John Lovelace, 3rd Baron Lovelace

John Lovelace, 3rd Baron Lovelace (1641 – 27 September 1693) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1661 to 1670 when he inherited the peerage as Baron Lovelace.

Lovelace was born at Hurley, Buckinghamshire, the son of John Lovelace, 2nd Baron Lovelace, and Lady Anne, 7th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Le Despenser. He matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, on 25 July 1655, and was awarded MA on 9 September 1661.

In 1661, Lovelace was elected Member of Parliament for Berkshire in the Cavalier Parliament, and sat until 1670 when he inherited the peerage on the death of his father. He developed a reputation as an ardent Whig; though he professed to be a Puritan in religion, he was also a keen sportsman, and notorious as a heavy drinker and gambler: "a man of good natural parts, but of very loose and very ill principles".

Lovelace was also notably anti-Catholic: he created a scandal when a Catholic magistrate sent him a summons, which he used in public to wipe his bottom, for which action he was severely reprimanded by the Privy Council, and threatened with prosecution. J.P. Kenyon remarks that a more sensible ruler than James II would have let the matter drop, as being just a rather tasteless joke with no political overtones.

He was admitted into the confidence of those organising the Glorious Revolution to replace the Catholic James II with the Protestant William of Orange. In March 1688, he was summoned before the Privy Council and questioned about his dealings with William, but was released on account of insufficient evidence. He protested his loyalty to James in person, but the King was unimpressed, saying angrily: "My Lord, this is not the first trick you have played me". Lovelace indignantly replied "I never played a trick on your majesty or anyone else".

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