After changing hands several times, Chepstow Castle appears to have been sold to the earl of Pembroke; whose heiress Elizabeth conveyed it by marriage, as we have already had occasion to relate, to Sir Charles Somerset, afterwards earl of Worcester. Churchyarde mentions the fact of the sale in his uncouth rhymes.
“To Chepstowe yet, my pen agayne must passe,
When Strongbow once (an earl of rare renown),
A long time since, the lord and maister was
(In princly sort) of casle and of towne.
Then after that, to Mowbray it befell,
Of Norfolke duke, a worthie known full well;
Who sold the same to William Harbert, knight,
That was the earle of Pembroke then by right.”
During the civil wars, this place was considered of great importance.
“At first, Chepstow was garrisoned for the king, until in 1645, Colonel Morgan, governor of Gloucester, at the head of three hundred horse and four hundred foot, and assisted by the mountaineers, with little difficulty made himself master of the town, and in a few days compelled the governor, Colonel Fitzmorris, to surrender the castle. But the castle was afterwards surprised by the loyalists, under Sir Nicholas Hemeys, who, in the absence of the governor, by means of a secret correspondence, obtained possession of the western gate, and made the garrison prisoners of war. On this event Cromwell marched against it in person, took possession of the town, but assailed the castle without success, though garrisoned only by a hundred and sixty men. He then left Colonel Ewer, with a train of artillery, seven companies of foot, and four troops of horse, to prosecute the siege. But the garrison defended themselves valiantly, until the provisions were exhausted, and even then refused to surrender under promise of quarter, hoping to escape by means of a boat, which they had provided for that purpose. A soldier of the parliamentary army, however, swam across the river, with a knife between his teeth, cut the cable of the boat, and brought it away; the castle was at length forced, and Sir Nicholas Hemys and forty slain in the assault. This event was considered by the parliament so important, that the captain who brought the news was rewarded with fifty pounds, and a letter of thanks was sent to Colonel Ewer and the officers and soldiers engaged in that service.”
In 1645, the castle, with the other estates belonging to the marquis of Worcester, were settled upon Oliver Cromwell, but were given back to the family at the restoration.
“For thirty years secluded from mankind,
Here Marten lingered. Often have these walls
Echoed his footsteps, as with even tread
He paced around his prison. Not to him
Did nature’s fair varieties exist:
He never saw the sun’s delightful beams,
Save when thro’ yon high bars he pour’d a sad
And broken splendor.”
All this, it now appears, is a poetical exaggeration, and the thirty years’ captivity (diminished to twenty years) passed away as easily as the sense of captivity would permit. The regicide was permitted to spend his property as he pleased, to enjoy the association of his wife, to receive visits, and even to return them in the neighbourhood, accompanied by a guard.
Marten was one of the most zealous of those men who cast down the statue of royalty from a pedestal, upon which, although re-erected, it can never again stand securely of its own strength unsupported by public opinion. He does not appear to have been himself of irreproachable character, but he was honest at least in theory, and true to his principles, such as they were.
“Being authorised,” says Anthony Wood, “by parliament, about 1642, he forced open a great iron chest, within the college of Westminster, and thence took the crown, robes, sword, and sceptre belonging anciently to king Edward the Confessor, and used by all our kings at their inaugurations; and with a scorn greater than his lusts and the rest of his vices, he openly declared that there should be no farther use of those toys and trifles, and in the jolity of that humour he invested George Wither (an old puritan satyrist) in the royal habiliments; who being crowned and royally arrayed (as well right became him) did first march about the room, with a stately garb, and afterwards with a thousand apish and ridiculous actions exposed those sacred ornaments to contempt and laughter.”
Marten was a member of the high court of justice, regularly attended the trial, was present when sentence was pronounced, and signed the warrant of death. It is added, that when Cromwell took up the pen to sign, he spattered some ink upon Marten; and Marten, when his turn came, returned the frolic! The two friends, however, were enemies at last. Cromwell would have made himself king if he had been able, but Marten said, “If they must have a king, he had rather have had the last than any gentleman in England; he found no fault in his person, but in his office.” When the regicides who surrendered to the king’s proclamation were condemned, they claimed mercy on the score of having given themselves up in order to save their lives; and Marten, always forward and fearless, added, “that he had never obeyed any proclamation before this, and hoped that he should not be hanged for taking the king’s word now.” He was at length condemned to perpetual imprisonment, but both in the Tower and in Chepstow Castle he was treated with great lenity. He died of apoplexy in the twentieth year of his confinement, and seventy-eighth of his age. He was buried in the chancel of the parish church at Chepstow, and a stone, with an inscription written by himself placed over his body. This was removed, however, to another part of the church, by the pious loyalty of a succeeding vicar; but the stone being defaced, a new one was substituted, by order of the churchwardens, in 1812, with the original epitaph.