AN UNREQUITED LOYALTY
 
 EDWARD SOMERSET, 
 
 1st EARL OF GLAMORGAN, 2nd MARQUESS OF WORCESTER. 
 
 From a Picture by Vandyck, preserved at Badminton.
 
 AN UNREQUITED LOYALTY 
 
 THE LIFE OF EDWARD SOMERSET, 
 
 EARL OF GLAMORGAN, 
 
 MARQUESS OF 
 
 WORCESTER 
 
 BY 
 
 MARIE HAY 
 
 JOHN & EDWARD BUMPUS, Ltd 
 
 350 OXFORD STREET 
 
 LONDON, W 
 
 1 90 1
 
 TO 
 B. K. 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS STORY TO THE 
 
 MEMORY OF ONE WHO TAUGHT 
 
 ME THE TRUE MEANING OF 
 
 LOYALTY AND 
 
 LOVE. 

 
 " The purest treasure mortal times afford 
 
 Is spotless reputation ; that away 
 
 Men are hut gilded loam^ or painted clay ; 
 
 A jewel in a ten times barrd up chest 
 
 Is a bold spirit in a loyal hreast. 
 
 Mine honour is my life ; both grow in one^ 
 
 Take honour from me and my life is done^ 
 
 Shakespeare.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 "Greater Love hath no Man than this, that a 
 Man lay down his Life for his friends," but it is 
 given to few to raise their record so high as the 
 surrender of life, and there are sacrifices as noble 
 as death in a beloved cause, as noble and per- 
 chance more painful. To stand accused of 
 forgery by your enemies, and of presumptuous 
 meddling by your friends ; to lose both home and 
 fortune, and to bear all this silently and without 
 reproach, is a sacrifice very perfect and wonderful 
 in its noble generosity and brave fidelity. 
 
 I have endeavoured to set forth this life of 
 Edward Somerset, first Earl of Glamorgan, second 
 Marquess of Worcester, in a spirit answering unto 
 his great loyalty. Though it has been impossible 
 to avoid presenting the actions of His Majesty 
 King Charles I. of blessed memory, in a light 
 otherwise than unfavourable, still I have desired 
 to utter no harsh or disloyal expressions in 
 reference to a King, so truly venerated and 
 loved, by the hero of this Memoir. 
 
 It remains for me to crave the indulgence of 
 my readers, in that I have but faithfully portrayed 
 Glamorgan, and have avoided forming any 
 exaggerated or romantic notions of his merits and 
 transactions, leaving the story of his noble life 
 untouched by any word of praise or admiration. 
 It is needless to say that I do but write of facts 
 carefully verified, and of such things as I have 
 warrant for under extant documents. 
 
 Marie Hay.
 
 Edward Somerset, Earl of 
 
 Glamorgan, 
 
 Marquess of Worcester. 
 
 HB 
 
 HIS is the story of a great devo- 
 tion and loyalty, ill requited by a 
 Monarch, famous for his terrible 
 misfortunes and his wonderful 
 personal charm, which, together 
 with the glamour of a lost cause 
 and a tragic death, have disposed 
 mankind to overlook his falsehoods and his weak- 
 ness. But a sentimental hero-worship is, at 
 best, an unworthy and useless frame of mind, and 
 one in which it were better to revel in legends 
 than to endeavour to study History. When we 
 are dealing with the feeble desertion of a Strafford 
 or with the ignoble repudiation of a Glamorgan's 
 services, we cannot waste time in screening the 
 weak perpetrator of such actions, even though he 
 be the Martyr, Charles I. 
 
 Kingship by Divine Right was the great 
 principle for which men deemed it honour to 
 sacrifice their lives and fortunes ; Loyalty was 
 the ideal of the gentleman ; " God and the 
 King " the watchword of the noble. We may 
 comprehend the splendid unquestioning devotion 
 of Glamorgan if we remember that, like all his 
 
 B
 
 caste at that time, he believed the King to be 
 the earthly representative of the Deity, and as 
 such to be obeyed and served as a being too high 
 to be doubted or judged. 
 
 " The King could do no wrong " until the 
 genius of Cromwell and the great wave of more 
 sober thought taught Englishmen to measure the 
 actions of their Kings by a different standard. 
 
 What is there in the world of books more 
 charming than the ingenuous account by some 
 contemporary writer of the sayings and doings of 
 other days ? How delightful it is to conjure up 
 pictures from the olden time, to recall the shadowy 
 figures of history and make them move and speak 
 again, to wander through the courts of Queens 
 long dead, and live for a space with the proud 
 wearers of ruff and plume. Were history the 
 mere recital of date and fact, the past would be 
 dead indeed ; but there are many records still 
 fragrant with the grace of old and courtly days, 
 and to these we turn with keen appreciation. We 
 have such a picture in an account of the marriage 
 of the Earl of Worcester in 1600. We are told 
 in a contemporary letter that in the month of 
 June, the Earl's marriage with Mistress Anne 
 Russell was solemnized with great pomp at 
 Blackfriars ; Queen Elizabeth deigned to be 
 present, and was met at the Waterside by the 
 Bride, and carried in a Letica or Sedan chair, to 
 my Lady Russell's, where she supped. After 
 supper there came a Masque, and Elizabeth sat 
 beneath a silken dais and watched the merry- 
 making. Then followed dancing, and the Queen
 
 was " wooed to dance " and, to the delight of the 
 highly honoured company, Her Majesty rose and 
 trod a measure. 
 
 It was no young and beauteous Queen dancing 
 at this wedding, for in 1600 Elizabeth had long 
 passed the prime of life, and Time had spoiled the 
 features rash Leicester had dared to love. She, 
 who had inspired a thousand odes, she who had 
 been sung by almost every poet, of an age 
 unrivalled in the annals of literature for great song 
 and undying verse, was an old painted harridan, 
 bolstered up to ape the glory of a vanished youth. 
 There is a weight of terrible responsibility on her 
 half palsied head as she, the great Queen dances 
 there ; but her courtiers bow and the music 
 rings out merrily at this wedding feast, which 
 lives for us through the ages, because Queen 
 Elizabeth was present, and a casual letter writer 
 has told us that she was " wooed to dance," and 
 trod a measure. 
 
 This was the wedding of Glamorgan's' father 
 and mother. He was the eldest of a numerous 
 family, of whom there is little of interest to 
 record. Of Glamorgan's childhood and early 
 youth we know nothing, save that he travelled 
 much on the Continent, which was the custom for 
 the completion of the education of a gentleman at 
 that date. His life at Court began when the 
 
 ' I have called Edward Somerset " Earl of Glamorgan " through- 
 out, although that title was only conferred on him in 1644, before 
 which he was Lord Herbert. But, though under his later title of 
 Marquess of Worcester he is best known to the world as scientist 
 and inventor, it is as Glamorgan, the devoted loyalist that he has 
 his first claim on the interest and admiration of posterity.
 
 King, whom he was destined to serve so nobly, 
 came to the throne. In 1628 he married 
 Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Dormer, who 
 became the mother of Henry, created Duke of 
 Beaufort by Charles II. From all accounts, 
 Glamorgan spent the greater portion of the seven 
 years of his married life with this lady in retire- 
 ment at Raglan Castle, and though he occasionally 
 repaired to Court, his delights were study, research, 
 and scientific experiment, and these he preferred 
 to court life. These were his '* golden days," he 
 tells us long afterwards, when the tide of civil 
 war and anarchy had swamped the peace of 
 England and destroyed many an English home. 
 There is little to record of these golden days. In 
 history we hear always of the disasters, the mis- 
 fortunes, the evils which befall, but there is little 
 to tell of the times of peace and sunshine, either 
 in the life of a nation or in that of an individual. 
 Though imagination may picture this man who 
 was afterwards to play a part in a great and stirring 
 drama, poring over the learned treatise, or fitting 
 the links of some important mechanical con- 
 trivance, it is mere conjectured probability. 
 History is writ with pain, bloodshed, and intrigue ; 
 a painted picture, owing its existence to the depths 
 of its shadow. Peace is silence, the pregnant 
 silence in which great thoughts are thought, great 
 deeds prepared ; but many years of peace must 
 of necessity be dismissed in a sentence, while of 
 turmoil and revolt there are many records. 
 
 Glamorgan's first wife died in 1635. She had 
 the honour of being painted by Vandyck, but we
 
 know no more of her. Four years later he 
 married Margaret, daughter of the Earl of 
 Thomond. 
 
 It was during these seven years of his first 
 marriage that Glamorgan first employed the 
 skilled mechanic, Caspar Kaltoff, who remained in 
 his services many years, " as in a school under 
 me," we are told in the '* Century."' KaltoflPs 
 practical skill was directed in discovery and inven- 
 tion by the genius of his master. 
 
 To scientists, Glamorgan (under the name of 
 Worcester) is known as the reputed inventor of 
 the steam engine, but probably owing to no con- 
 temporary historian of note having certified to the 
 existence of the engine he invented, his claim there- 
 to has been overlooked by some great authorities, 
 and strenuously denied by others. He has been 
 ridiculed by Walpole, and scornfully dismissed 
 in a sentence by Macaulay, who calls him both 
 charlatan and imposter ; while those who have 
 written of the lives and works of great engineers 
 such as Savory,^ Stevenson, and Watt have 
 denied, or entirely overlooked his claim. 
 
 When we speak of inventions we constantly 
 forget that each invention is merely another step 
 
 ' " A Century of the Names and Scantlings which I can call to 
 mind to have tried and perfected." — Glamorgan's book published 
 in 1666. 
 
 'Savory, to whom the credit of the discovery of the use and 
 power of steam has been accorded, seems to have desired to wipe 
 out from the knowledge of man the record of Glamorgan's earlier 
 experiments, for he bought up all the books alluding thereto in 
 1699 and burnt them. At least, so runs the story quoted by 
 Desaguliers, F.R.S., in his "Course of Experiments," 1763.
 
 forward in thought and experiment, and that no 
 step can be taken which has not had an anterior 
 step in the great chain of progressive human 
 endeavour. *' There may be a long series of elemen- 
 tary principles developed without the occurrence 
 of a single practical result as regards any useful 
 application to supply man's wants. There may 
 arise a series combining these elements, and for 
 the first time producing a new machine or engine."' 
 And it is this furthering of an existing thought 
 or known principle which we call an invention, 
 De Caus had speculated and written, and others 
 had conjectured ; but to Glamorgan undoubtedly 
 belongs the first practical illustration of the great 
 principle of the application of the power of steam. 
 That he did invent, and with the skilled hand of 
 KaltofF construct an engine propelled by steam, is 
 beyond doubt, for we have incontestable proofs in 
 such authentic documents as Sorbiere's " Relation 
 d'un Voyage en Angleterre" (i 664), in which is given 
 an account of a " water commanding engine " or 
 Hydraulic Machine, then working on the banks 
 of the Thames near Vauxhall ; and in the diary 
 of Cosmo de Medici, who visited England in 
 1656, we find mention of this same engine. 
 Again we have proof in the Warrant for Protection 
 of this invention, granted in 1663 by Charles II., 
 retaining for the King and his heirs " the tenth 
 part of the benefits accruing from the Marquess 
 of Worcester's water - commanding engine."* 
 
 ' Dircks. 
 
 » Act to enable Edward Marquess of Worcester to receive the 
 benefit of a Water Commanding Engine by him invented, granted 
 by Charles II. in 1663.
 
 It is surely Impossible to suppose that such a 
 warrant should be given to a man who had 
 merely written and talked of his invention, but 
 perfectly likely that it should be granted to a 
 person who had practically demonstrated the use 
 and power thereof by its existence in actual form. 
 The machine is described by Glamorgan in that 
 curious book which he called by the verbose 
 title, " A Century of the Names and Scandings 
 of such Inventions as at present I can call to mind 
 to have tried and perfected, which (my former 
 notes being lost) I have at the instance of a 
 powerful friend, endeavoured now, in the year 
 1655, to set these down in such a way as 
 may sufficiently instruct me to put them into 
 practice." The descriptive clause is as follows : — 
 " An admirable and most forcible way to drive up 
 water by fire, not by drawing or sucking it 
 upwards, for that must be as the Philosopher 
 calleth it — Intra sphaeram activitatis — which is but 
 at such a distance. But this way hath no 
 Bounder, if the Vessels be strong enough ; for I 
 have taken a piece of a whole Cannon, whereof 
 the end was burst, and filled it three-quarters full 
 of water, stopping and scruing up the broken 
 end ; as also the Touch-hole ; and making a 
 constant fire under it, within twenty-four hours it 
 burst and made a great crack ; so that having a 
 way to make my vessels, so that they are 
 strengthened by the force within them, and the 
 one to fill after the other. I have seen the water 
 run like a constant Fountaine Stream forty foot 
 high ; one Vessel of water rarified by fire ^ driveth
 
 8 
 
 up forty of cold water. And a man that tends 
 the work is but to turn two cocks, that one 
 Vessel of Water being consumed, another begins 
 to force and refill with cold water, and so succes- 
 sively the fire being tended and kept constant, 
 which the self-same Person may likewise abun- 
 dantly perform in the interim between the 
 necessity of turning the said Cocks." (2) " An 
 Engine so contrived, that working the Primum 
 mobile forward or backward, upward or down- 
 ward, circularly or cornerwise, to and fro, straight, 
 upright or downright, yet the pretended Operation 
 continueth, and advanceth none of the motions 
 above-mentioned, hindering, much less stopping 
 the other ; but unanimously, and with harmony 
 agreeing they all augment and contribute strength 
 unto the intended work and operation ; and 
 therefore, I call this a Semi-omnipotent Engine, 
 and do intend that a Model thereof be buried 
 with me." 
 
 The claim of Glamorgan to be considered the 
 first to utilise steam as a motive power, the 
 development of which discovery has revolutionised 
 the commercial, political, scientific, and social life of 
 the world, rests chiefly on these two short clauses 
 of the " Century." Sorbiere and Cosmo de Medici 
 omitted any detailed description of the machine, 
 and though their testimonies are valuable as 
 establishing the fact of its actual existence, they 
 tell us little else. The passage in Sorbiere's 
 narrative is as follows: — " One of the most curious 
 things I wished to see was a Hydraulic Machine 
 which the Marquess of Worcester has invented,
 
 and of which he has made an experiment. This 
 machine will raise to the height of 40 feet by the 
 strength of one man, and in the space of one 
 minute of time, four large buckets of water, and 
 that by a pipe or tube of eight inches." Of this 
 machine there is nothing left, not a plan or draw- 
 ing, no minute description or specification, save in 
 the two short clauses of the " Century." Of what 
 was probably the precursor of the Vauxhall engine 
 there is a trace on the ruined keep of Raglan 
 Castle. Certain strange grooves on the external 
 wall remaining to testify to the existence of a 
 water raising engine, which we believe to have 
 been the first practical application of the power of 
 steam made by Glamorgan. 
 
