John Hoyle

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.

Career and personal life John Hoyle was a lawyer who received his training at Gray's Inn London. He was openly republican and follower of Thomas Hobbes. 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. The grand jury returned again a verdict of ignoramus. Tom Brown published a letter from Aphra Behn to John Hoyle in "Letters of Love and Gallantry", 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. He figures in much of Behn's writings and is thought to be one of the two models for the promiscuous protagonist of Behn's 1677 play The Rover. 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."

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