Part 18

be observed that the majority of these baronial mansions are situated on, or near, the bank of some navigable river, for the purpose of defending some important pass or fortress, by means of which the carriage of stone is attended with comparatively little expense or trouble; but in the present instance, there is no navigable river nearer than the Wye, from which the Castle is distant at Monmouth ten, and at Chepstow twelve miles.[239] And what is very remarkable, there is no quarry in the neighbourhood from which the stone employed in building the Castle could have been procured. It is of a light grey colour, and very hard; but the name of the quarter from which it was taken is still a matter of vague conjecture. No such stone as that used for the chimney-pieces of Raglan is now to be found in Monmouthshire. Such is the neatness and exactness with which the facing stones are laid, that they exhibit the same perfect appearance as if the artist had but just left the scaffold. “The bricks which compose the south wall are extremely well baked, and of a quality not less durable than that of the stone.”

In the present day, we can form but a very imperfect notion of the extent to which the original outworks were carried. When the demesnes of ancient families are let out as farms, the tenant soon brings about a revolution of ancient purposes. He adapts the whole to modern uses--to whatever will best enable him to pay his rent. He calculates how many bushels of potatoes will grow on the slope; how much the lawn will yield to the plough, how much to pasturage; and how much grass may be annually shorn from the old Bowling-green.

So has it fared with the renowned fortress of Raglan.[240] With little interest in its history, little reverence for its ancient lords, every successive tenant, during a long series of years, has only studied how to turn it to the best advantage. Its ancient gardens have been obliterated; its lawns converted into pasture; its fountains, streams, and fish-ponds have been dried up; its materials carted away to erect some farmer’s homestead; its walls, that so stoutly resisted the enemy’s shot, and returned it with interest, seem to feel their degradation, and strive to hide it under a mantle of ivy.[241] Now, however, the grounds are kept in good order; while every feature and fragment of the venerable ruin are preserved with exemplary care by the resident warden, who happily possesses a taste for archæology.

The accompanying ground-plan will enable the reader to trace the various apartments of the Castle in the same order in which they are described, and to follow with more interest the details of the Siege , upon which we are now to enter.

“Our Donjon-tower is stout and tall, Each rampart mann’d and steady; And loyal hearts, from every wall, Shout--‘_Roundheads!_ we are ready!’

Then here’s a health to Charles our King; And eke to noble Worcester ! To each, to-morrow’s fight shall bring New loyalty and lustre!

Then hoist the Royal Standard high! And crown our Chief with laurels! And where’s the man that would not die In combating for Charles ?” &c. &c.

We have next to take a brief survey of that portion of the Revolutionary movements, with which the history of Raglan and its loyal garrison are so closely associated.

“The Parliament had now,” says Lord Clarendon, “such footing in Pembrokeshire, that many of the principal gentlemen had declared for them; and the harbour of Milford Haven gave their fleet opportunity to give them all supplies and relief.” This being the state of those parts,

The Lord Herbert , eldest son of the Marquess of Worcester, not only offered but desired to receive that command, and engaged himself “not only to secure it from the opposition and malignity of the other party; but before the spring to raise such a strength of horse and foot, and to provide such an equipage to march with, that might reduce Gloucester, and then be added to the King’s army when he should be ready to take the field. And all this so much at his own charge, for his father, the Marquess, who was well able, would furnish the money--as was pretended upon the King’s promise to repay him when he should be restored to his own--that he would receive no part of the King’s revenue, or of such money as his Majesty could be able to draw for the supply of his own more immediate occasions.”

This was a very great offer, and such as no man else could so reasonably make: for “the Marquess of Worcester was generally reputed the greatest mony’d man in the kingdom; and probably might not think it an unthrifty thing rather to disburse it for the King--who might be able to repay it--than to have it taken from him by the other party; which would be hardly questioned if they prevailed.”[242]