 He probably accomplished the bulk of his 
 studies and experiments between the year 1627 
 (when he engaged KaltofF) and 1642, when he 
 turned his attention to the struggle raging in 
 Wales between the Royalists and the rebels, but 
 it is not till much later that we find evidence of 
 the "water-commanding engine" being in exist- 
 ence. In itself the date of the invention is 
 unimportant, but it is likely that it was between 
 the years mentioned, for Glamorgan cannot have 
 found time during the Irish expedition for research 
 or experiment, or money and convenience in the 
 three years of his subsequent exile in France. 
 The legend runs, that when he was imprisoned in 
 the Tower after his return in 1650 or 1 651, he 
 watched the boiling of the pot on the fire, and 
 seeing the steam lift the lid, was persuaded that 
 such a force could be applied to greater things.
 
 lO 
 
 But this is a tradition which has been quoted in con- 
 nection with almost every other claimant to the 
 priority of discovery of the power of steam. It is 
 more likely that the invention dates from an earlier 
 period of Glamorgan's life. There is at Bad- 
 minton, among the papers relating to Glamorgan, 
 a copy of his prayer, which he composed "when 
 first with his corporall eyes he did see finish'd a 
 perfect tryall of his Water-Commanding Engine, 
 delightful and useful to whomsoever hath in 
 recommendation eyther knowledge, profit or 
 pleasure." This document, though not entirely 
 written by Glamorgan's hand, contains numerous 
 corrections and alterations in his writing. 
 
 Of modern writers on the subject of this 
 devoted loyalist and eminent inventor, Mr. Henry 
 Dircks is the best authority. He published in 
 1865, "The Life, Times, and Scientific Labours of 
 the Second Marquess of Worcester." Mr. Dircks 
 wrote a masterly discussion on the validity 
 of Glamorgan's claim to be considered a great 
 scientist and inventor. After a thorough investi- 
 gation of all the documents relating to the subject, 
 of the "Century," and of every evidence of 
 contemporary writers, Mr. Dircks concluded that 
 Glamorgan was the inventor of the steam engine, 
 and that he had the principle of telegraphy, and 
 of a primitive form of paddle-boat in his mind. 
 As a skilled engineer Mr. Dircks was certainly a 
 competent judge of the scientific attainments 
 of Glamorgan, but he missed the interest in his 
 narration of Glamorgan's life, and consequently 
 the work has been more used as a book of
 
 1 1 
 
 reference for students, than read as the chronicle 
 of a life of noble devotion and of exceptional 
 interest. The book is now out of print and 
 difficult to procure. 
 
 The boat scheme had been mooted earlier, for 
 we find in the "Vitruvia di Architectura " (1521) 
 an engraving of a vessel propelled by paddles. 
 In the "Inventions or Devices of William Bourne," 
 published in 1578, there is mention of "a boat 
 to go without oars or sayles, by the placing of 
 certain wheels on the outside of the boat so that it 
 shall go against wind and tide," and David Ramsay 
 in 1630, records his invention to make boats, 
 ships and barges to go against the wind and tide. 
 So that Glamorgan, though evidently thoroughly 
 in touch with all the progressive thought of his 
 day, did not actually advance further than his 
 contemporaries, or even his precursors, in the 
 construction of a paddle-boat. He also seems 
 to have attempted to construct a flying machine, 
 but whether it was in the manner of a 
 balloon it is impossible to say. Three hun- 
 dred years earlier. Friar Bacon asserted the 
 possibility of a machine which would " fly after the 
 fashion of a bird," but he admitted that he had 
 not seen it, though he believed it had been "made 
 by a very prudent man, who hath invented the 
 whole artifice." Glamorgan asserted his ability to 
 produce such a machine, and declared that he had 
 previously actually accomplished it. ''How to 
 make a Man to fly, which I have tried with a 
 little boy of ten years old, in a barn from one end 
 to the other on a Hay Mow," he wrote in the
 
 12 
 
 "Century," but unfortunately he omrtted to in- 
 struct us by what means he effected this volition. 
 
 The "Century" tells of many other inventions 
 which were "tried and perfected" by Glamorgan, 
 cyphers and alphabetic seals, contrivances for 
 effecting and conveying secret correspondence, fire 
 arms, on new and improved systems, automata 
 and other ingenious toys of many kind. And he 
 doubtless foreshadowed a system of Shorthand 
 writing, something of a method to abbreviate by 
 eliminating the constant repetition of the same 
 letter. It probably meant, according to Mr. Dircks, 
 the use of dots, strokes, and dashes, as in the 
 modern shorthand. The clause of the "Century" 
 is as follows: — 
 
 " A way by a Circular motion, either along a 
 Rule or Ring-wise, to vary any Alphabet, even 
 this of Points, so that the self-same Point indi- 
 vidually placed, without the least additional mark 
 or variation of place, shall stand for all the 24 
 letters, and not for the same letter twice in ten 
 sheets writing ; yet as easily and certainly read and 
 known, as if it stood but for one and the self-same 
 letter constantly signified." 
 
 Like all the scientists and thinkers of that time 
 Glamorgan sought for the secret of perpetual 
 motion — that dream which haunted the wisest 
 of our forbears. Perpetuum Mobile was not 
 deemed an impossibility by the most eminent 
 scientists of the" seventeenth century, and the 
 search for self motive power exercised the minds 
 and exhausted the ingenuity of the learned 
 long after Glamorgan's quest for knowledge was
 
 13 
 
 completed, and the great active brain rested In the 
 peace of death. Glamorgan believed that he had 
 been near to the solution of this still unsolved 
 secret, for he tells us in the "Century" that he 
 could "Provide and make that all the Weights of 
 the descending side of a Wheel shall be per- 
 petually further from the Centre than those of 
 the mounting side, and yet equal In number, 
 and heft to the one side as the other. A most 
 incredible thing. If not seen, but tried and 
 perfected before the late King (of blessed 
 memory) In the Tower, by my directions ; 
 two Extraordinary Embassadors accompanying 
 His Majesty, and the Duke of Richmond and the 
 Duke Hamilton, with most of the Court 
 attending Him. The Wheel was 14 foot over 
 and 40 weight of 50 pounds apiece. Sir William 
 Balfour, the Lieutenant of the Tower, can justify 
 it with several others. They all saw that no 
 sooner these great Weights passed the Diameter- 
 line of the lower side, but they hung a foot further 
 from the centre, nor no sooner passed the 
 Diameter-line of the upper side, but they hung a 
 foot nearer. Be pleased to judge the consequence." 
 It will be observed that Glamorgan did not say — 
 " this is perpetual motion " — but It was the object of 
 the machine he exhibited to King and Court, and 
 by which he evidently believed that he had 
 actually effected an illustration of the possibility of 
 perpetual motion. The mention of Sir William 
 Balfour, as Lieutenant of the Tower, fixes the date 
 of this experiment to between 1638 and 1641. 
 How vividly we can picture the scene — Glamorgan
 
 14 
 
 proudly explaining the mechanism of the Great 
 Wheel, with its swinging weights, the King — 
 dignified and grave, with that strange look of 
 predestined tragedy on his face — the crowd of 
 courtiers ! It is our first glimpse of Charles I. 
 and Glamorgan, of the brave and devoted loyalist, 
 and the King, in whose service he was soon to 
 leave the peace of the laboratory and the delights 
 of study, to give his youth aud his thought, his 
 home and his fortune, for the monarch who proved 
 incapable of recompensing devotion save by 
 repudiation. 
 
 Clause 99 of the "Century" must be mentioned 
 as it is remarkable as illustrating one of Glamor- 
 gan's favourite theories, which he sets forth in 
 a sort of doggerel verse occurring in one of his 
 petitions to King Charles II. : — 
 
 "Whosoever is Master of Weight 
 Is Master of Force, 
 Whosoever is Master of Water 
 Is Master of both," 
 
 In clause 99 he instructs us : — 
 
 " How to make one pound weight to raise an 
 hundred as high as one pound falleth, and yet the 
 hundred pound descending doth what nothing less 
 than one hundred pound can effect." As usual, 
 however, he asserts the feasibility of this balance 
 and does not give any practical directions as to the 
 manner in which he proposes to accomplish it. 
 The hundredth and last clause of the book is 
 worthy of note, for it proves that he thoroughly 
 understood the immense practical utility which 
 could be gained from the application of his water-
 
 15 
 
 commanding or water-raising inventions as applied 
 to drainage, &c., — he says : — 
 
 " Upon so potent a help as these two last- 
 mentioned questions' a Waterwork is by many 
 years experience and labour so advantageously by 
 me contrived that a Child's force bringeth up an 
 hundred foot high an incredible quantity of water, 
 even two foot Diameter, so naturally, that the work 
 will not be heard even into the next Room ; and 
 with so great ease and Geometrical Symmetry, that 
 though it work day and night from one end of 
 the year to the other it will not require forty 
 shillings reparation to the whole Engine, nor 
 hinder one's day-work. And I may boldly call 
 it the most stupendous Work in the whole 
 world ; not onely with little charge to drain all 
 sorts of Mines and furnish Cities with water, 
 though never so high seated, as well to keep them 
 sweet, running through several streets, and so 
 performing the work of Scavengers, as well as 
 furnishing the Inhabitants with sufficient water for 
 their private occasions ; but likewise supplying 
 Rivers with sufficient to maintaine and make them 
 portable from Towne to Towne, and for the better- 
 ing of Lands all the way it runs ; with many 
 more advantageous, and yet greater effects of 
 Profit, Admiration, and Consequence. So that 
 deservedly I deem this Invention to crown my 
 Labours, to reward my Expenses, and make my 
 Thoughts acquiesce in way of further Inventions. 
 
 • Alluding to the clause previously quoted beginning : — " An 
 Engine so contrived that working the Primum Mobile forward or 
 backward," &c., and to clause 99.
 
 i6 
 
 This, making up the whole Century, and pre- 
 venting any further trouble to the Reader for the 
 present, meaning to leave to Posterity a Book, 
 wherein under each of these heads, the means to 
 put in execution and visible trial all and every of 
 these Inventions, with the shape and form of all 
 things belonging to them, shall be printed by 
 Brass plates." 
 
 This promise of a further book was unfortu- 
 nately never fulfilled, and therefore Glamorgan 
 has been forgotten or regarded as a crazy dreamer 
 by the few who have knowledge of him. 
 
 In 1642 Henry Somerset, Earl of Worcester, 
 father of Glamorgan, was created Marquess by 
 Charles I. He was then sixty-five and a martyr 
 to the gout, but his Chaplain, Dr. Bayly, has left 
 us a record of his humorous remarks and his 
 " pretty wit." He was a gay and rollicking old 
 nobleman, a relic of the days when England was 
 indeed merry England, shrewd withall, and he 
 seems throughout to have endeavoured to curb 
 the reckless generosity of Glamorgan, for Dr. 
 Bayly tells us how, when the King's continued 
 demands for monetary assistance had well nigh 
 exhausted his purse and his patience, he upbraided 
 Glamorgan, reminding him of the vast sums 
 already supplied for His Majesty's needs, and 
 when Glamorgan, as usual, intent on serving the 
 King at whatever cost, replied, " But Sir, I must 
 have it ! " he turned peppery, and flung the key 
 of his treasury at his son's head ! 
 
 In 1 642 Glamorgan was made General of South 
 Wales, and in the February of that year we find
 
 I? 
 
 him at the head of a force of 1,500 foot and 500 
 horse, besieging the town of Gloucester, which 
 was held by a company of volunteers in the 
 Parliamentary interest. Sir William Waller 
 arrived on the scene with a large body of troops, 
 and Glamorgan being absent on that day, the little 
 army tamely surrendered, and was led into 
 Gloucester. '* God forgive those of the King's 
 party," Glamorgan wrote long after, " who were 
 occasion that 1,500 gentlemen were surprised 
 and I not despatched from Oxford until the day 
 after." But though terribly discouraged by this 
 defeat he set about with untiring energy to raise a 
 regiment of foot and ten troops of cavalry for His 
 Majesty's service. He garrisoned Cardiff, Breck- 
 nock, Hereford, Goodrich Castle, and the 
 Forest of Dean after taking them from the 
 enemy. He had exchanged his books for 
 the sword, and from a man of dreams and 
 studies he became a man of action ; but beyond 
 the facts, which he himself told us, we 
 have little knowledge of the Welsh campaign, 
 and, therefore, we must hurry on to the chief 
 events of his life, those events for which he has 
 been misjudged and abused, and which are Indeed 
 entangled in such a web of conflicting Interests, 
 personal feelings aggravating political strifes, and 
 religious factions, that It Is no wonder that 
 historians have failed to unravel what was In 
 reality simple enough — the magnificent self- 
 sacrifice of a man, so loyal that he never broke 
 that silence which was the last service he could 
 render to a beloved Master, and preferred failure, 
 c
 
 i8 
 
 ruin, and exile to clearing himself at the expense 
 of his King's honourable word, which was the 
 only other course left open to him. 
 
 In 1643 the Royal Cause was in a desperate 
 plight, and Charles I. seeing that Lord Ormond, 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, through religious 
 animosity to the Catholics, failed to effect a treaty 
 with them, determined to despatch another envoy 
 to procure the assistance of troops and money. 
 The King's choice fell on Glamorgan who was 
 admirably fitted for the negotiations, being a 
 Catholic and allied by marriage to the house of 
 Thomond, one of the most powerful families on 
 the insurgent Catholic side. 
 
 In order to form any approximate estimate of 
 the state of affairs in Ireland it is necessary to 
 look far back in her history. This will enable us 
 to comprehend the mingled feelings of both Pro- 
 testant and Catholic Irishmen towards the Crown 
 of England. 
 
