by a committee of the council, when he exonerated his Majesty, and requested that the whole blame of the matter might be attributed to him; as he had consulted with no one on the subject, but the parties with whom he had made the agreement.[3]

When the intelligence of his lordship's imprisonment reached Kilkenny, where the supreme council then held their sittings, the Catholics were thrown into the greatest confusion, and some insisted on an immediate recourse to arms for his enlargement. These proceedings, however, were soon stayed by the friends of the Earl of Ormonde, and his lordship was shortly afterwards released on bail. As soon as this was effected he repaired to Kilkenny, in order to expedite the embarkation of a force amounting to about three thousand men, which had been raised for the relief of Chester; and, had there been a sufficient co-operation on the part of the general council, they might have sailed time enough to have afforded the most essential service to the royal cause; but after repeated delays on their part, intelligence was brought of the loss of that important city; and the Marquis, finding that his further stay in Ireland was attended with considerable hazard to his own life, without any commensurate benefit to his Majesty, resolved on embarking for France, where he was soon after joined by the exiled queen.

Immediately after his lordship's departure for the continent, the parliamentary forces under Sir Thomas Fairfax appeared before Ragland; and being refused admission by the venerable old Marquis, their hostile approaches were carried on with great vigour, in spite of repeated sallies from the fortress. The gallant veteran, however, finding the garrison, which at first consisted of only 800 men, reduced to less than half that number, surrendered on honourable terms on the 17th August. Notwithstanding the pledge given by Sir Thomas Fairfax, the conditions of capitulation were most disgracefully violated, and the Marquis was committed to the custody of the Black Rod, where he languished till the December following; when he expired in the eighty-fifth year of his age, and was buried in St. George's Chapel at Windsor.

In the mean time the fortifications of Ragland were destroyed, and all the timber in the parks was cut down, and sold by the committee of sequestrations. The lead alone that covered the castle was sold for 6,000 pounds, and the loss to the family in the house and woods, has been estimated at not less than 100,000 pounds!

From the destruction of Ragland castle by the Parliamentary forces, till the beginning of 1654, the earl's name scarcely occurs in the political history of those times; but about that period, we find him attached to the suit of Charles II., who then resided at the court of France: and in the following year he was dispatched by the exiled monarch to London, for the purpose of procuring private intelligence and supplies of money, of which the king was in the greatest need. He was, however, speedily discovered and committed a close prisoner to the Tower, where he remained in captivity for several years.

Some idea of the state of indigence to which the Marquis was now reduced may be formed from a perusal of the following Letter, directed to the celebrated Colonel Copley, who was, it appears, one of the noble Author's supporters.

"Dear Friend,

"I knowe not with what face to desire a curtesie from you, since I have not yet payed you the five pownds, and the mayne businesse soe long protracted, whereby my reallity and kindnesse should with thankefullnesse appeare; for though the least I intende you is to make up the somme allready promised, to a thousand pownds yearly, or a share ammounting to farr more, (which to nominate before the perfection of the woorke were but an individuum vagum, and therefore I deferre it, and vpon noe other score,) yet, in this interim, my disapointments are soe great, as that I am forced to begge, if you could possible, eyther to helpe me with tenne pownds to this bearer, or to make vse of the coache, and to goe to Mr. Clerke, and if he could this daye helpe me to fifty pownds, then to paye yourself the five pownds I owe you out of them. Eyther of these will infinitely oblige me. The alderman has taken three days time to consider of it. Pardon the great troubles I give you, which I doubt not but in time to deserve by really appearing

"Your most thankful friend
Worcester.

28th of March, 1656.

"To my honored friend
Collonell Christopher Coppley,
These."

On the king's restoration, the Marquis of Worcester was one of the first to congratulate his Majesty on the happy event, though the situation of the unfortunate nobleman was little bettered by the change; indeed it appeared but as the signal for new persecutions, as one of the earliest public acts of that ungrateful monarch may be characterized as an invidious attempt to set aside the just claims of his earliest and best friend.

In 1660 the House of Lords appointed a committee to consider of the validity of a patent granted to the Marquis of Worcester in prejudice to the Peers, upon the first intimation of which his Lordship sent a messenger to the committee then sitting, stating his willingness to surrender it, and it was shortly afterwards presented to the House by his son Lord Herbert.

In 1663 appeared the first edition of the noble Author's Century of Inventions, and on the 3d of April in the same year, a bill was brought in for granting to him and his successors the whole of the profits that might arise from the use of an engine, described in the last article in the Century.[4]

Of the merits of the Century of Inventions as a literary composition but little can with justice be said; whether, however, as a scientific production, it deserves the character that has been given of it by men more celebrated for their literary attainments, than for scientific knowledge, the reader, after a perusal of the work, will readily determine.[5]

The Marquis likewise published a work entitled "An Exact and true Definition of the most stupendous Water-commanding Engine, invented by the Right Honourable (and deservedly to be praised and admired) Edward Somerset Lord Marquis of Worcester, and by his Lordship himself presented to his most excellent Majesty Charles II., our most gracious Sovereign." This was published in a small quarto volume consisting of only twenty-two pages, and is now become extremely rare.

His lordship survived the publication of this work but two years; as he died in retirement near London upon the third of April 1667. His remains were conveyed with funeral solemnity to the cemetery of the Beaufort family in Ragland church; where he was interred on Friday the nineteenth of the same month, near the body of his grandfather, Edward Earl of