English lord in court, close to fire escape (5)

I believe the answer is:

elude

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'escape' is the definition.
(I know that elude is a kind of escape)

'english lord in court close to fire' is the wordplay.
'english' becomes 'E' (abbreviation as in OED).
'lord in court' becomes 'lud' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'close to' suggests the final letters (the close of something is the end).
The last letter of 'fire' is 'e'.
'e'+'lud'+'e'='ELUDE'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for elude that I've seen before include "Escape adroitly" , "Avoid (e.g. capture)" , "Puzzle" , "Dodge, duck" , "Evade; baffle" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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