 Before the reign of Henry II. Ireland was 
 governed by four Kings and a supreme head, or 
 over-lord, the whole forming a Pentarchy. To 
 the supreme King they all paid tribute, but other- 
 wise they were entirely masters of their own 
 kingdoms. They were constantly engaged in 
 petty warfare between themselves, in fact a general 
 peace over the length and breadth of Ireland was 
 a very rare occurrence. In the reign of Henry 
 II. Ireland submitted to the rule of England after 
 a fierce struggle for independence. 
 
 Though Henry II. may have dreamed of the 
 conquest of Ireland, the bondage of the country was
 
 19 
 
 really a consequence of the love of the beautiful 
 Devorgilla, wife of O'Rourke, King of Breffny, 
 for Dermot, King of Leinster. At that time 
 (1166) Roderic O'Connor was over-lord, and 
 when O'Rourke, returning from a pilgrim- 
 age, found that his wife, Devorgilla, had fled 
 with Dermot, King of Leinster, he craved the 
 aid of the over-lord to assist him in crushing 
 his rival and punishing him for his sin. Dermot's 
 subjects in Leinster, who had long hated him for 
 his tyranny, refused to fight for him in the cause 
 of Devorgilla, and therefore Dermot found him- 
 self obliged to fly the country. What became of 
 the fair Devorgilla is not known ; but Dermot 
 repaired to Aquitaine and laid a petition at the 
 feet of Henry IL of England, promising that, if 
 by his powerful interposition he recovered his lost 
 dominions, he would hold them in vassalage to 
 Henry and his successors for ever. Henry was 
 ambitious, and saw an easy road to the conquest 
 of Ireland, but his hands were full with the 
 disturbed affairs of the English kingdom, and the 
 insurrection of his subjects in the provinces of 
 France ; he therefore deferred the expedition 
 to Ireland to a more convenient date. Dermot was 
 forced to content himself with promises of future 
 assistance and credentials and recommendations 
 from Henry to the people of England. He 
 went thither and presented the King's letters to 
 Richard, Earl of Pembroke, surnamed Strongbow, 
 to whom he promised his daughter in marriage, 
 and the succession to the Kingdom of Leinster, 
 should it be restored to him by Strongbow's
 
 20 
 
 assistance. Many of the nobles of England were 
 stirred to join in the venture, more especially as 
 they were encouraged to do so by Henry II. 
 
 The expedition was successful ; Dermot was 
 reinstated in his possessions, and Henry, who 
 came with an army to subdue the Irish, found the 
 \yorlc already done, and though he sojourned in 
 Ireland a whole winter, he and his army never 
 struck a blow, and he received homage from most 
 of the kings and chieftains. 
 
 Notwithstanding this nominal conquest and 
 peaceful subjugation, the Irish continued during 
 four centuries to hate the English rule, and 
 practically, though the chiefs paid yearly tribute 
 and homage to the Crown of England, it was only 
 in the " Pale " (which comprised the counties of 
 Dublin, Kildare, Meath, and Uriel, with the 
 cities of Waterford, Cork, and Limerick) that 
 English rule prevailed. The rest of Ireland 
 acted independently of the English Government, 
 entering into leagues and treaties, not only among 
 themselves, but with such of the foreign powers 
 as deemed it worth while to concern themselves 
 with a handful of malcontents. Constant war- 
 fare existed between the chiefs whose terri- 
 tories lay beyond the " Pale " ; and in short, 
 Ireland was in the same turbulent state which 
 had characterised it before Henry II. 's advent, 
 and it continued to be a hopeless chaos and 
 turmoil until the reign of James I. of 
 England, who reduced it to a partial state of 
 order, though even then the passions raised by 
 the continued enforcement of the Reformed
 
 21 
 
 faith in Ireland caused unending revolt and 
 discontent. 
 
 At the commencement of the reign of Henry 
 VIII. Irish affairs were in the usual state of com- 
 plexity, but when that monarch attempted to enforce 
 the tenets of the new Reformed Faith on the 
 Irish, the country was immediately convulsed 
 with violent opposition. It was hopelessly 
 impolitic to call upon the people to abjure a creed 
 which they regarded with all the passionate 
 reverence of a race, dowered with the ardent 
 religious belief of the Celt ; utterly futile to 
 oblige them to conform to a religion which they 
 believed to be heresy, and to embrace which they 
 thought meant eternal perdition. Many of the 
 Irish chieftains rose in arms against the English 
 rule, determined to strike a blow against the 
 oppressor and his hated religion, but they were 
 defeated and seemingly submitted to Henry. 
 The King, profiting by experience, and seeing 
 that his power over the Irish would increase 
 more rapidly by grace and favours than by 
 severity and force, adopted a new system, and 
 though he continued obdurate on the subject of 
 religious freedom, he showered honours, favours, 
 titles, and riches on some of the chief families, 
 and endeavoured to draw them to the Court. 
 The nobles who were thus offered riches and 
 honours with the Reformed Faith on the one 
 hand, confiscation and oppression with the Faith 
 of their Fathers on the other, in most cases choose 
 the former ; but the great mass of smaller nobles 
 and peasantry whom Henry had not conciliated,
 
 22 
 
 continued firm in their adherence to the old 
 Faith. However, this reconciliation did not last 
 long, and we find some of the very chieftains who 
 two years before had been recompensed for their 
 submission by Henry VIII., proposing terms to 
 Francis I., King of France, to become his vassals 
 in. return for a sufficient force of French to enable 
 the Irish to shake off the English yoke. 
 
 This enterprise came to nothing, and Henry's 
 suzerainty continued unchallenged in the ** Pale," 
 though there were incessant revolts in the out- 
 lying districts of Ireland. At the accession of 
 Edward VI. there was a formidable rising of the 
 malcontents, but it was speedily subdued. The 
 reign of Queen Mary, while it filled Protestant 
 England with dissension and bloodshed, was 
 naturally hailed with delight by Catholic Ireland, 
 who for five years knew a peace unprecedented 
 in her troubled history. But this lull was 
 destined to be of short duration, for with the 
 accession of Queen Elizabeth, the old story of 
 enforcing the Reformed Faith began again, and 
 in Ireland there was a fierce struggle during the 
 whole of her reign. 
 
 James I. boasted that his management of 
 Ireland was his masterpiece, but though he may 
 have had some cause for his boast, in that he 
 succeeded in reducing Ireland to a state of 
 comparative quietude, such as had not been pre- 
 viously known, still it was but a sorry legacy that 
 he bequeathed to Charles I., for the discontent and 
 turbulence had been raised to fever heat by the 
 realisation of King James's favourite scheme of a
 
 23 
 
 Protestant colonisation in Ireland. This scheme 
 was to introduce a great number of English and 
 Scotch settlers into Ireland, and to dower them 
 with the property forfeited by such of the Irish 
 as had refused to conform to the Protestant 
 Faith. A horde of adventurers immediately 
 poured into the country, and the Irish people, 
 who had believed in King James's former pro- 
 mises of religious freedom and restitution of 
 possessions, saw themselves duped by their 
 English ruler, and robbed right and left by Royal 
 connivance. Ireland was parcelled out, and entire 
 towns were appropriated by the interlopers. 
 The town of Derry, for instance, was acquired 
 by the citizens of London, who partially rebuilt 
 it and altered its name to Londonderry. 
 
 Naturally the natives viewed the invasion of 
 their country with bitter displeasure, and albeit 
 the usurpers, supported by the English Govern- 
 ment, were too strong to combat openly, the 
 temper of the people was dangerously hostile, and 
 they were more than ever evilly disposed toward 
 the English rule, and though the fire of Irish 
 hatred and resentment may have appeared to be 
 extinguished, it was only smouldering, and we 
 cannot coincide in King James's opinion that he 
 had entirely pacified a hitherto uncontrollable 
 people. 
 
 The beginning of Charles I.'s reign was re- 
 markable for the indulgence shown to the 
 Catholics throughout the kingdom, and espe- 
 cially to the Irish, on whom Charles showered 
 specious promises of favour and protection.
 
 24 
 
 Mass was once more publicly celebrated even in 
 Dublin, and the Irish responded to this freedom 
 by a warmth of loyalty and affection to their 
 lenient Master. But this dream of peace and 
 liberty was all too short, for Charles soon com- 
 menced in Ireland that vacillating and deceitful 
 policy which eventually wrought his own ruin, and 
 brought him to a death then unprecedented for a 
 king in the history of the world. If we wish to 
 excuse Charles I. for his insincerity, for the betrayal 
 of his most devoted friends, and for his political 
 and private double dealing, we may plead that 
 never was monarch so beset by difficulties, that his 
 was a situation which needed a strong head and 
 hand, and that Charles I. was a weak man, over- 
 whelmed by a train of calamities great enough to 
 have broken a Charlemagne. But excuse and 
 palliate as we will, this King, who moves through 
 history and romance with the halo of a tragic 
 death, was utterly lost to honour and fidelity, and 
 from the outset stooped to a course of untrust- 
 worthiness and falsehood in Irish affairs, which 
 alone would have been sufficient to earn him the 
 contempt of posterity. The Irish Catholics, 
 trusting in the Royal promises, established a 
 Seminary in Dublin, and in the heat of their 
 gratitude for the freedom they had craved in vain 
 for many years, offered to equip and keep at their 
 own expense, a constant body of 5,000 infantry 
 and 500 horse for the services of His Majesty. 
 To this the Protestant and Puritan parties 
 objected, and the King, swayed by their influence, 
 rejected the offer, and withdrew both his protection
 
 25 
 
 from the Seminaries and his sanction for the 
 celebration of Mass in Ireland. He was advised 
 that severity to the Catholics was the only method 
 of obtaining supplies from his Protestant subjects, 
 and he therefore recalled Lord Deputy Faulkland, 
 who, in accordance with His Majesty's desire, had 
 dealt leniently with the Irish Papists, and Lord 
 Ely and Lord Cork, staunch Protestants, were 
 entrusted with the administration of Ireland. 
 
 When the Catholics of Dublin, relying on the 
 King's protection, were assembled at Mass on St. 
 Stephen's Day, 1631, they were startled by the 
 intrusion of the Protestant Archbishop of the 
 Diocese, the chief Magistrate, and a file of 
 musketeers, who seized the sacrificing priest at 
 the Altar, hewed down the crucifix, and carried 
 away the vessels. The most rigorous execution 
 of the old penal laws against Catholics was 
 extended to every part of Ireland, and the King 
 gave orders that the payment of the army should 
 be made from the fines imposed upon such 
 Papists as failed to attend the established 
 worship. 
 
 Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, who 
 became Lord Deputy in 1633, was far from 
 successful in this capacity, although he did much 
 to improve the commerce of the country, and laid 
 the foundations of the great linen industry of 
 Ireland. But he carried out the instructions of 
 his Royal Master to the letter, sparing the Irish 
 no severity. He considered Ireland as a con- 
 quered country, and wrung great sums of money 
 out of its people, Protestants and Catholics alike,
 
 26 
 
 bestowing in return hints and promises of freedom 
 in religious matters to the Catholics, while to the 
 Protestants, he declared that they could not lag 
 behind their Papist compatriots in service and 
 loyalty, adding that they too would surely be 
 rewarded. The Irish Parliament responded by 
 voting ;^240,ooo — a larger sum than Strafford had 
 hoped for — but in return a petition was drawn up 
 praying the King to grant a confirmation of his 
 promises regarding religious freedom, and an 
 enquiry into defective titles and possession of 
 estates. Strafford, however, refused to forward 
 this petition, although he had received the re- 
 quired subsidies. Again the Irish saw themselves 
 tricked, and when the Lord Deputy proceeded to 
 execute his favourite plan of establishing the 
 King's title to the whole of the Province of 
 Connaught, the discontent in Ireland knew no 
 bounds. 
 
 After nine years of regency in Ireland, Straf- 
 ford, who had been Charles' closest friend and 
 favourite adviser, was accused of levying taxes 
 without the consent of King or Parliament both 
 in Yorkshire and Ireland, and was attainted of 
 high treason and beheaded in 1641. The King 
 stood by and saw him led to death when a 
 resolute refusal to sign the death warrant would 
 have saved the life of this his most loyal subject. 
 But such a course would have further prejudiced 
 the Royal cause, and required a strength and 
 determination which could not be hoped for from 
 a Stuart. True the King essayed to save Straf- 
 ford, saying, that he " could not condemn him of
 
 27 
 
 high treason, yet he could not acquit him of 
 misdemeanours," but Charles had not the force to 
 refuse to sign the death warrant, and posterity 
 has forgotten the feeble efforts which the King 
 made on Strafford's behalf, and remembers only 
 the fact of the King's giving his friend up to death. 
 This was the first of those terrible sacrifices for 
 an unworthy King, which were afterwards to fill 
 a page in the history of noble deeds, unequalled 
 in the lustre of its magnificent self-sacrifice and 
 loyalty. All that Strafford had done was in the 
 King's service, and by his instructions ; doubtless 
 he erred on the side of harshness to the Irish, he 
 failed to conciliate the Catholic and Protestant 
 parties, and he left Ireland in a state of anger and 
 discontent with his rule, and consequently more 
 than ever hostile to the English Government. In 
 a word, he failed ; but to the charge of high 
 treason he justly answered " Not Guilty," and 
 when Charles I. abandoned this man, who, 
 through terrible stress and storm, had never 
 wavered in service and devotion, he committed 
 a crime against loyalty and trust for which 
 there is no expiation. 
 
 Soon after the execution of Strafford the great 
 rebellion broke out in Ireland. To form an 
 unbiassed judgment of this period of Irish 
 history we must note the power which the Puritan 
 party had acquired in the kingdom. The spirit 
 of this party pervaded every department, and its 
 efforts being directed against the Catholics, it was 
 seconded by the Protestants, the destruction of 
 Papists being an object of common zeal. The
 
 28 
 
 Parliamentarians played ofF the Protestants against 
 the Catholics, who, in spite of the King's repeated 
 falseness to them, remained loyal to the Crown. 
 Many of the Irish Protestants were equally 
 loyal, but were misled by supposing that their 
 efforts were entirely directed against the Catholics, 
 whereas, in reality, they were aiding the King's 
 enemies against his devoted adherents. In every 
 quarter of Ireland this bitter strife was in pro- 
 gress, and when Charles called for assistance 
 from the Protestant loyalists they refused, fearing 
 to leave their homes at the mercy of their 
 Catholic opponents. 
 
