last he was captured by the Spanish king at the expense of six thousand warriors, but at once ransomed by his countrymen, anxious to recover him on any terms. Elsewhere Wood says that the ‘Legend’ was a burlesque upon a Welsh poem entitled ‘Awdl Richard John Greulon;’ but the view that Jones was not an altogether mythical person seems to derive support from the fact that, in his ‘Rehearsal Transprosed’ (1776, ii. 19), Andrew Marvell says, apropos of the ‘Legend,’ ‘I have heard that there was indeed such a captain, an honest,