[M] From additional MSS. Brit. Museum, 11,338–3. “Letter Book of Sir W. Brereton, 1645.” 3 vols. folio, Vol. 1, page 69.
[22] Carte.
[19] Birch.
[N] Birch’s Inquiry, p. 58.
[7] Bayly, Ap. XIX.
CHAPTER VII.
RAGLAN CASTLE—ROYAL VISITS.
While the Earl of Glamorgan was zealously prosecuting Charles the First’s designs in Ireland, he had left his Countess under his father’s protection at Raglan Castle. At the commencement of this period the noble Marquis would be in about the 63rd year of his age, rather feeble, and a martyr to gout, which his fondness for claret may have aggravated; a pleasant story being related by his chaplain, that on the physician recommending abstinence from his favourite beverage, he declared that he would rather incur the attacks of his old enemy than abandon his favourite claret.[7]
Between the years 1640 and 1641 Raglan Castle had been strongly garrisoned, when much activity was evinced in providing and securing stores, arms, and the munitions of war. It must, therefore, have worn a very animated and impressive appearance, occupied as it was by hundreds of soldiers, with a large number of war-horses. The exercising of the troops would most likely take place daily in the extensive paved or pitched court, under full view of the drawing-room windows, a spacious upper apartment, ranging behind the hexagonal towers of the grand entrance, all of which remain to this day.