 Added to these causes of strife, some of the 
 Irish, who had been dispossessed of their estates 
 in the reign of James I., chose the moment of 
 disorganisation of Government in England to 
 revive and enforce their ancient claims. The 
 Catholics continued to declare their loyalty to the 
 King, but they were forced to remain in arms in 
 self-defence, for the Protestants and Puritans 
 would have had no hesitation in raising the cry of 
 religious fanaticism and compassing a general 
 massacre of the '* idolaters." Meanwhile affairs 
 in England rendered it imperative that Charles 
 should receive assistance from Ireland, and he 
 endeavoured to make peace with one or other of 
 the parties. On the one hand the Protestants 
 were lukewarm and fearful of what would occur 
 in Ireland were they to send their forces to 
 England, on the other hand Lord Ormond, Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland, mismanaged any treaty 
 between the King and Catholics, to whom he was
 
 29 
 
 both by religious convictions and political bias, 
 bitterly hostile. Charles, well aware that only in 
 his Catholic subjects could he confide, fully 
 apprised of Ormond's prejudices, weary of the 
 continued procrastination of the Lord Lieutenant, 
 and anxious for help, determined to despatch Lord 
 Glamorgan to treat with the Catholics. Osten- 
 sibly Glamorgan repaired to Ireland to raise 
 troops, in reality to procure aid from the Catholics 
 at any price and with full powers to grant any 
 concession demanded, 
 
 Glamorgan left Oxford in March, 1644, for 
 Wales and ultimately for Ireland ; and in the 
 April of that year His Majesty conferred a Patent 
 granting him the title of Earl of Glamorgan, 
 although in the January of the said year he had 
 already addressed him as Glamorgan. However 
 this Patent was privately granted under the King's 
 own hand, and Glamorgan's detractors at a later 
 date endeavoured to prove that it was never 
 granted, but " like other of the warrants t'is 
 surreptitiously gotten, and indeed His Majesty 
 saith he remembers it not," this, though Charles 
 constantly addressed him and wrote of him to 
 others as Earl of Glamorgan. Charles II. in 
 1 66 1 acknowledged it "as a title settled by our 
 Royal Father of blessed Memory." 
 
 The Patent granted by Charles I. is quoted in 
 full by Collins in the Peerage of England, (1741) 
 by Birch and others. It created " Edward 
 Somerset, alias Plantagenet, Lord Herbert, Earl 
 of Glamorgan," and nominated him " Genera- 
 lissimo of three armies, English, Irish and foreign,
 
 30 
 
 and admiral of the fleet at sea." It was full of 
 promises, none of which were destined to be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 Glamorgan's son, Plantagenet, was to marry the 
 King's daughter Elizabeth " with three hundred 
 thousand pounds in dower or portion, most part 
 whereof we acknowledge spent by your father 
 and you in our service ; and the title of Duke of 
 Somerset to you and your heirs male for ever ; 
 and from henceforth to give the garter to your 
 arms and at your pleasure to put on the George 
 and Blue Ribbon. And for your greater honour 
 and in testimony of our reality we have with our 
 own hand affixed our Great Seal of England unto 
 these our Commissions making them Patents." 
 Poor little Princess Elizabeth, thus promised in 
 marriage, she died at Carisbrooke Castle, of a 
 broken heart, they say, soon after the execution 
 of the King, her father. 
 
 The instructions anent the Irish Negociations 
 given by Charles I. to Glamorgan are kept at 
 Badminton. The paper which is in the King's 
 own hand is dated January, 1644, and is entitled 
 ** Several Heads whereupon you, our trusty and 
 well beloved cousin, Edward, Earl of Glamorgan, 
 may securely proceed in execution of our 
 commands." 
 
 " First, you may engage your estate, interest 
 and credit, that we will most really and punctually 
 perform our promises to the Irish, and as it is 
 necessary to conclude a peace suddenly, whatso- 
 ever shall be consented unto by our Lieutenant 
 the Marquess of Ormond, We will die a thousand
 
 31 
 
 deaths rather than disannul or break It ; and If 
 upon necessity anything be to be condescended 
 unto, and yet the Marquess not willing to be seen 
 therein, or not fit for us at the present publicly to 
 own, do you endeavour to supply the same. 
 
 "If for the encouragement of the Lord Marquess 
 of Ormond you see It needful to have the Garter 
 sent him, or any further favour demonstrated from 
 us to him, we will cause the same to be performed. 
 
 " If for the advantage of our service you see fit 
 to promise any titles of Earls In either of our 
 kingdoms, upon notice from you we will cause 
 the same to be performed. 
 
 " For the maintenance of our army under your 
 commands, we are graciously pleased to allow the 
 delinquents' estates where you overcome to be 
 disposed by you, as also any of our revenues In 
 the said places, customs or other, our profits, 
 woods, and the like, with the contributions. 
 
 ** Whatever towns or places of Importance you 
 shall think fit to possess, you shall place com- 
 manders and governors therein at your pleasure. 
 
 "Whatever order we shall send you (which you 
 are only to obey) we give you leave to Impart the 
 same to your council at war, and If they and you 
 approve not thereof, we give you leave to reply, 
 and so far shall we be from taking It as a dis- 
 obedience, that we command the same. 
 
 "At your return we will accept of some officers 
 upon your recommendation, to the end no 
 obstacle or delay may be In the execution of your 
 desires In order to our service, and our commands 
 in that behalf.
 
 32 
 
 "At your return you shall have the command of 
 South Wales, Herefordshire, and Gloucestershire 
 of the Welsh side, returned to you in as ample 
 manner as before. 
 
 "In your absence we will not give credit or 
 countenance to anything which may be prejudicial 
 to your father, you, or yours. 
 
 C. R." 
 
 The glowing promise " We will die a thousand 
 deaths rather than disannul or break it" was 
 destined to be fulfilled in a manner all unworthy 
 of a King, but Charles throughout his transactions 
 with Glamorgan never hesitated to promise, even 
 as he never hesitated to abandon. 
 
 Meanwhile His Majesty wrote Lord Ormond 
 the following letter : — 
 
 " Ormond, 
 
 My Lord Herbert having business of 
 his own in Ireland (wherein I desire you to do 
 him all lawful favour and furtherance), I have 
 thought good to use the power I have, both in 
 his affection and duty, to engage him in all 
 possible ways to further the peace there ; which he 
 hath promised to do. Wherefore, as you find 
 occasion, you may confidently use and trust him 
 in this, or any other thing he shall propound to 
 you for my service ; there being none in whose 
 honesty and zeal to my person and crown I have 
 more confidence. So I rest, 
 
 Your most assured and constant friend, 
 
 Charles R."
 
 33 
 And below we find in cypher the following : — 
 
 "Oxford, 27th Decemb. 1644. 
 
 " His honesty or affection to my service will not 
 deceive you ; but I will not answer for his 
 judgment." 
 
 The King had entrusted Glamorgan with a 
 perilous and difficult mission, but at the outset he 
 disparaged the man who undertook it. 
 
 Again Charles granted to Glamorgan the follow- 
 ing warrant under his private signet and Royal 
 signature. 
 
 "Charles R., 
 
 Charles, by the Grace of God, of 
 England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender 
 of the Faith, &c., to our trusty and right well- 
 beloved cousin, Edward, Earl of Glamorgan, 
 greeting. We, reposing great and especial trust 
 and confidence in your approved wisdom and 
 fidelity, do by these (as firmly as under our Great 
 Seal, to all intents and purposes) authorise and 
 give you power to treat and conclude with the 
 confederate Roman Catholics in our Kingdom of 
 Ireland, if upon necessity any be to be conde- 
 scended unto, wherein our Lieutenant cannot so 
 well be seen in, as not fit for us at present 
 publicly to own. Therefore we charge you to 
 proceed according to this our warrant, with all 
 possible secrecy ; and for whatsoever you shall 
 engage yourself, upon such valuable considera- 
 tions as you in your judgment shall deem fit, we 
 promise on the word of a King and a Christian, 
 to ratify and perform the same, that shall be 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 granted by you, and under your hand and seal ; 
 the said confederate Catholics having by their 
 supplies testified their zeal to our service. And 
 this shall be in each particular to you a sufficient 
 warrant. 
 
 Given at our Court at Oxford, under our 
 signet and Royal signature, the 12th of March, 
 in the twentieth year of our reign, 1644." 
 
 There is a further warrant of great importance 
 quoted in full in the Nuncio's Memoirs, which is 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Charles R. 
 
 Whereas we have had efficient and 
 ample testimony of your approved wisdom and 
 fidelity, so great is the confidence we repose in 
 you, as that whatsoever you shall perform, as 
 warranted under our sign manual, pocket signet 
 or private mark, or even by word of mouth with- 
 out further ceremony, we do in the word of a 
 King and a Christian, promise to make good to 
 all intents and purposes, as eff^ectually, as if your 
 authority from us had been under the Great Seal 
 of England, with this advantage that we shall 
 esteem ourself the more obliged to you for your 
 galantry, in not standing upon such nice terms to 
 do us service, which we shall, God willing, 
 reward. And although you exceed what law can 
 warrant, or any powers of ours can reach unto, 
 as not knowing what you have need of, yet // 
 being for our service^ we oblige ourself not only 
 to give you our pardon, but to maintain the same 
 with all our might and power ; and though 
 either by accident, or by any other occasion, we
 
 3S 
 
 shall deem it necessary to deposit any of our 
 warrants, and so award them at your return, we 
 faithfully promise to make them good at your 
 return, and to supply anything wherein they shall 
 be found defective, it not being convenient for 
 us at this time to dispute upon them, for of what 
 we have here set down you may rest confident, if 
 there be faith and trust in men. Proceed, there- 
 fore, cheerfully, speedily, and boldly, and for your 
 so doing this shall be your sufficient warrant. 
 
 Given at our Court at Oxford under our sign 
 manual private signet, this I2th of January, 
 1644." 
 
 Glamorgan arrived in Dublin about the end of 
 July, 1645, after a perilous voyage from Carnarvon 
 in Wales, having been chased by a Parliamentary 
 ship. The difficulty in determining any date of 
 the period is great, for France and the Catholic 
 countries had adopted the " New Calendar " or 
 style of reckoning, whereas England and the 
 Protestant countries adhered to the old style, and 
 it seems constantly to have pleased the private 
 letter writers to vary their dating from one to the 
 other style, which occasions great confusion. 
 Whether Glamorgan had been in Ireland the 
 previous year or not is uncertain, but we know 
 that he left Oxford in March, 1 644, that he then 
 went to Wales, that the King wrote on the 12th 
 March, 1644, urging him to hasten to Ireland, 
 and that in March, 1645, he was again at Oxford. 
 In any case we know nothing of his negociations 
 during that first visit, and it is from the period 
 commencing July, 1645, that Glamorgan becomes
 
 36 
 
 an important historic personage and the player of 
 one of the parts in the great drama which through 
 long and tedious acts works up to the final scene 
 — the tragedy of Whitehall. 
 
 Glamorgan found the Deputies of the Con- 
 federate Catholics at Dublin negociating a treaty 
 with Lord Ormond, but, as usual, the terms which 
 Ormond was willing to concede were such that 
 the Catholics refused them, and after a few meet- 
 ings the Deputies left Dublin and returned to 
 Kilkenny, the seat of the Supreme Council of the 
 Papists, Glamorgan also proceeded to Kilkenny, 
 taking the King's credentials and private instruc- 
 tions, and a complimentary letter from Lord 
 Ormond himself, who seems to have been anxious 
 for Glamorgan to conclude the treaty, though he 
 afterwards denied that he had power to grant any 
 terms whatsoever to the Catholics. Through all 
 the negociations, Ormond was absolutely averse to 
 any agreement with the Irish upon their terms, 
 though he ought to have realised how fatal any 
 delay must prove to the King's interests. The 
 difficulty was not that of treating with a common 
 enemy, but of reconciling the King's friends as to 
 the manner of serving His Majesty. 
 
 Arrived at Kilkenny, Glamorgan concluded the 
 following treaty, (which was to be kept secret 
 from the Protestant loyalists and from Lord 
 Ormond) : — Firstly, religious freedom for the 
 Catholics ; that they should hold all churches 
 rightfully theirs other than such as are now 
 actually enjoyed by His Majesty's Protestant sub- 
 jects. Secondly, that the Catholics should be
 
 37 
 
 "exempted" from the jurisdiction of the Protestant 
 clergy, and that the Catholic clergy should be 
 unmolested in their jurisdiction over their Catholic 
 flocks. These conditions were demanded and in 
 return the Catholics engaged to send to England 
 10,000 armed men, under the command of 
 Glamorgan, and agreed to devote two-thirds of 
 their clergy's revenues towards the maintenance 
 of the said 10,000 men for the space of three 
 years. This treaty was to be confirmed by the 
 next Parliament held in Ireland. 
 
 Affairs stood thus when the Pope's Nuncio, 
 Rinuccini, arrived at Kilkenny. The Nuncio, 
 fearing that the publication of a political treaty wth 
 Ormond would cause the Catholics (who were 
 not aware of the private religious treaty with 
 Glamorgan) to conclude that such a peace was 
 made on account of private and temporal advan- 
 tages, and not for the honour and freedom of 
 Religion, and would thus occasion scandal among 
 Catholics and foreigners and give triumph to the 
 heretics, insisted upon the necessity of the Lord 
 Lieutenantcy being held by a Catholic, and also 
 desired that a clause should be inserted in the treaty 
 anent the erecting of Universities. Meanwhile he 
 assured Glamorgan of his zeal for the King, and 
 persuaded him to sign a paper pledging the King's 
 word that when the troops were landed in Eng- 
 land the matter of a Catholic holding the Lord 
 Lieutenantcy should be agreed to. Possibly in 
 this latter clause Glamorgan may have exceeded 
 the actual instructions of the King, but His 
 Majesty had given him full powers to concede
 
 anything in his name provided assistance were 
 procured. 
 
