Also, “For the county of Gloucester, and the city and county of the city of Gloucester, Henry Lord Herbert of Raglan, &c.” along with 21 other Commissioners.
The Marquis of Worcester had every reason to expect an agreeable change of fortune on the accession of Charles the Second to the throne. He made a full declaration to Lord Clarendon of the powers under which he had acted for the late King in Ireland. He recovered a large portion of his estates. He had given up all claim to the promised title of Duke of Somerset. He was granted an Act of Parliament for his Water-commanding Engine, in 1663; and immediately after he printed the first edition of his “Century of Inventions.” But he was entirely neglected by the frivolous monarch on whose consideration and patronage he had calculated, with his usual confiding sincerity of heart.
Worn out by three years’ delay, without any prospect of improvement, he seems to have concluded on an appeal in person to the House of Lords. But his first course was to submit a draft of his proposed discourse to his Majesty, agreeable to an understanding at the Hague, when his Majesty was in exile, that he should so act, previous to consulting any of his ministers. The document now at Badminton, is most likely his Lordship’s own copy of the one forwarded to the King, who seems either to have discouraged its being brought forward, or to have given it no further attention. It is in every sense a remarkable production, whether as regards its matter, its style, or the extraordinary evidence it affords of his Lordship’s unbounded confidence in and devotion to Charles the First. The MS. is endorsed—
“Statement of the Marquis of Worcester’s expenses for his King and country;” and is as follows:—
“May it please your most excellent Majesty.
“Sire,
“To ease your mind of a trouble incident to the prolixity of speech, and a natural defect of utterance which I accuse myself of, I have presumed here to set down summarily in writing what I desire (if your Majesty approve thereof) to speak in the House of Lords, whereby your Majesty may gather how far (some things being rectified) I am confident of myself to serve you, praying your Majesty’s favourable construction of what I shall endeavour candidly to submit unto your Majesty.
“In the first place, according to your most gracious commands laid upon me at the Hague, when I offered to make my Lord Chancellor privy to what I should at any time presume to offer to your Majesty’s transcendent judgment, having sufficiently suffered for treating with the late King, of happy memory, alone; to which request of mine you were pleased to give this most gracious and never-to-be-forgotten reply, that, notwithstanding you would have me first to acquaint yourself therewith, and then only such as your Majesty should consent unto, and think proper for it: In pursuance whereof I most humbly offer this following discourse, which I shall with a most ready and implicit obedience augment, diminish, or alter, as your Majesty shall think fittest; disputing nothing, much less waiving anything, that your Majesty shall command either as to substance or circumstance.
“My Lords,
“Amongst Almighty God’s infinite mercies to me in this world, I account it one of the greatest that his Divine goodness vouchsafed me parents as well careful as able to give me virtuous education, and extraordinary breeding at home and abroad, in Germany, France, and Italy; allowing me abundantly in those parts, and since most plentifully at my master of happy memory, the late King’s Court, by which means, had it not been my own fault, I ought to have become better able and more capable to serve Almighty God, my King and country, which obligatory ends of theirs have I always had in my eyes, as drawing and sucking them thence, it being certainly the greatest and surest portions parents can leave to their children; since breeding and knowledge cannot be taken from them, when as riches and possessions are fading and perishable, witness my own case, my Lords. Yet, by dear-bought experience and their great expenses, for which I honour the happy memory of my most beloved parents, more than for my very life, drawn from them, they giving me by the one but my being, and by the other my bene esse. Whereby I find nothing more certain than that the way to make oneself considerably useful to his Prince and nation, is the surest means for him to become cherished by them, which they then do for their own sake, not his, though he had spent and lost above 7, or £800,000, sterling; and narrowly escaped several times, both by sea and land, imminent dangers, and long and close imprisonment, and a scaffold, threatening death, as I have done, Experte Crede Roberto, my Lords; yet happy is this day unto me, wherein I have the honour, sitting amongst your Lordships, to express from my heart that I have not the least repining thought within me, though I had suffered ten times more for so good a cause, and so gracious and obliging a master as the late King, of happy memory, was unto me. And for so majestical and promising a Prince as my new sovereign is, whom God long preserve; and, morally speaking, cannot do amiss, whilst he hearkens to so wise a great Council, and so tender of his good and welfare as your Lordships, assisted by so discreet, experienced, and well-affected persons as sit now in the honourable House of Commons, the whole kingdom’s representatives. And may your Lordships be ever as tender of your innate privileges, members, and birthrights, as they of theirs, and both of you equally likewise tender of his Majesty’s just and undoubted