regiment of Lord Goring, serving first as a senior ensign and later as a captain in the Bishops' Wars. This experience inspired "Sonnet. To Generall Goring", the poem "To Lucasta, Going to the Warres" and the tragedy The Soldier. On his return to his home in Kent in 1640, Lovelace served as a country gentleman and a justice of the peace, encountering civil turmoil over religion and politics. In 1641, Lovelace led a group of men to seize and destroy a petition for the abolition of Episcopal rule, which had been signed by 15,000 people. The following year he presented the House of Commons with Dering's pro-Royalist petition which was supposed to have been burned. These actions resulted in Lovelace's first imprisonment. He was shortly released on bail, with the stipulation that he avoid communication with the House of Commons without permission. This prevented Lovelace, who had done everything to prove himself during the Bishops' Wars, from participating in the first phase of the English Civil War. This first experience of imprisonment brought him to write one of his best known lyrics, "To Althea, from Prison", in which he illustrates his noble and paradoxical nature. Lovelace did everything he could to remain in the king's favour despite his inability to participate in the war. During the political chaos of 1648 he was again imprisoned, this time for nearly a year. When he was released in April 1649, the king had been executed and Lovelace's cause seemed lost. As in his previous incarceration, this experience led to creative production—this time in the cause of spiritual freedom, as reflected in the release of his first volume of poetry, Lucasta. "Lucasta" was Lovelace's Muse, thought to be Lucy Sacheverell. Lovelace died in 1657 and was buried in St Bride's Church in Fleet Street in the City of London. Literature From the time Richard Lovelace started writing while he was a student at Oxford he wrote almost 200 poems. His first work was a drama, The Scholars, never published but performed at college and then in London. In 1640, he wrote a tragedy, The Soldier based on his military experience. When serving in the Bishops' Wars, he wrote the sonnet "To Generall Goring", a poem of Bacchanalian celebration rather than a glorification of military action. "To Lucasta, Going to the Warres", written in 1640, concerned his first political action. "To Althea, From Prison" was