 In England affairs were growing more and 
 more desperate, and the city of Chester, besieged 
 by the Parliamentarians, could not hold out if the 
 promised assistance from Ireland failed to arrive. 
 Glamorgan left Kilkenny, and proceeded to Dublin 
 in order to effect a treaty with Ormond concerning 
 the expedition of troops. This treaty was to be of 
 such a nature that it could be made public, while 
 the other and more important treaty which 
 Glamorgan had just made, was to be kept secret. 
 He arrived at Dublin on Christmas Eve, and on 
 Christmas Day he waited on the Lord Lieutenant, 
 who received him with great civility. The fol- 
 lowing day, however, Ormond and his officials 
 received Glamorgan in a different manner, for his 
 secret treaty with the Catholics had come into the 
 Lord Lieutenant's hands by a chance occurrence. 
 The Popish Archbishop of Tuam, one of the 
 Supreme Council, was going into Ulster to visit 
 his diocese, when he met with a body of Irish 
 troops marching to besiege Sligo.' The Arch- 
 bishop joined with these troops and was killed in 
 the sortie made by the garrison of Sligo. 
 Unfortunately for the hopes of the Irish Papists 
 and for the Royalist cause, a copy of Glamorgan's 
 treaty was found on the Archbishop's body. The 
 English Commissioners in Ulster transmitted this 
 paper to the Parliament in England, who had caused 
 copies to be printed, published, and despatched to 
 the Marquess of Ormond and to Lord Digby 
 
 ' Sligo was held by tlie Parlimncntarians.
 
 39 
 
 then at Dublin. Ormond and Digby, fearing the 
 odium which the publication of this treaty would 
 draw on the King from the Parliamentary party, 
 deemed it expedient to vindicate His Majesty 
 by proceeding against Glamorgan. Accordingly 
 when the Council assembled in Dublin on the 
 26th December, 1645, Lord Digby rose and 
 charged Glamorgan with suspicion of high 
 treason, and moved that his person should be 
 secured, alleging that the " authority from His 
 Majesty must be either forged or surreptitiously 
 gained, or if the Earl had any colour of authority 
 that it was certainly bound up and limited by such 
 instructions as would in no wise license him to 
 any transaction of that nature," adding that " the 
 King to redeem his crown, his own life, and the 
 lives of his Queen and children, would not grant 
 the Irish the least piece of concessions so destruc- 
 tive to his regality and religion." 
 
 Glamorgan was committed to the custody of 
 the Constable of the Castle of Dublin, in the 
 condition of a close prisoner until further direc- 
 tions. The next day he was examined before 
 the Lord Lieutenant and Council of Ireland. 
 Glamorgan answered to the questions put to him, 
 that they, his interrogators, had the treaty in 
 their hands, and thus knew what it contained, and 
 that he had done nothing save that for which he 
 held a warrant. He added that he did not con- 
 ceive the articles to " be obligatory to His 
 Majesty, and yet without any just blemish of my 
 honour, my honesty, or my conscience," and he 
 produced a '* Defeazance " signed by the same
 
 40 
 
 men who had signed the treaty on the Catholic side, 
 explaining that "the Earl of Glamorgan did in no 
 way intend thereby to oblige His Majesty other 
 than he himself should please after he had received 
 those 10,000 men as a pledge of the Roman 
 Catholics loyalty and fidelity to His Majesty. 
 But he promised faithfully not to acquaint 
 His Majesty with this Defeazance till he had 
 endeavoured to induce His Majesty to the grant- 
 ing of the said concessions. The Commissioners 
 hereby discharge the Earl of Glamorgan both in 
 honour and conscience of any further engagement 
 to them therein, though His Majesty should not 
 be pleased to grant the said particulars, the said 
 Earl having given assurance upon his word, 
 honour, and voluntery oath never, to any person 
 whatsoever, to discover this Defeazance in the 
 interim, without their consent." 
 
 Whether Glamorgan received the permission of 
 the Supreme Council to show this Defeazance to 
 Ormond, or whether, as usual, intent on serving 
 his King, he committed an act of disloyalty to the 
 Catholics, does not transpire, but it is certain that 
 he was able to explain his action to the Papists in 
 such a manner as to justify himself and retain 
 their trust, for subsequently we find him once 
 more in treaty with the Catholics, and apparently 
 enjoying their entire confidence. After a short 
 imprisonment Glamorgan was liberated, for the 
 news of his incarceration put the Catholics into 
 such a prodigious consternation, many desiring to 
 take arms and proceed to Dublin in order to 
 procure his liberty, that Ormond considered it to
 
 41 
 
 be wiser to set him free. It is probable that this 
 was merely a pretext, and that Ormond having 
 seen the King's Warrants and Powers, in common 
 justice could not detain Glamorgan as prisoner, 
 and therefore he was enlarged upon his own 
 recognizance of ;^20,ooo, and of the Lords 
 Clanrikarde and Kildare of ;^ 10,000 each. 
 
 Meanwhile the news of the discovery of the 
 treaty and of Glamorgan's arrest and imprison- 
 ment reached the King. In order to avoid 
 censuring His Majesty's behaviour at this juncture 
 too harshly it is necessary to realise in what a 
 terrible position the unfortunate Monarch was 
 placed — beset by enemies, surrounded by spies, 
 his subjects distrusting and hating him, his every 
 action misjudged, and with the constant suspicion 
 of his Papist inclination in the minds of even his 
 most loyal Protestant adherents (which suspicion 
 had it become a certainty meant the alienation of 
 the entire Protestant Kingdom). Thus it is with 
 pity at his utter weakness and his inability to 
 grapple with the events which his own vacillation 
 and constant double-dealing had woven into an 
 entangled web beyond his power to unravel, that 
 we should approach this portion of the secret 
 history of Charles I. 
 
 Upon the receipt of the news of the discovery 
 of the treaty and of Glamorgan's arrest and 
 imprisonment, the King made the declaration : — 
 *' That the Earl of Glamorgan hath, without the 
 King's directions or privity entered into a treaty 
 with the Commissioners of the Roman Catholic 
 party, and drawn up certain articles highly
 
 42 
 
 derogatory to His Majesty's honour and most 
 prejudicial unto the Protestant religion in 
 Ireland," the King took Lord Digby to witness 
 " who by reason of his former employment in 
 these affairs, doth best know how contrary the 
 proceeding of the said Earl was to His Majesty's 
 intentions and directions, and what great prejudice 
 it might bring if these proceedings of the Earl of 
 Glamorgan should be understood to have been 
 done by the directions or approbation of His 
 Majesty, . . . that Glamorgan having made offer 
 unto him to raise forces in the Kingdom of 
 Ireland, and to conduct them into England for 
 His Majesty's service, had a commission to that 
 purpose, and to that purpose only. That he had 
 no commission at all to treat of anything else, 
 without the privity of the Lord Lieutenant, much 
 less to capitulate anything concerning religion or 
 any propriety belonging either to Church or 
 Laity." The King protested that until he heard 
 Glamorgan was arrested and restrained, he never 
 had any notice " that the said Earl had entered 
 Into any kind of treaty or capitulations with the 
 Irish Commissioners, much less that he concluded 
 or signed those articles so destructive both to 
 Church and State, and so repugnant to His 
 Majesty's public professions and known resolu- 
 tions." 
 
 Charles continued by utterly repudiating any- 
 thing conceded by Glamorgan, and declared that 
 he " doth absolutely deny him therein," adding, 
 that as it was necessary to conclude a peace with 
 the Irish Catholics " for the preservation of His
 
 43 
 
 Majesty's Protestant subjects of Ireland, he had 
 given leave to the Lord Lieutenant to treat and 
 conclude such a peace as might be for the safety 
 of the Crown, the Protestant religion, and in no 
 way derogatory to His Majesty's honour and 
 public professions." 
 
 The day after the King had made this Declara- 
 tion in Parliament he wrote a private letter to 
 Lord Ormond, saying : — " That upon the word 
 of a Christian he never intended Glamorgan to 
 treat with the Catholics without his (Ormond's) 
 approbation and knowledge ; for, besides the 
 injury to you I was always diffident of his judge- 
 ment, though I could not think him as extremely 
 weak as now to my cost I have found him." He 
 desired Ormond to prosecute Glamorgan "in a 
 legal way," at the same time commanding the 
 suspension of the execution of any sentence upon 
 him with the King's sanction, for he " believed 
 his misguided zeal, more than any malice, had 
 brought this misfortune on him and on us all." 
 
 The following day Charles despatched an 
 official letter to Ormond, in which he repeated 
 his repudiation of Glamorgan, and averred he 
 had indeed given secret instructions to him anent 
 the Irish treaty, but that they were merely to be 
 conveyed to Ormond, and " it is possible we 
 might have thought fit to have given such a 
 credential to the Earl of Glamorgan as might 
 give him credit with the Roman Catholics, in case 
 you should find occasion to make use of him, 
 either as a further assurance unto them of what 
 you should privately promise." " This is all and
 
 44 
 
 the very bottom of what we might have possibly 
 intrusted unto the Earl of Glamorgan in this 
 affair." The document continues to instruct 
 Ormond to " thoroughly and diligently prosecute 
 the charge against the said Earl." 
 
 On the same day the King wrote this letter to 
 Ormond, Secretary Nicholas despatched an 
 official document to the Council of Ireland in 
 which, among other expressions of blame and 
 accusations of forgery against Glamorgan, occurs 
 the sentence : — " The King hath commanded me 
 to advertise your Lordships that the patent for 
 making the said Lord Herbert of Raglan '* Earl of 
 Glamorgan " is not passed the Great Seal here, so 
 he is no Peer of this Kingdom. He hath treated 
 with the Irish Rebel by the name of ** Earl of 
 Glamorgan," which is as vainly taken upon him as 
 the pretended warrant (if any such be) was sur- 
 reptitiously gotten, for His Majesty saith he 
 remembers it not." It would appear that 
 Glamorgan went to Ireland fully prepared that in 
 case of failure or discovery the King would dis- 
 avow all knowledge and authority, but the utter 
 lack of truth which caused His Majesty to 
 disavow even the title conferred by his own hand, 
 was surely but an unkingly dishonesty and weak- 
 ness and one which Glamorgan must have felt 
 deeply. 
 
 If any further proof were needed to convince 
 us that Glamorgan was fully authorized to treat 
 with the Irish Catholics on the King's behalf, the 
 following letter remains in the Harleian Collection 
 of Manuscripts to testify that he was neither the
 
 PORTRAIT OF HIS MAJESTY KIXG CHARLES I 
 
 Painted by Vandyck and presented by the King to Edward Somerset, 
 Earl of Glamorgan. 
 
 This Picture is at Badminton.
 
 45 
 
 fantastic bigot he is represented by Walpole, nor 
 the forger which Carte esteemed him : — 
 
 " Glamorgan, 
 
 I must clearly tell you bothe you and 
 I have been abused in this business, for you have 
 beene drawen to consent to conditions much 
 beyond your instructions, and your treaty hath been 
 divulged to all the world. If you had advised with 
 my Lord Lieutenant (as you promised me) all 
 this had been helped. But we must looke for- 
 ward. Wherefor, in a word, I have commanded 
 as much favor to be showen to you as may 
 possibly stand with my service or safety^ and if you 
 will yet trust my advyce (which I have com- 
 manded Digby to give you freely) I will bring 
 you so off, that you may still be useful to me ; 
 and I shall be able to recompense you for your 
 affection. If not, I cannot tell what to say. But 
 I will not dout of your complyance in this ; since 
 it so highly concerns the good of all my crownes, 
 my owen particular, and to make me have still 
 meanes to shew myselfe 
 
 Your most asseured frend, 
 
 Charles R." 
 
 Oxford, Feb. 3rd, 1645. 
 
 At first sight we are struck by the heartless 
 and egotistic tone of this missive, but it was 
 evidently written with the knowledge that it would 
 pass through the hands of Lord Digby ; for 
 there are other letters extant which breathe a very 
 different feeling, and to do Charles justice he was
 
 46 
 
 never insensible to the sufferings of his friends. 
 The next letter (also in the Harleian Collection) 
 was doubtless to be entrusted to another and 
 more reliable channel, and therefore it was written 
 with no pretence at reproof, and it shews that the 
 King, despite his public repudiation and his 
 private expressions to Ormond and others, still 
 had entire confidence in Glamorgan's judgment. 
 His Majesty wrote : — 
 
 *' Herbert, 
 
 I am confident that this honnest trusty 
 bearer will give you good satisfaction, only I have 
 not in everything done as you desyred ; the want 
 of confidence in you being so far from being the 
 cause thereof, that I am every day more and more 
 confirmed in the trust that I have of you. For, 
 believe me, it is not in the power of any to make 
 you suffer in my opinion by ill offices. But of 
 this, and diverse other things, I have given Sir 
 John Winter so full instructions that I will say no 
 more, but that I am 
 
 Your most assured constant frend, 
 
 Charles R." 
 
 Oxford, Feb. 28th, 1645. 
 
 Albeit the King had repudiated him, Glamorgan 
 continued to labour as gallantly as heretofore, and 
 we find him using his utmost endeavour to 
 induce the Confederate Catholics to consent to 
 the terms of peace off'ered by Ormond. This 
 renewed zeal was owing to the pressing need for 
 assistance in England, where each day affairs were
 
 47 
 
 becoming more desperate for the Royalist cause. 
 
 Unfortunately the Nuncio and others of the 
 clergy considered the terms offered by Ormond 
 extremely defective, and proposed that the Cessa- 
 tion' should be continued. They were ready to 
 agree that assistance should be sent to the King 
 prior to the conclusion of a treaty, but Glamorgan 
 objected, wishing the peace to be immediately 
 concluded. It was a fatal error on his part thus 
 to delay the despatch of the troops in the vain 
 hope of effecting a better treaty, for the Nuncio, 
 with the craft of an Italian and the wiliness of an 
 ecclesiastic, persuaded the Council to await the 
 conclusion of the treaty, which Sir Kenelm Digby 
 was negotiating with the Pope on the behalf of 
 Charles, through Queen Henrietta Maria, then in 
 Paris ; and to this, Glamorgan, influenced by the 
 Nuncio's representations, was induced to agree. 
 
 The treaty concluded by Sir Kenelm Digby in 
 France came to the Nuncio's hands about 
 January or February 1645-46. It stipulated for 
 entire religious freedom in Ireland, the restitution 
 of monasteries, the annulment of all penal laws 
 against Catholics, and an independent Irish Parlia- 
 ment, that the Irish Government and all the 
 principal Irish offices be put into the hands of 
 Catholics, who should hold equal rights of 
 honours, offices, and degrees with Protestants, 
 that the town of Dublin should be governed by 
 English or Irish Catholics, and that the Royalist 
 forces should co-operate with the Irish to drive 
 
 ' The Cessation or Truce was agreed upon by the contending 
 parties.
 