The Lord Herbert himself “was a man of more than ordinary affection for the King; and one who, he was sure, would not betray him. For his religion, it might work upon himself, but would not disquiet other men. For though he were a Papist, he was never like to make others so; and his reputation and interest were very great with many gentlemen of those counties, who were not at all friends to his religion. It was to be hoped that the old grudges and prejudices, which had been rather against the house of Worcester and the Popish religion professed there, than against the person of their lord, would have been composed, and declined by his fair and gentle carriage towards all men--as of truth he was of a civil and obliging nature--and by the public-heartedness of those who, for the Cause and conscience’ sake would, it was hoped, sacrifice all trivial and private contentions to a union that must vindicate the religion, honour, and justice of the kingdom. Upon these reasons and these presumptions, the King granted such a commission as is before-mentioned to the Lord Herbert; who, with more expedition than was expected by many, or by others believed possible, raised a body of above fifteen hundred foot, and near five hundred horse, very well and sufficiently armed, which increased the merit of the service.”[243]

Of the royalist army, raised and paid by the Marquess of Worcester, the command of the infantry was given to Major-General Lawley; that of the cavalry to Lord John Somerset, his second son; while Lord Herbert took the field as Commander-in-chief. Immediately on its being ascertained that Monmouth had declared for the Parliament, Lord Herbert placed himself at the head of a body of troops, and, joined by a party of volunteers from Goodrich, placed them behind a rising ground near the town. Here, with about forty intrepid followers, he proceeded to reconnoitre the enemy’s position, and surmounting an earthen mound which they had thrown up, he passed the ditch, and put the guard to the sword. They next succeeded in breaking the port chain and forced an entrance for the cavalry; then, joining their comrades, they entered the town at full gallop, and, surrounding the main guard, made them prisoners. “The result of this expedition was the capture of Col. Broughton, four captains, four lieutenants and ensigns, the republican committee, and all the private soldiers, with a considerable quantity of arms and ammunition.”

Raglan Castle by this time had been put into a state of thorough defence, with a garrison of eight hundred men, many distinguished officers, and all the necessaries for maintaining a long and vigorous resistance. The Marquess himself--then on the verge of fourscore--infused by his presence and conversation an invincible spirit of loyalty into the garrison; and provisioned as it was, the place might well be viewed as almost impregnable.

The clashing exploit of Lord Herbert, however, was speedily followed by a mortifying reverse; for as the King’s army was on its march to Gloucester, it was met near Coleford by a rabble force of disaffected peasantry, whose object was to obstruct the Royalists in their passage through the Forest of Dean; and a scuffle ensuing, Colonel Lawley, the captain-in-chief, was mortally wounded by a stone.[244] But order being restored, and Colonel Brett taking the command, the Royalists continued their march until arriving on the right bank of the Severn, they threw up defences at the “Vineyard”--the Bishop’s palace--and there fixed their quarters. But in the meantime, Sir William Waller, who was then with a regiment of horse on the borders of Worcestershire, put himself in motion, and by forced marches took up his position in front of the Royalists. This sudden apparition threw them into a panic; for, considering themselves in their newly-fortified position quite secure from all danger of surprise, Lord Herbert had gone to wait upon the King at Oxford; while his brother, Lord John, who commanded the horse, had set out with two or three troops on a reconnoitering party; so that no officer of skill or authority was left to direct or head the forces. All, therefore, was instant confusion in the camp; for, although their position was strong, well supplied with cannon, and certainly not to be stormed by any amount of cavalry that could be brought against them, yet they abandoned all thoughts of defence, and without striking a blow, surrendered to the first summons from Waller, on the simple grant of quarter.

This unexpected disaster was a death-blow to the army of Worcester; “the raising of which was considered such an effort on the part of the Marquess , that it could hardly have been accomplished by any other nobleman in the realm.” That “mushroom army grew up and perished so soon, that the loss of it was scarce apprehended at Oxford, because the strength, or rather the numerical force, was not understood. But had the money,” as Lord Clarendon observes, “that was laid out in raising and paying a body of men, who never in the least degree advanced the royal interest, been brought into the King’s receipt at Oxford, and employed to the most advantage, the war might have been ended the next summer; for I have heard the Lord Herbert say, that those preparations, and others which by that defeat were rendered useless, cost above three score thousand pounds; the greatest part of which”--an enormous sum in those times--“was advanced by his father, the Marquess of Worcester.”[245] We now proceed to notice the

