Viscount Culpepper.
Viscount Clifford.
Viscount Craven.
“The Marquis of Worcester is to have notice hereof; and if his Lordship be not present in the House on Monday morning, then witnesses are to be examined upon oath in the business, by the Committee.”[J]
On the 1st of September it was “Ordered, That the said Committee do meet on Monday next in the Prince’s lodgings;” but in repeating the names the Earl of Bristol was omitted.
On the 3rd of September, the Lord Arundel of Warder signified to the House, “That the Marquis of Worcester hath delivered up the patent to his Majesty, for the Dukedom of Somerset.” When it was—
“Ordered, That the same Committee prepare a Bill, that all patents and grants obtained since the beginning of the late wars shall be brought within a short time to be limited, or else the same to be vacated.”
In consequence of this order, on the 5th of September, Lord Roberts reported the Draught of a Bill for bringing in of grants and patents, which was twice read and committed; and being read a third time on the 6th, it was duly passed.
It is very humiliating to find the Marquis of Worcester stripped, not only of his great wealth, but of even empty titles; and this latter act not by professed enemies, but through his peers conjointly with his very sovereign! There is something so utterly contemptible in the whole proceedings, which deprive without substitution, and sap the wealth of any man without an adequate effort at remedial measures, that we feel perplexed how to account for treatment so heartless and discreditable; whether considered in reference to Charles the First, or his son and successor, or the reformed Parliament. In all the relations of private life the conduct of Charles the First was as commendable as that of his son was reprehensible; and if Charles the Second had viewed the Marquis’s case only in respect to his father’s private debts, he must have felt bound in honour and in common gratitude to assist and uphold the Marquis of Worcester in every way and by every means consistent with existing circumstances. It is true that his property was restored along with the very deeds held by Cromwell, but his Castle was an untenantable ruin, and his estates denuded of their wood; so that without fortune, and in debt, his possessions were almost valueless. Besides, the Marquis was remarkably modest and fastidiously considerate in all he urged; yet he sought royal patronage in vain, for the gay monarch was not to be won from his levity by the philosopher’s most plausible petitions.
On the 14th of December, 1661, Lord Herbert and other members brought a message to the Lords, with several Bills, one being “An Act for confirming the Marquis of Hertford to the Dukedom of Somerset,” which had passed the House of Commons; and on the 17th, having then been read a third time, it also passed the House of Lords.