 48 
 
 the Parliamentary forces out of Ireland. All 
 this being performed by the King, the Pope 
 agreed to pay Queen Henrietta Maria a hundred 
 thousand crowns of Roman money, and authorized 
 the transportation of twelve thousand troops from 
 Ireland into England for the service of the King, 
 provided that their commanders were Catholic. 
 
 Meanwhile Chester was daily more vigorously 
 besieged, and Glamorgan anxiously implored 
 immediate help for his King and party, but the 
 Nuncio, with Sir Kenelm's treaty in his hand, 
 urged its formal acceptance either by the King, or 
 by the Queen on his Majesty's behalf In Dublin 
 it was rumoured that intrigue and procrastination 
 had rendered Glamorgan's efforts useless, for 
 Chester, it was said, had fallen. Glamorgan, 
 distraught with anxiety, could proceed no further, 
 for the Nuncio had persuaded the Kilkenny 
 Council that his treaties were really null and void, 
 for had not the King loudly repudiated his 
 authorities } Distrusted by the Council and the 
 Nuncio, his endeavours to reconcile both and pro- 
 cure aid only caused further suspicion. He 
 therefore wrote several letters to the Nuncio, 
 protesting his willingness to comply with all 
 demands, provided assistance were promptly 
 despatched to England ; and also, in an official 
 document, promised to ratify in the King's 
 name, any treaty concluded between the Pope 
 and Henrietta Maria. He succeeded at length 
 in inducing the Nuncio to regard this promise 
 as a treaty, and he then repaired to Waterford 
 to attend to the embarkation of a first draft of
 
 49 
 
 three thousand soldiers for the relief of Chester. 
 Three thousand more were to follow, and again 
 four thousand men were to be despatched in 
 two months' time. " If this will procure you 
 to be a glorious and happy King, I have no 
 other ends," Glamorgan wrote to Charles. Un- 
 fortunately, before the troops could be despatched, 
 Chester fell, and the King's message to Parliament 
 disowning Glamorgan being bruited abroad 
 among the Irish Catholics (it would seem that 
 only a portion of them had been previously 
 aware of the King's repudiation) once more the 
 long hoped for assistance melted away, and the 
 march of events in England continued unchecked 
 towards the tragedy of Royal defeat. 
 
 Meantime Glamorgan drew up a paper in 
 which he declared that the King had been forced 
 to act as he had, and that, in reality, he, Glamorgan, 
 was still authorized to effect a treaty which would 
 be binding to the King, even though Charles, in 
 the press of circumstance, were forced outwardly 
 to reject it. But the Supreme Council having 
 maintained their troops at Waterford for several 
 weeks, published their resolution against sending 
 them to England. 
 
 During all this treaty-making a separate agree- 
 ment was being negotiated with Ormond by the 
 Supreme Council, and in March it was concluded, 
 much against the Nuncio's will, or, "some say His 
 Reverence knew nothing thereof." We do not 
 know if Glamorgan was aware of this treaty, and 
 in fact we are in ignorance of his whereabouts 
 for several months.
 
 50 
 
 Meanwhile in England Glamorgan's affairs 
 were as unpropitious as those connected with 
 his political life. The great castle of Raglan 
 had been surrounded by Parliamentary troops 
 from the year 1642, as we have already seen 
 during Glamorgan's great Welsh campaign, but 
 about March, 1645, this desultory warfare grew 
 more serious, and Raglan was closely besieged. 
 The story of the ten weeks' siege is not the least 
 thrilling of the many struggles between King and 
 Parliament. Raglan had the honour of being the 
 last fortress of England held in His Majesty's 
 cause. The straits unto which the besieged were 
 brought were severe, but the aged Marquess of 
 Worcester made a long and gallant stand against 
 the Rebels, despite the presence of my lady of 
 Glamorgan in the beleaguered castle. Dr. Bayly, 
 my lord's chaplain, has left on record some 
 details. He tells us how a musket ball passed 
 through the window of my lord's dining apart- 
 ment, and flew within " an hair's breadth of the 
 Marquess's head, then crashed against the oak 
 wainscotting of the wall, and rebounded, flattened, 
 on to my lord's head." My lady of Glamorgan, 
 who was sitting at dinner with her husband's 
 father, fled, unnerved, from the chamber, but 
 returning craved his lordship's pardon. " Not so, 
 Madame," said the Marquess, " you had reason 
 to run away when your lord's father was knocked 
 on the head." Then, pausing awhile, and turning 
 the flattened bullet round with his finger, he con- 
 tinued, *' Ah ! gentlemen, those who had a mind 
 to flatter me were wont to tell me that I had a
 
 51 
 
 good head in my younger days ; but if I do not 
 flatter myself I think I have a good headpiece in 
 my old age, or else it would not have been 
 musket proof! " 
 
 Many were the sorties made by the loyal 
 garrison of Raglan, and continual the fierce 
 skirmishes with the Parliamentary forces, '* often 
 as many as 200 horse rushing forth, only to return 
 with the report of bootless labour." At length 
 General Fairfax, wearied with the prolonged 
 operations, and having sent many reinforcements 
 from Oxford to the besiegers at Raglan, repaired 
 thither in person with a still larger body of troops. 
 On the 7th of August he sent a summons to 
 Lord Worcester, setting forth the futility of 
 further resistance against such overwhelming 
 numbers, and my lord sent out a drum and com- 
 missioners to parley. The castle provisions had 
 run terribly low, and the vigilant watch of the 
 Parliamentary army entirely prevented any sup- 
 plies from passing through to the besieged. 
 Already the castle garrison was reduced to the 
 most meagre fare, and any lengthened resistance 
 was obviously impossible in any case, for there 
 were but three barrels of powder left. But there 
 were still a few bags of meal and corn, and my 
 lord decided to hold out for several days, pending 
 the conclusion of advantageous terms of surrender. 
 On August 17th these terms were concluded, and 
 on the 1 9th inst. the castle of Raglan was formally 
 surrendered to Sir Thomas Fairfax. The condi- 
 tions demanded by Lord Worcester, and conceded 
 by his adversary were as follows : — " The castle
 
 52 
 
 surrendered for the use of the Parliament, but all 
 the officers, soldiers, and gentlemen of the 
 garrison should march out with their horses and 
 arms, colours flying, drums beating, trumpets 
 sounding, and matches lighted at both ends ; 
 permission to select any place within ten miles of 
 the castle for the purpose of delivering up their 
 arms, after which the soldiers shall be disbanded 
 and set at liberty ; and safe conduct and protec- 
 tion given to all the inmates of Raglan Castle." 
 These conditions were performed, with the excep- 
 tion of the freedom to the Marquess himself, 
 who was conveyed prisoner to London, and 
 placed in the custody of the Parliament's Black 
 Rod. He continued in confinement until his 
 death in December, 1646. The castle of Raglan 
 was partially destroyed by order of the Parlia- 
 ment. Over the length and breadth of England 
 we find these ravages which were neither necessary 
 for the safety of the Parliament nor In accordance 
 with its boast that its actions were directed by a 
 zeal for the welfare of the kingdom. These 
 ravages are hateful for ever to the antiquary and 
 the artist. The French Revolutionists have been 
 justly execrated for the irremediable harm, often 
 the utter destruction, they wrought to the most 
 beautiful monuments of a nation's history and 
 art, and the EnMIsh Puritans stand accused of the 
 same vandalism. 
 
 In March, 1646 (old style), Glamorgan was 
 created Duke of Somerset and Beaufort, a title 
 which he never appears to have used, though the 
 patent is apparently quite in form and is now
 
 S3 
 
 preserved at Badminton. It remains, however, to 
 prove that while Charles in public repudiated 
 Glamorgan, and denied the authority he had 
 granted to him, in private he showed every wish 
 to honour and recompense him for his devoted, 
 though fruitless, efforts to procure assistance. It 
 would seem, throughout, that the King and 
 Glamorgan had some private understanding, for 
 there are letters, as already shewn, extant in the 
 Harleian collection and elsewhere, from the King, 
 after his forced repudiation of Glamorgan, in 
 which His Majesty repeats the assurances of his 
 trust in, and favour to Glamorgan. One im- 
 portant letter, quoted in the Nuncio's Memoirs, 
 and in Vittoria Siri's " Mercurio " runs : — 
 
 " Glamorgan, 
 
 I am not so strictly guarded, but that 
 if you send to me a prudent and secret person, I 
 can receive a letter, and you may signify to me 
 your mind. Having always loved your person 
 and conversation, which I ardently wish for at 
 present more than ever, if it could be had without 
 prejudice to you, whose safety is as dear to me as 
 my own. If you can raise a large sum of money 
 by pawning my Kingdoms for that purpose, I am 
 content you should do it ; and if I recover them 
 I will fully repay that money. And tell the 
 Nuncio, that if once I can come into his and your 
 hands, which ought to be extremely wished for by 
 you both, as well for the sake of England as 
 Ireland, since all the rest, as I see, despise me, I 
 will do it. And if I do not say this from my
 
 54 
 
 heart, or if in any future time I fail you in this, 
 may God never restore me to my Kingdoms in 
 this world, nor give me eternal happiness in the 
 next, to which I hope this tribulation will conduct 
 me at last, after I have satisfied my obligations to 
 my friends, to none of whom am I so much 
 obliged as to yourself, whose merits towards me 
 exceed all expressions that can be used by 
 
 Your constant Friend, 
 
 Charles R." 
 From Newcastle, July 20th, 1646. 
 
 This letter is posterior to the King's repudiation 
 of Glamorgan, who responded by forming a 
 desperate plan for conveying the King into Ireland, 
 out of the hands of his enemies. " If your 
 Majesty will resolve to come hither, I will hazard 
 my life to find out a way for it ; so necessary do I 
 think this to your Majesty's safety."' How far 
 this project was matured we do not know, but it 
 is certain that Charles was so strictly guarded that 
 he never found an opportunity of escape. 
 
 The treaties continued, constantly changing, 
 and confusion turns to chaos in this impenetrable 
 page of history, after the King managed to 
 convey to Ormond a private letter, in which he 
 bade him " obey all my wife's commands, do not 
 obey any public command of mine until I send 
 you word that I am free from restraint."'' 
 
 Glamorgan left Ireland in March, 1647-48, and 
 journeyed to France in the hope of being enabled 
 to procure money and assistance for his beloved 
 
 ' Nuncio's Memoirs. ' Carte.
 
 S5 
 
 master. Of what steps he took, or of how he 
 spent his time there is no record. The Court of 
 Queen Henrietta Maria was filled with English 
 nobles, who were for the most part so bereft of 
 worldly goods as to be often in want of a break- 
 fast, and Glamorgan's exile must of necessity 
 have resembled that of the other loyalists. From 
 Evelyn's Diary it would appear that many of the 
 refugees lived in Paris, and repaired but infre- 
 quently to the sorry Court held at St. Germains 
 by the daughter of "Henry the Well-beloved" — 
 La Reine Malheureuse, as she surnamed himself. 
 Nor was Her Majesty in a position to help her 
 exiled subjects, for we read in the Memoirs of the 
 Cardinal de Retz, " I found Her Majesty the 
 Queen of England in her daughter's chamber, who 
 has since been Duchess of Orleans. At my coming 
 in she said 'You see, I am come to keep Henrietta 
 company. The poor child could not rise to-day 
 for want of a fire.' The truth is the Cardinal 
 (Mazarin) for six months together hath not 
 ordered any money towards the Queen's pension ; 
 and that no purveyors will trust her, knowing 
 that she hath not a single ' billet ' in her 
 lodgings." 
 
 Clarendon tells us in his History of the 
 Rebellion how the great nobles of England were 
 forced to go on foot through the streets of Paris 
 for '* lack of funds to pay a coach hire." When 
 we consider that no one, save members of the lower 
 classes, walked in the streets of Paris, we can 
 better understand the historian's disgust at such a 
 state of things ; the more so, when we remember
 
 J6 
 
 that this custom prevailed in consequence of the 
 filthy condition of even the great thoroughfares 
 of France's capital. 
 
 We have no knowledge of Glamorgan's doings 
 from the time he left Ireland till his return to 
 England, nor actually are we aware whether he 
 passed the years of his exile entirely in Paris. 
 But we may presume that, wherever he was, he 
 was in no affluent position, for his entire fortune 
 was in the hands of Cromwell. 
 
 Queen Henrietta Maria either was moved to 
 pity by her own knowledge of Glamorgan's unre- 
 quited service, or in reality received her royal 
 husband's commands to give any object of value 
 she could dispose of to the devoted loyalist ; for 
 there is at Badminton a letter in Her Majesty's 
 own hand, written soon after Glamorgan became 
 an exile, in which she acknowledges his great 
 services and informs him that she has caused to be 
 delivered unto him " a necklace of ten large rubies 
 and two large diamonds called the Sancy and the 
 Portugal, acknowledging that besides his great 
 expences made by him for the King, our very 
 honoured Lord, he hath supplied us with three 
 hundred and seventy thousand Livres Tournois, 
 exclusive of the very great services, at least of 
 equal consequence, which up to the present time, 
 he hath rendered us. In regard of which we 
 make known that the said necklace entire belong 
 to him, so that he may sell it without interference 
 on our part." 
 
 When we read later Glamorgan's own statement 
 of the huge sums disbursed by his father and
 
 57 
 
 himself in the King's service, we shall not be 
 surprised that he was obliged to sell this necklace 
 to supply his urgent needs. But this generous 
 gift of the Queen's is a pleasing action by her, 
 whom historians have judged to have been the 
 King's evil genius, for we have seen that Her 
 Majesty was but ill-provided herself. 
 
