Terry Foreman on 18 May 2010  •  Link

Sir Samuel Luke (21 March 1603 – 1670) was a prominent Presbyterian. Governor of the Parliamentary outpost in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire from late 1642 until June 1644 during the English Civil War. During the war he was also Scoutmaster to the Earl of Essex.

Usually identified as the original for the title character of the satirical heroic poem Hudibras by Samuel Butler. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samu…

San Diego Sarah on 18 May 2020  •  Link

Around his 16th birthday in 1644, John Bunyan was either enlisted or was conscripted into the New Model Army. The incomplete muster rolls for the garrison at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, list him as a member of Lt.-Col. Richard Cokayne's company from 30 November 1644 to 8 March 1645, and in Major Robert Bolton's company from 21 April until 27 May 1645. It is thought served in Bolton's company until its disbandment in September 1646. Because the garrison was chronically behind in its pay and poorly equipped, Bunyan's experience must have been grim.

It was so bad some of the troops mutinied in February 1645.

Bunyan would have learned to wield a sword and probably a musket and handgun. The garrison troops participated in the siege of Oxford and the defense of Leicester as well as periodic patrols, but there is no evidence to indicate whether John Bunyan was engaged in the fighting.

By June 1647 John Bunyon had volunteered to serve in Captain Charles O'Hara's company, which was bound for Ireland to fight the rebels, but on 21 July, 1647 parliament disbanded the regiment of which Capt Charles O'Hara's company was a part, thus terminating John Bunyan's military career.

This experience gave Bunyan the military imagery he used in some of his works, especially The Holy War, and his time in the Newport Pagnell garrison exposed him to assorted religious views, including those of the Presbyterians, especially after the governor, Sir Samuel Luke, imposed the solemn league and covenant in March 1645.

John Bunyan may have first learned Calvinist tenets from Gov. Luke's chaplain, Thomas Ford, and he probably heard the sectaries William Erbery and Paul Hobson preach; Bunyan would later espouse a doctrine of spirit-baptism akin to Erbery's. But none of these preachers had an immediate impact on Bunyan, who left the army without having made any noticeable religious commitment.

http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.…
You need a subscription

San Diego Sarah on 18 May 2020  •  Link

Young Royalist Dorothy Osborne wrote to her Parliamentary lover, William Temple about Sir Samuel Luke.

During the civil wars Sir Samuel was Lord of the Manor of Hawnes. He was a Parliament Army colonel, and Scout-Master-General for Bedfordshire and Surrey.

In the 1650's Samuel Butler was secretary to and lived with the Lukes. Dr. Grey, Butler's editor, thinks he wrote Hudibras then, "because he had then the opportunity to converse with those living characters of rebellion, nonsense, and hypocrisy which he so lively and pathetically exposes throughout the whole work." Sir Samuel is said to be the original Hudibras; if Dr. Grey is right, we have a portrait of the Osbornes' neighbor.

From Dorothy's LETTER 16
Sunday, April 17, 1653.
SIR, You must pardon me, I could not burn your other letter for my life; I was so pleased to see I had so much to read, and so sorry I had done so soon, that I resolved to begin them again, and had like to have lost my dinner by it. ...

I agree with you, too, that I do not see any great likelihood of the change of our fortunes, and that we have much more to wish than to hope for; but 'tis so common a calamity that I dare not murmur at it; better people have endured it, and I can give no reason why (almost) all are denied the satisfaction of disposing themselves to their own desires, but that it is a happiness too great for this world, and might endanger one's forgetting the next; whereas if we are crossed in that which only can make the world pleasing to us, we are quickly tired with the length of our journey and the disquiet of our inns, and long to be at home. ...

But lest you should think I have as many worms in my head as he, I'll give over in time, and tell you how far Mr. Luke and I are acquainted.

He lives within four or five miles of me, ... I met a coach with some company in't that I knew, and thought myself obliged to salute. We all lighted and met, and I found more than I looked for by two damsels and their squires. I was afterwards told they were of the Lukes, and possibly this man might be there, or else I never saw him; for since these times we have had no commerce with that family, but have kept at great distance, as having on several occasions been disobliged by them.

But of late, I know not how, Sir Sam has grown so kind as to send to me for some things he desired out of this garden, and withal made the offer of what was in his, which I had reason to take for a high favor, for he is a nice florist; and since this we are insensibly come to as good degrees of civility for one another as can be expected from people that never meet.

Who those demoiselles should be that were at Heamses I cannot imagine ...
Be it what it will that displeased you, I am glad they did not fright you away before you had the orange-flower water, for it is very good, and I am so sweet with it adays that I despise roses.

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/…