LOVELOCK
The Oxford English Dictionary says that a lovelock "is a curl of a particular form worn by courtiers in the time of Elizabeth and James I; later any curl or tress of hair of a peculiar or striking character."
The Maylord's long, curly hair is an affrount to Endicott and Palfrey because it was the fashion among the Caviliers who were supporters of King Charles I. Charles offended the Puritans by marrying the Catholic Henrietta Maria of France and by making William Laud Archbiship of Canterbury. Laud was "a stiff-necked" high churchman who "enraged the Puritan wing by insisting on full ceremonial in the service. . . "(Knapton) while the Puritans, in contrast, wanted a simpler, less "Popish" form of whorship.
Because of the ill-will created by Charles' offensive actions, it is not suprising that Endicott bristles at any hint of royal sympathy in the young man's appearence and orders Palfrey to crop his hair "forthwith, and that in the true pumplin-shell fashion," as was the practice among the Puritans, and which later became the mark of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers or "Rondheads" during the English civil war which resulted in the execution of Charles I in 1649.
Encarta '95. Microsoft, 1994.
Knapton, Ernest Hohn. Europe: 1450-1815. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958.
The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933.