 Though we have no definite knowledge of 
 Glamorgan's' doings during his sojourn abroad, 
 we have an evidence that he was not idle in his 
 beloved master's cause. There is a curious latin 
 letter at Badminton which has hitherto, on in- 
 sufficient grounds, been regarded as a forgery. 
 It is from the King to the Pope, written during 
 His Majesty's imprisonment in the Isle of Wight. 
 The original was probably delivered into the 
 PontifFs hands by Glamorgan, and the Badminton 
 document is merely a copy. It runs as follows : — 
 
 " Most Blessed Lord, 
 
 The most welcome letters of your Holiness, 
 full of kindness and attention, we received a month 
 since by the singular care and pains of our most 
 beloved kinsman, Edward, Earl and Marquess of 
 Worcester, to whom we have returned the 
 originals^ to keep, and upon whom whatsoever 
 powers your Holiness may think fit to confer, we 
 desire you to believe that you have conferred upon 
 
 ' In 1646, at the death of his father, Glamorijan became 
 Marquess of Worcester, but we shall here continue to call him 
 Glamorgan for convenience, and as it is under that name that he 
 is venerated by his descendants. 
 
 * These are unfortunately not at Badminton, nor indeed are they 
 in any other collection of documents hitherto discovered.
 
 58 
 
 ourselves, and doubt not but that, when the 
 occasion comes and by God's help our means are 
 restored, we will recognize the same with deepest 
 gratitude in accordance with the will of your 
 Holiness. As to the remaining matters that con- 
 cern us, we desire you to confide in the said 
 Marquess, who of all our supporters hath served 
 us best, especially as we have given him leave to 
 wait upon your Holiness to that end, for we are 
 obliged in order that this may be cautiously carried 
 out, thus abruptly to kiss the hands of your 
 Holiness. Given at our Court, in prison, in the 
 Isle of Wight, 20th April, 1649. 
 
 Your Holiness's most devoted 
 
 Charles R." ' 
 
 It would appear, therefore, that Glamorgan had 
 succeeded in conveying letters from the Pope to 
 the King, and that this is His Majesty's answer 
 accrediting his '* most beloved kinsman " to treat 
 with the Vatican for some secret object, which 
 the King, surrounded by spies, had not time or 
 security to specify, before he was obliged 
 *' abruptly to kiss his Holiness's hands." What 
 this object was we cannot say, whether it was the 
 religion of England that hung in the balance in 
 return for proffered help, in troops or monies to 
 bribe the crowd of canting Puritans, we shall 
 probably never know, but this letter shows us that 
 the unfortunate Monarch was struggling still in 
 the net of disloyalty which enmeshed him, and 
 
 ' For facsimile of this Letter see Plate.
 
 \ V 
 
 •S 
 
 .<S 
 
 II -^x 
 
 >> 
 
 ^ 
 
 V«B 
 
 ^ 
 
 = 5 
 
 
 -■^^ - 
 
 »— —iMirir iitii ill
 
 a 
 
 mi^imm 
 
 Jinfir fan Jun ef-^^/,.<y>-t^ 'i^n-nj- j^-, ■ ■' . - 
 
 /f^c, 
 
 
 
 c
 
 59 
 
 that Glamorgan was working as usual for the 
 King who had publicly disowned him. 
 
 As will at once be perceived, there is an error in 
 the dating of the letter. In April, 1649, the 
 tragedy had been over some two months, and 
 Europe stood aghast at the sight of a murdered 
 King and a triumphant regicide Parliament ruling 
 with more than kingly despotism. And, there- 
 fore, this letter has been put aside as unauthentic. 
 But it is unlikely that even the least ingenious 
 forger would have committed so glaring a mistake. 
 Who did not know the date of the King's 
 execution } What could have been the object 
 of the forgery at best ^ Moreover, as we have 
 seen, there is a constant discrepancy of dates at that 
 period, for between the old and new styles men 
 became confused. Then, too, there is only one 
 figure wrong, the nine — 1649 — for, in the April 
 of 1648 the King was indeed at his "Court in 
 Prison in the Isle of Wight." Why should it 
 not be merely a lapsus pennae of the copyist's? 
 Again the letter is endorsed at the back in 
 Glamorgan's own cipher (the key to which was 
 only discovered by Dircks about i860), and this 
 cipher, says *' The King's, out of the Isle of 
 Wight." Thus we may surely accept this letter 
 as genuine. 
 
 Through all the story of Glamorgan's life we, 
 who know the end, can feel the tragic futility of 
 the struggle he, in common with hundreds of 
 other loyalists, was making against the inexorable 
 fate, the shadow of whose dark mantle was so 
 surely closing over Charles Stuart. But this
 
 6o 
 
 forgotten letter shows us once more that unto the 
 very last the Courts of Europe were intriguing and 
 devising in order to avert the terrible doom from 
 the Kingly head, which Vandyck so loved to paint. 
 In 1650 or '51 Glamorgan suddenly returned 
 to England, whether from lack of means of sub- 
 sistence abroad, or from some political motive 
 we do not know ; for we are only apprized of 
 his return by the fact that he was immediately 
 seized and imprisoned in the Tower. The 
 historian, Kennet, tells us that Glamorgan 
 returned to England to collect private intelli- 
 gence as to the temper of the people towards 
 Charles II., for, Louis XIV., much against the 
 will of Cardinal Mazarin, seemed disposed to aid 
 the exiled King in an expedition to England, if the 
 disposition of the English nation seemed pro- 
 pitious to his Restoration. But though there is 
 every probabilily that this was the cause of 
 Glamorgan's return, we have no actual proof that 
 it was. Be it as it may, it was a bold return, for 
 the Parliament had stigmatized Glamorgan as 
 " traitor to, and enemy of, the Commonwealth, and 
 had doomed him to die without mercy." Lord 
 Herbert (Glamorgan's son, afterward first Duke 
 of Beaufort), was a member of the Revolutionary 
 Parliament, and was allowed a liberal income by 
 Cromwell out of the great fortune which the 
 Lord Protector enjoyed, a goodly sum of which 
 was supplied by the Worcester estates. Lord 
 Herbert seems to have frequented Cromwell's 
 house, for there is a well-know letter' in which 
 
 'Brit. Mus. Coll. MSS., Vol. XXXIII. p. 37.
 
 6i 
 
 Cromwell warns his wife against entirely trusting 
 him, and desires her not to permit his visits to be 
 numerous. 
 
 Glamorgan's imprisonment lasted some three 
 years, and from 1654 to the Restoration he was 
 free upon parole, living on a magnificent allowance 
 of £2 ^ week granted by Cromwell out of his 
 confiscated Worcester estates. It is likely that he 
 resided at Worcester House, for we know that his 
 wife had been permitted to abide there, but there 
 is little or no record of this portion of 
 Glamorgan's life. 
 
 In 1655 he published his book "The Century," 
 which some authorities state to have been com- 
 piled during his exile, others believe to have been 
 penned while he was imprisoned in the Tower, 
 but which was more probably written after his 
 liberation on parole. It is a curious little 
 book, and appears to be a mere summary of 
 inventions and devices. Glamorgan evidently 
 intended it to be followed by a larger treatise, 
 giving minute specifications for the putting into 
 practise of the inventions, of which the short 
 clauses of this note book are evidently only 
 descriptions, but this project was never accom- 
 plished. The " Century " is dedicated to Charles 
 II., and to both Houses of Parliament. The 
 first edition is extremely rare, but there have been 
 many later editions ; thirteen editions in separate 
 volumes, and twelve in magazines at diflFerent 
 times. Mr. Dirck's edition, printed at the end of 
 his " Life Times and Scientific Labours of the 
 Marquess of Worcester " has the advantage of
 
 6i 
 
 copious notes and a masterly preface by Mr. 
 Dirck himself. It is in other respects a verbatim 
 reprint from the first edition. 
 
 It is sad to follow Glamorgan through the years 
 of poverty which he passed, constantly petitioning 
 Parliament to return him some portion of his 
 confiscated estates. The fact that his son, Lord 
 Herbert, ' was apparently in far better circum- 
 stances than his now aged and impoverished 
 father, may be owing to his having sat in the 
 Revolutionary Parliament and to his being on 
 terms of friendship with the Protector himself. 
 But this personage does not seem to have en- 
 deavoured to alleviate his father's distresses, for we 
 find Glamorgan constrained to borrow small sums 
 of money from various friends. It must have 
 been with a pleasing expectation of recognition 
 for past service that Glamorgan saw his beloved 
 King's son restored to the throne, but, though 
 Charles II. had been profuse in his promises to 
 his needy adherents during their mutual exile, in 
 the catch word of the day " he seemed to have 
 passed not only an act of indemnity for his 
 enemies, but a finer act of oblivion for his friends 
 when he was restored to his kingdom," and, though 
 he afterwards raised Glamorgan's son to the 
 dignity of a Dukedom, he permitted the man who 
 had served his royal father so nobly to pass his 
 old age in penury. During their exile Charles II. 
 wrote to Glamorgan in answer it would seem to 
 some request made by his lordship for confirma- 
 
 ■ Afterwards created Duke of Beaufort by Charles II.
 
 63 
 
 tion of his titles. The King's letter is preserved 
 at Badminton. 
 
 " My Lord Worcester, 
 
 I am truly sensible of your great merit and 
 sufferings in the service of the King, my father, 
 and I shall never be wanting to reward and 
 encourage, as well that kindness to his person as 
 that zeal to his service, which you have expressed 
 in all your actions, and which I doubt not but you 
 will still continue to me. I fear that in this con- 
 juncture of time it will not be seasonable to grant, 
 nor for you to receive, the addition of honour you 
 desire ; neither can I at this time send you the 
 order you mention concerning the Garter, but be 
 confident that I will in due time give you such 
 satisfaction in these particulars and in all other 
 things that you can expect from me, as shall let 
 you see with how much truth and kindness I am 
 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 
 Charles R. 
 
 Jersey, 21/31 of October, 1649." 
 
 This letter was from an exiled Monarch to a 
 devoted adherent, but when that Monarch returned 
 in triumph to his Monarchy these promises were 
 forgotten. Charles II. surrounded by gay courtiers 
 and splendid mistresses had no thought for the 
 men who had suffered for their devotion to his 
 father's cause. Many were the petitions which 
 Glamorgan sent to His Majesty praying for the 
 restitution of his estates and for pecuniary assist- 
 ance. And though his estates in part were
 
 64 
 
 returned to him they were denuded of woods, and 
 his cUstle of Raglan, but an untenantable ruin. It 
 never transpires that any money passed from the 
 royal treasury to Glamorgan, though, by his own 
 statement, he and his father had disbursed over 
 >{^9i8,ooo' in the service of His Majesty of blessed 
 memory, Charles I. It is true that King Charles 
 II. was himself hard pressed for money ; we know 
 that he constantly demanded funds from his 
 Parliament, setting forth that his means were 
 inadequate to support the state of a King of Eng- 
 land, but the case of Glamorgan was at once so 
 deserving of recognition and so utterly piteous, 
 that one fails to comprehend the coldness of that 
 King who, at least, was possessed of a certain easy 
 kindness of heart. 
 
 Meanwhile Charles II. deigned to visit Bad- 
 minton, where Glamorgan's son. Lord Herbert of 
 Raglan, was living in great state. We learn from 
 a news letter dated Oxford, September, 1663, that 
 " the King and Queen were right royally enter- 
 tained by my Lord Herbert of Ragland," It does 
 not transpire whether Glamorgan and his son were 
 estranged, but it is indeed curious that the father 
 should be in poor circumstances while the son 
 entertained " right royally." In spite of patents, 
 royal promises, and great services, the Duke- 
 dom of Somerset, granted to Glamorgan by 
 Charles I. was not confirmed by Charles II., 
 on the contrary, in 1660, the House of 
 
 'There is at Badminton a paper in Glamorgan's hand stating 
 this to have been the total of the monies spent by him for Charles I. 
 from first to last.
 
 65 
 
 Lords declared that it was " a prejudice to the 
 Peers," Glamorgan made answer that the ** Patent 
 was left in his hands by the late King, to create 
 him Duke of Somerset upon certain conditions, 
 which never yet were performed ; that he had 
 made no use of it, and was willing to deliver it up 
 to His Majesty." This was done, and the 
 Dukedom of Somerset was ultimately conferred 
 on the Marquess of Hertford. However, the 
 titles of Earl of Glamorgan and Baron Beaufort, 
 conferred upon the Marquess of Worcester in 
 the same Patent, were retained " as settled by our 
 father of blessed Memory," Charles II., caused to 
 be written. It was surely but a sorry and 
 unkingly action thus to add humiliation to the 
 neglect of so loyal and deserving a subject ; 
 true, the Dukedom of Beaufort was afterwards 
 conferred upon Glamorgan's son, but that was 
 after the noble servitor had died in ignorance of 
 the tardy reparation. It would seem that, in his 
 need Glamorgan sought the aid of the King's 
 mistress, my Lady Castlemaine, for there is at 
 Badminton the draft of a letter to some person 
 not specified, in which the following passages 
 occur : — *' My Lord Arlington and my Lady 
 Castlemaine undertake to perfect my most humble 
 request to His Majesty, so that they shall incur 
 no risk of denial, and yet by the same obliging 
 hand of yours which promotes my most humble 
 suit, I shall present a thousand pieces to the 
 Duchess to buy her a little jewel to what she 
 deserves to wear every day of the week. And if 
 it pleases God I live but two years I will, out of 
 
 E
 
 66 
 
 the profits of my Water-Commanding Engine, 
 appropriate five hundred pounds yearly, for ever 
 to her Grace's, and two hundred pounds yearly, 
 likewise, to your disposal, all which, as I am a 
 gentleman and a Christian, shall be faithfully and 
 most thankfully performed, though the benefit I 
 pretend to by my petition will not amount to 
 what my gratitude obliges." Who the Duchess 
 may have been who was to be thus substantially 
 rewarded does not transpire. It cannot have been 
 my Lady Castlemaine, for she was only created 
 Duchess of Cleveland some five years after the 
 writing of this epistle ; nor can it have been, as 
 some have supposed, Louise de Kerouaille, 
 Duchess of Portsmouth, for that lady's successful 
 career in England did not commence until several 
 years later. The supposition that Ann Hyde, 
 Duchess of York was alluded to, is one 
 which has more likelihood. Her Grace became a 
 convert to the Church of Rome about the time 
 that this letter was penned, and it is probable that 
 she would have espoused the cause of a Catholic 
 in distress. Be this as it may, it is melancholy to 
 find Glamorgan thus reduced to a system of 
 bribery in order to gain in the favour of Charles II., 
 and it is surely a slur upon that Monarch to have 
 so entirely neglected his father's friend. We can- 
 not help wondering whence Glamorgan intended 
 to procure the thousand pieces which he promised 
 to bestow, for it was not impossible that the King 
 would refuse the petition, and Glamorgan did not 
 make the stipulation that his promises were only 
 to be performed in the event of his demands
 
 67 
 
 being granted, and if he were again denied we 
 know that he was so hard pressed for money as to 
 be constantly compelled to borrow small sums 
 from his friends in order to pay his living 
 expenses. There is a postcriptum to the said 
 letter which puzzles us still more, it runs : — 
 
 *' Because the profit accruing from my Water- 
 Commanding Engine may seem uncertain, I 
 humbly offer in lieu thereof and in token of my 
 gratitude, a judgment of ten thousand pounds a 
 year for four years, at the disposal of her Grace, 
 and two hundred pounds per annum at yours." 
 This amounted to an even larger sum in those 
 days than it represents to-day. Where, pending 
 some large grant from the King, did Glamorgan 
 propose to procure these sums ? It is with indig- 
 nation that we see him forced to resort to pro- 
 mises of pecuniary reward for the help he craves. 
 
