[61] Leyburn, p. 61.
CHAPTER XI.
THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER AN EXILE; RESIDES IN FRANCE.
The Earl of Glamorgan, succeeding to his father’s title and honours in December, 1646, while he was yet in Ireland, very soon after, as we have seen, went to France, a voluntary exile. His countrymen had heaped on him (in common with the entire Roman Catholic adherents to the royal cause) all the acrimonious abuse which political and religious intolerance is always too ready to disseminate, with a zealous ardour which defies discrimination. His fate, it is true, was the general fate of hundreds of noble families, condemned in like manner to suffer for their loyalty. While we are prone to praise what is gained by a rebellion, we are apt to overlook whether the civil war entered upon for effecting it, might not have been avoided; and while lauding times which bring to light some great military and naval spirits or still greater statesmen, we overlook entirely the possibility of altogether destroying the mental energies of men of brighter intellects, doomed to fall in the flower of their age on the field of battle. The blessings of good government all readily admit, but sad indeed is it, when wholesome changes in a state have to be effected through convulsions that paralyse a nation’s advance in civilization.
It is clear, on a retrospect, that much has been delayed, much missed, and more possibly lost that otherwise might have arisen from energies sacrificed, alas! to the sword, and fortunes turned into other and wasteful channels. In this nineteenth century we can calmly look with some wonder and astonishment on the indifference of the seventeenth, in failing to realize at least some of the Marquis of Worcester’s remarkable Inventions, of which we shall shortly have to treat more at large.
On the 18th of September, 1646, the House of Commons “Ordered, That the Lady Herbert, wife of the Lord Herbert of Raglan, shall have Mr. Speaker’s pass to go into France, only according to the pass given her by Sir Thomas Fairfax.”
Mr. Carte,[24] in his life of the Duke of Ormond, incidentally alludes to the Marquis of Worcester, as being at Paris a few months before March, 1648; he says:—
“In 1648, the Duke of Ormond considered the Parliament was grown jealous of him, and wanted a pretext to seize his person. He had notice likewise given him, that a warrant was actually issued out for that purpose, though in breach of the articles.[A] Upon this advertisement, he quitted Acton—ten miles from Bristol, where he was then residing,—and crossing the country to Hastings in Sussex, he took shipping for France, and landed happily at Dieppe in Normandy. From thence he went in the beginning of March [1648] to Paris, there to wait upon the Queen and Prince, and assist with his advice in the present conjuncture of affairs, when matters of the greatest consequence, the most intricate nature, and the most embroiled circumstances, were under their consideration, and resolutions to be taken therein for his Majesty’s service:”—he having just previously escaped from the Isle of Wight.
“The Earl of Glamorgan[B] had come to Paris a few months before him, recommended by the Nuncio Rinuccini to Cardinal Mazarine, and to the Pope’s Nuncio in that place, on account of his attachment to the Holy See, though unfortunate in all his undertakings, and not endued with that prudence which was necessary to the post he desired. His business there was to solicit the Queen to make him Governor of Ireland, but he met with so ill a reception at Court, that he soon despaired of succeeding. His Lady, to whom the Marquis of Ormond had once made his addresses, (before he had hopes of marrying his cousin, and uniting the estate of his family) resented the neglect shewed of her Lord, and imputed it, as well as his imprisonment at Dublin, to the influence and power of the Marquis. She carried her resentment so far, that when he waited upon her after his arrival at Paris, and offered to salute her, she turned away her face with great disdain. The Marquis thereupon made her a reverence, and with great presence of mind, said, ‘Really, Madam, this would have troubled me eighteen years ago;’[C] and then went to the next, the company present being of his acquaintance, and much pleased with what he had said.”