prerogatives, upon which two hinges, or rather bases (that is, our most gracious King’s prerogatives and the birthright of his subjects), this excellent government of King and Parliament outvies and excels all other in the world. Let them, therefore, my Lords, hold together as the surest props of a settled kingdom; his Majesty’s power consisting in nothing more than in the greatness of your Lordships, who are, as well by Divine Providence as human policy, allotted to be as it were the medium between the King and the people; that is, to interpose yourselves as mediators if the King’s supreme authority should become severe, which cannot be feared from so gracious a Prince; as also to be curbers of the people’s rustic stubbornness, if they should prove insolent, which cannot likewise happen to a nation that hath so lately smarted for such inconveniences, as, had the Lords’ former greatness and power been continued in them, could never have happened; for, as I hold with the old saying, No Bishops, no King, so may I boldly aver that no power of temporal Lords being extant, there will be neither Bishop nor King. But I am too tedious, my Lords; yet what I further shall presume to say, will need no eloquence, being upon a theme pleasing, as I humbly conceive, to the minds of all your Lordships, there being none of you whose birth brings you unto this place, but so much generosity possesses your hearts, that you conclude and harbour a firm resolution to believe and follow that noble and heroic maxim—Beatius est dare quam accipere, since Beneficium accipere est libertatem vendere, a thing beneath your Lordships. According, then, to which maxim, as having the honour to be a member of this House, esteeming in the first place the right of Peerage, even before the titles of Earl, Marquis, or Duke; as a Peer, therefore, I say of this House, I shall (with your Lordships’ approbation) humbly offer a present unto his most excellent Majesty, our most gracious Sovereign, a present, my Lords, which cannot be done without you, and fit to be owned by a House of Lords, it being no less than to raise an auxiliary troop for his Majesty’s Life-guard, of an hundred horse, and commonly called in France an hundred Meistres; [Reistres?] that is, each Cavalier to keep a servant with a led horse, as well as his own, and one of them to be worth £100. The whole troop shall amount the first day unto upwards of ten thousand pounds, besides arms and equipage accordingly; nay, my Lords, every one of this troop shall be of that quality and power as to be capable to raise at his Majesty’s command an hundred men in 14 days; and at the entering into the troop, shall furnish into his Majesty’s store-house a 100 foot arms, two parts fire-arms, and the third pikes, at his own proper cost and charges, and marked by him, there to be kept till his Majesty’s occasions be to raise men accordingly: but God long preserve his Majesty from needing of them; yet if, at any time, then will his Majesty have in readiness at a fortnight’s warning 10,000 men, without costing his Majesty or the kingdom sixpence, till they be raised and armed. And that most worthy nobleman, the Earl of Northampton, who, according to the Spanish saying, So many brothers united so many castles,[G] hath approved himself to be such in gallantry and strength for his King and kingdom’s defence, is desirous and willing through his zeal to his Majesty’s service, to be but lieutenant to the said troop. But the whole troop, consisting of such persons qualified as above-mentioned, volunteers, and not serving for pay or gain, will deservedly require not to be put upon common services, and not to be commanded but by his Majesty, or his most deserving general the Duke of Albemarle; and they themselves not to be tied to daily duties, but to have liberty to substitute some gentleman of quality, or an experienced officer, to serve for him at any time when his Majesty requires not his personal appearance, and that the Captain of the troop gives way unto it. I presume, my Lords, to nominate my Lord of Northampton but as second to me, because his goodness and zeal to his Majesty’s service makes his Lordship contented to give me the precedence as Captain, though far less worthy, and shall indeed be but a servant to his Lordship and the rest of the troop, in order to his Majesty’s command, and the welfare of his tenderly beloved people. The rest of the troop shall be nominated when your Lordships shall approve of the motion, and his Majesty vouchsafe an acceptance thereof. They shall all of them be approved persons in zeal, loyalty, and allowed by you, and do ambition the honour of being called a troop of the House of Lords, and being so termed, and most of them of your members, I dare without vanity affirm that no King in Christendom but may boast of such a troop; and it will not only be a safety to his Majesty’s person, but an honour to the whole nation; and an evident testimony of your Lordships’ constant loyalty and zeal to both King and kingdom, and will keep up the honour of this House, and not subject [it] again to be thrust out of doors; and I beseech your Lordships that I may be rightly understood, for it is my duty to his Majesty, and the honour I bear to this House, and not the ambition of being Captain of the said troop, that makes me to motion the raising thereof; for as I acknowledge that there are many greater persons in the House, as well titular as real, in merit and power, any of whom, if they please to undertake it, I shall with more joy and readiness serve as a trooper therein, than to have the command thereof.