 However, all this came to nothing, and 
 Glamorgan spent his few remaining years in 
 fruitless petition and disappointment. 
 
 Though the actual documents of his many 
 petitions are, as is usual in such cases, merely 
 formal applications, there are one or two sentences 
 in the course of those private letters (which 
 presumably accompanied the official documents) 
 which throw some light on the more important 
 period of this chequered career. In a letter to 
 my Lord of Clarendon, High Chancellor of 
 England, we have the actual proof, of what would 
 otherwise have been mere conjecture, namely, 
 that Glamorgan journeyed to Ireland to effect the 
 treaty with the Irish Catholics on the understanding
 
 68 
 
 that, were the negociations cither discovered 
 by the King's Protestant subjects, or by Parlia- 
 ment, the treaty, and the authorization there- 
 unto, should be denied by His Majesty, and the 
 entire mission repudiated. The letter to Lord 
 Clarendon opens by affirming that " For His 
 Majesty's better information, through your favour 
 and by the channel of your Lordship's under- 
 standing things rightly, give me leave to acquaint 
 you with one chief key, wherewith to open the 
 secret passages between his late Majesty and 
 myself, in order to his service ; which was no 
 other than a real exposing of myself to any 
 expense or difficulty rather than his just design 
 should not take place, or, in effect his honour 
 should suffer. An effect, you may justly say, 
 relishing more a passionate and blind affection to 
 His Majesty's service, than of discretion and care 
 of myself. This made me take a resolution that 
 he should have seemed angry with me at my 
 return out of Ireland, until I had brought him 
 into a posture and power to own his commands, 
 to make good his instructions, to reward my 
 faithfulness and zeal therein, and your lordship 
 may well wonder, and the King too, at the 
 amplitude of my commission. But when you 
 have understood the height of His Majesty's 
 design you will soon be satisfied that nothing 
 less could have made me capable to effect it ; being 
 that one army of ten thousand men was to have 
 come out of Ireland through North Wales." 
 Glamorgan continues to recount the scheme for 
 bringing Irish and foreign armies to the assistance
 
 69 
 
 of the Royalists in England. It was this scheme 
 which the Parliamentarians used as a most power- 
 ful tool with which to stir up and excite the fear 
 and indignation of half England against Charles I. 
 and his faction. The nation regarded this as 
 nothing short of murder, and, indeed, it was no 
 pleasant prospect to have immense hordes of 
 mercenaries turned loose upon England. As we 
 know the project was never accomplished. There 
 is another point of importance in this letter to 
 my Lord of Clarendon : — " The maintenance of 
 this army of foreigners was to have come from 
 the Pope and such Catholic Princes as he should 
 draw into it. For this purpose I had power to 
 treat with the Pope and Catholic Princes with 
 particular advantages promised to Catholics for 
 the quiet enjoying their religion, without the 
 penalties which the statutes in force had power to 
 inflict upon them. And my instructions for this 
 purpose, and my powers to conclude and treat 
 thereupon, were signed by the King under his 
 pocket signet, with blanks for me to put in the 
 names of Pope or Princes, to the end the King 
 might have a starting hole to deny the having 
 given me such commissions, if excepted against 
 by his own subjects ; leaving me as it were at 
 stake, who for His Majesty's sake was willing to 
 undergo it, trusting to his word alone." Here 
 we have Glamorgan's direct evidence that he had 
 willingly undertaken the sacrifice of his honour- 
 able word and reputation to shield the King, his 
 Master. We cannot fail to be struck by the tone 
 of this letter ; there is no reproach levelled at
 
 70 
 
 Charles I., no bitterness at speech or thought, and 
 whatever Glamorgan may have suffered, he uttered 
 no harsh word against the King, who had 
 repudiated him. 
 
 The documentary evidence is very slight for 
 this portion of the sad life it has been our privilege 
 to chronicle ; and indeed there is little more to 
 tell. In the year 1663 Charles II. caused an act 
 to pass through Parliament granting protection 
 for the famous water-commanding engine, but 
 even this act is not made in an entirely generous 
 spirit, for we find that '* one tenth part of the 
 benefit accruing therefrom " was to be reserved 
 for the King and his heirs. Thus, however, 
 Glamorgan had at least the satisfaction of knowing 
 his invention to be recognised as one of import- 
 ance ; and we have in this ofl^cial paper an 
 evidence that the great engine actually existed at 
 that time, though what became of it afterwards 
 we cannot say. 
 
 There are no more records of Glamorgan's life, 
 and also no further mention of him in contem- 
 porary memoirs. He died in April, 1667, in 
 London, and was conveyed with funeral solemnity 
 to the Church of Raglan, where he lies interred. 
 
 In the " Historical and Descriptive Accounts of 
 the Ancient and Present state of Ragland Castle " 
 (1806) there is an account of how, owing to the 
 falling in of part of the pavement of this church, 
 one, Mr. Tregoze, writer of the above-mentioned 
 work, was enabled to descend into the vault where 
 Glamorgan lies. Since that visit the vault has 
 been closed up in such a manner that in all human
 
 71 
 
 probability it will never be opened again. Mr. 
 Tregoze is our authority for the inscription on 
 Glamorgan's coffin : — 
 
 " Illustrissimi Principis Edwardi^ Marchionis et 
 Comitis de Glamorgan^ Baronis Herbert de 
 Ragland^ et qui obijt apud Londini tertio die 
 Aprilis, A, Dni. M.D.CLXVIir 
 
 and the legend : — 
 
 "Loyal to his Prince, a true lover of 
 HIS country, and to his friend most 
 constant," 
 
 We have faithfully chronicled the life of Edward 
 Somerset, first Earl of Glamorgan, second 
 Marquess of Worcester ; we have seen the 
 studious recluse passing his days in research, we 
 have seen him leave his beloved occupation at the 
 call to arms, we have seen him as soldier, followed 
 him through the vicissitudes of his strange mission 
 in Ireland, we have seen his hopes disappointed, 
 we have watched him during the great tragedy of 
 his life, his repudiation and humiliation, we have 
 seen him in exile, in prison, and in poverty. And 
 now we are asked " what manner of man was he, 
 this man of whose sad career you have written ?" 
 And indeed this memoir would be incomplete 
 without some picture of his character, but the 
 great retrospect of History is so entirely dependent 
 on the remarks, often on the mere casual jottings 
 of contemporaries, that it is divination rather 
 than the accurate science of research, which is
 
 72 
 
 called into action when we are speaking of the 
 character of an historic personage. The facts of 
 the past are chronicled in archives, proved by 
 official documents, preserved for ever in the annals 
 of a nation ; but the motives which moved 
 factions are merely to be read between the lines of 
 such chronicles, and the eternal factor of the 
 personal character of the promoters of these facts 
 is almost entirely forgotten in the press of achieve- 
 ment, or in the strenuous movement of endeavour. 
 And yet the vast enterprises, the great upheavals, 
 both the wars and the peaces of all time, have been 
 caused and determined either by the great 
 characteristics of a man, or by the predominant 
 forces at work in the minds and temperaments of 
 a group of men. It is exactly this which the 
 introspective spirit of to-day recognizes, and it 
 demands, not merely the telling of the actions of 
 men, but an exposition of the character of the 
 actors of other days, to explain, as it were, the 
 nature of the force, or forces, which propelled and 
 often created the actual facts of History. When 
 we consider, however, how scant is our knowledge 
 of the characters of those we have occasion to 
 study from life to-day, we can realize how perforce, 
 imaginary and incomplete, must be the summary 
 of the character of a man who is separated from 
 us by a gulf of years, and of the changes of 
 the entire habit of life. Owing to these facts it is 
 almost impossible for the product of one age to 
 judge and estimate justly the thought and character 
 of the product of another age. Time, however, 
 focusses the mental vision, and we may see clearly
 
 73 
 
 the great determining traits in a character, perhaps 
 with a truer vision than we are able to bring to 
 the examination of those beings who move 
 around us to-day. And yet we must recollect 
 that we are utterly dependent upon the evidence 
 of such contemporaries as have left personal 
 notes in memoirs, letters or diaries, for other- 
 wise we know only the larger facts of history. 
 Again, in sifting this evidence we must bear in 
 mind several things ; first, that the chroniclers 
 of other days were limited by exactly those 
 same disadvantages as are the observers of 
 to-day, such disadvantages as render each estimate 
 of the character of another but the half picture of 
 our own inmost being. Secondly, we must 
 admit that the chronicler's mood of the moment 
 both of observing and of recording, must deeply 
 influence his perception and his account. Again, his 
 opportunity of judgment must be considered, also 
 the personal charm or the reverse, exercised by 
 the subject upon his portrayer. Indeed, though 
 History has repeatedly shewn how potent a factor 
 is this personal charm, in matters great as well as 
 merely social, we are all too apt to forget the due 
 consideration of its absence, or presence in the 
 person of note in the days gone by. Consider, 
 for instance, the immense power of exactly this per- 
 sonal charm, or magnetism exercised by Charles I. 
 It was not only the devotion to a cause, to a prin- 
 ciple, or to an ideal, which caused men to give their 
 lives, their fortunes, their homes to his service ; 
 it was also his wonderful capacity for inspiring 
 loyalty and devotion, which undeniably counted
 
 74 
 
 more than we can gauge, in the great civil war of 
 England. 
 
 Having set forth the difficulties of forming 
 our estimate we will proceed to recount 
 such characteristics of Glamorgan as we have 
 gleaned in the few personal records which we 
 possess. We would say that he was a man 
 dowered with that vast capability for devotion 
 which is invariably, and of necessity, more 
 strikingly exhibited in times of trouble in all 
 nations, but which most peculiarly is the posses- 
 sion of the Englishman of every generation. In 
 Glamorgan's devotion lay his strength and the 
 great elevation of his character. Doubtless he 
 was a man of an unbounded generosity, and one 
 of those large natures which gave ungrudgingly. 
 Whether he was in truth destitute of the shrewd- 
 ness which caused his father, Lord Worcester, 
 to mistrust King Charles I., or whether he was 
 blinded by his affection, duped by promises, or 
 weakly dominated by the influence of the Monarch 
 he idolized, we cannot say. Evidently his father 
 warned him, but great natures, rich in trust, have 
 ever preferred to give their all to the object of 
 their respect and affection, without pausing to 
 consider the worthiness of the recipient. 
 
 As a soldier Glamorgan was unsuccessful, and 
 we would judge him to have been lacking in 
 that method, and discipline which must ever be 
 the attribute of a commander. 
 
 In his Irish mission we have evidence that he 
 did not possess the powers for successful intrigue. 
 But we must recollect that he was pitted not only
 
 7S 
 
 against the bigotry of the Religious factions, and 
 the stern anti-Popish prejudices of an Ormond, 
 but against the practised cunning of the Nuncio. 
 Intrigue is a fine art, and the successful intriguer 
 must be a person dowered by nature with an 
 aptitude for double-dealing, to which should be 
 added the practised skill of years of conspiracy. 
 It is not our intention to claim such powers for 
 Glamorgan, nor in our estimation would the 
 beauty of his character have been enhanced by 
 the possession of such Machiavellian subtleties, 
 though doubtless his career, notably throughout the 
 Irish negociations, would have proved more satis- 
 factory had he been gifted with these powers. 
 
 In fine, Glamorgan stands accused of a great 
 and engrossing devotion to his King, and of a 
 lack of the diplomatic, or intriguing faculties. 
 He may have been possessed of a certain im- 
 petuosity of enterprise which led him to place too 
 easy reliance in unreliable persons, but to the 
 fault of weakness of which he is accused in sundry 
 of the King's letters to Ormond, we cannot find 
 him guilty. Glamorgan's contemporaries regarded 
 him as a dreamer, as a fantastic person half-crazed 
 by strange theories, but Time has proved some of 
 his dreams to be realities, and many of his theories 
 are now universally accepted facts. His achieve- 
 ments may be counted as unimportant by students 
 of the wonderful matured machines, and scientific 
 knowledge of to-day. It has ever been that the 
 great discoveries, the wild dreams of one age, have 
 formed the ordinary heritage of accepted thought, 
 and theoiy of the next century. To estimate
 
 76 
 
 with a measure of justice the work of a pioneer of 
 science such as Glamorgan was, we must put off the 
 incurious eye of custom and endeavour to study 
 him with the mental vision of his generation, 
 aided by our superior knowledge of the ultimate 
 utility of his inventions. Thus we unhesitatingly 
 proclaim Glamorgan to have been the greatest 
 inventive genius of his time. 
 
 He apparently suffered from a stammer, or 
 some other defect of speech, for he wrote to 
 Charles II. that he wished to save His Majesty 
 the trouble of hearing his " natural defect of 
 utterance," and therefore he presented his petitions 
 in writing instead of beseeching His Majesty's 
 favour in person. We would say that he was 
 essentially a scholar, a man of grave manners, 
 decorous and austere of habit, a cavalier of the 
 time of Charles I. (a far different person from the 
 gay and dissolute courtier of Charles II. 's reign). 
 His was a sad life, unsuccessful and neglected, 
 hut because loyalty is very beautiful and devotion 
 very rare, surely the story of Glamorgan is worthy , 
 of a page in the annals of England's heroes, 
 telling of his love and service to his King. 
 
 FINIS.