He bore the second or family title of Lord Herbert, from March, 1628, to the end of March, 1643; being on the 1st of April following, created Earl of Glamorgan (during his father’s lifetime) by Charles the First, he was best known by that title, from the part he took in Irish affairs during the civil commotions from 1644, until the decease of his father in 1646; when, in consequence of the Cromwellian Parliament refusing to acknowledge any of the King’s later creations of Peers, he was uniformly styled Earl of Worcester; but at the Restoration in 1660, his proper style of Marquis of Worcester was fully recognized. These latter party distinctions now materially serve to fix or limit the dates of some documents, not otherwise to be approximated.
Until the 27th year of his age we meet with little respecting his education, travels, and pursuits. With his marriage commenced his engagement with that artificer Caspar Kaltoff, whom he employed in promoting his own practical course of studies in a branch of inquiry which had never before, and has never since, been so assiduously examined and tested. The pursuits then commenced and indefatigably pursued, as well for instruction as amusement, combined with a strong natural bias for such occupations, may have served at a later period, under less favourable circumstances, to lighten the tedium of exile and imprisonment.
He enjoyed but seven years of married life, being then left with three children, and remained a widower for three years; when, in 1639, he married a second time, having but one child by his second marriage, who died an infant. In the family group, painted by Hanneman (now first engraved), the artist has drawn him seated beside his wife and child; but when this work was executed is unknown, although it most likely dates between 1639 and 1641.
The breaking out of the Civil War would seriously interfere with the Marquis of Worcester’s scientific investigations; he would no longer be able to settle down to the serious study of his favourite authors; his models and mechanical experiments would be in abeyance; and there was no alternative left for him but to unite himself to the cause either of the King or the Parliament. His loyalty led him to choose the former course, and his association with Charles the First, combined with that unfortunate monarch’s unhappy situation and disposition, eventually worked the entire ruin of the Marquis of Worcester. But apart from the ordinary occurrences of the war, it was his misfortune to be selected by the King to act as his emissary in negotiating a peace with the Roman Catholic party in Ireland, on terms contrary to the established religion of the realm and irrespective of the laws. That he should have listened to the urgent demands of his sovereign is, under any circumstances, not very remarkable; and we are the less disposed to be surprised at his being won over by the King’s solicitations, considering that he was not a practised statesman, and that the proposed measure was preceded by his being created Earl of Glamorgan, and that it was represented as offering enlarged privileges to his own church and party, as well in Ireland as in England. A more cautious politician might have suspected some ulterior design beneath this promising external appearance, might have questioned the possibility of some extraordinary exercise of the royal prerogative, and at length concluded that no measure was safe, coming from a sovereign who actually seemed to imagine that divine right was delegated to him to annul any obligation whatever, however freely tendered by himself, provided he could satisfy his own conscience that his so acting would be to the advantage of the Crown. But the Marquis was no grovelling worldling; he had left the study for the battle-field, and for awhile abandoned the path of philosophy to become the King’s agent in Ireland. It was thus that his loyalty and his zeal, uniting with his religious sentiments and his sovereign’s gracious conduct toward him, and seeming sincerity, combined effectually to plunge himself, his family, and his posterity into a series of disastrous losses in fortune and property.
He had not been many months a refugee in France, when he received a very welcome and highly gratifying acknowledgment of his past services, from the exiled Queen, in a present of valuable jewels, accompanied with a testimonial, empowering him to make what use he might please of the regal gift. The original, written in French and sealed with the royal arms, is translated as follows:—
“Henrietta Maria R.,
“We, Henrietta Maria of Bourbon, Queen of Great Britain, have, by the order of the King our very honoured Lord and Husband, caused to be delivered into the hands of our dear and well beloved cousin, Edward Somerset, Count and Earl of Worcester, a necklace of Rubies, containing ten large Rubies and one hundred and sixty pearls set and strung together in gold; among the said Rubies are likewise two large diamonds called the Sancy and the Portugal, acknowledging that besides the great expenses made by him for the said King our very honoured Lord, he has supplied us with three hundred and seventy thousand Livres Tournois,[B] exclusive of the very great services at least of equal consequence, which up to the present time, even, he has rendered us, in regard to which we make known that the said necklace and diamonds belong entirely to him, so that he may either sell or engage them without any interference on our part, or that of any other, or seeking after or troubling any person, who may buy them, or lend money on the ten jewels heretofore mentioned, in faith of which we have signed this present and put thereto our Royal Seal in our Court at St. Germain en Laye, this 20th day of May, one thousand six hundred and forty-eight.”
(Royal Arms.)
The lamentable fate that befel Charles the First, effectually terminated all expectation of relief; and therefore, from the year 1647, when the Marquis left Ireland, to 1660 the period of the Restoration, about 13 years, was, if possible, the most unhappy and gloomy of his eventful life. He was about five years in exile, about two years and a quarter a prisoner in the Tower, and nearly six years a state prisoner at large, most likely under strict surveillance.
The year following his Lordship’s release from the Tower, 1655, will ever be memorable for his having then written his “Century of Inventions,” which was published eight years later.