Royal Visit to Raglan , which in its loyal devotion remained unshaken by these reverses; and the following anecdote gives us a favourable idea of the good humour, combined with courtly magnificence, with which Lord Worcester entertained the King on his first visit to the Castle. We relate the anecdote on the authority of the family Chaplain:--

“Sir Thomas Somerset, brother to the Marquess, had a house which they called Troy--the principal residence of the Duke of Beaufort--within five miles of Raglan Castle. Sir Thomas Somerset being a neate man, both within and without his house, as he was a complete gentleman of himself every way, delighted very much in fine gardens and orchards, and in replenishing and ordering them with all the varieties of choicest fruits that could be got, and in defending his new plantations from the coldness of the climate by the benefit of art. The earth, that was so much made of, proved so grateful to him, that, at the same time that the King happened to be at his brother’s house at Raglan, it yielded him wherewithal to send his brother Worcester such a present, as at that time of the year and place, was able to make the King and all his lords believe that the Sovereign of the Planets, with all his prime electors, had new changed the Poles; and that Wales , the refuse and outcast of the fair garden of England, had fairer and riper fruit growing upon her stone rubbish, than England’s levels had in all her beds. This, presented to the Marquess, he could not suffer to be presented to the King by any other hands except his own. In comes the Marquess, at the latter end of supper, led by the arm, having such a goodly presence with him, that his being led became him, rather like some ceremony of state, than shew of impotence; and his slow pace, occasioned by his infirmity, expressed a Spanish gravity, rather than feebleness. Thus, with a silver dish in each hand filled with rarities, and a little basket upon his arm, as a supply, in case his Majesty should be over bountiful of his favours to the ladies that were standers by, he makes his third obeysance and thus speaks:--

“‘May it please your Majesty, if the four elements could have been rob’d to have entertained your Majesty, I think I had done my duty; but I must do as I may. If I had sent to Bristol for some good things to entertain your Majesty, there had been no wonder at all. If I had procured from London some goodnesse that might have been acceptable to your Majesty, that had been no wonder indeed. But here I present your Majesty’--placing his dishes upon the table--‘with what neither came from Lincoln that was, nor London that is, nor York that is to be;[246] but I assure your Majesty that this present came from Troy .’ Whereupon the King smiled, and answered the Marquess--‘Truly, my lord, I have heard that corne[247] now growes where Troy town once stood; but I never thought there had grown any apricocks there before.’ Whereupon the Marquess replied--‘Anything to please your Majesty.’

“The fruit was very much admired by every one, and it was acknowledged by all that were in the presence at that time, that they never saw the King served in greater state in all their lives. There were some about the King who followed my Lord Marquess when he departed the presence, and told his lordship that he would make a very good courtier. ‘Aye,’ said the Marquess, ‘I remember I said one thing that may give you some hopes of me--Anything to please your Majesty.’”

Of the Marquess’s farther proficiency in the art and mystery of a courtier, during the royal visit, we find this specimen:--

“The Marquess had a mind to tell the King, as handsomely as he could, of some of his, as he thought, _faults_; and thus he continues his plot: Against the time that his Majesty was wont to give his lordship a visit, as commonly he used to do after dinner, his lordship had the book of John Gower lying before him on the table. The King casting his eye upon the book, told the Marquess he had never seen it before. ‘Oh!’ said the Marquis, ‘it is the book of books, which if your Majesty had been well versed in, it would have made you a king of kings.’ ‘Why so, my Lord?’ said the King. ‘Why,’ said the Marquess, ‘here is set down how Aristotle brought up and instructed Alexander the Great in all the rudiments and principles belonging to a prince.’ And under the persons of Alexander and Aristotle, he read the King such a lesson, that all the standers by were amazed at his boldness; and the King supposing that he had gone farther than his text would have given him leave, asked the Marquess, ‘If he said his lesson by _heart_, or whether he spoke out of the book?’ The Marquess replied, ‘Sir, if you could read my heart, it may be you might find it there; or, if your Majesty please to get it by heart, I will lend you my book.’ Which latter proffer the King accepted of, and did borrow it. ‘Nay,’ said the Marquess, ‘I will lend it you upon these conditions: First, That you read it; secondly, That you make use of it.’ But perceiving how that some of the new-made lords fretted, and bit their thumbs at certain passages in the Marquess’s discourse, he thought a little to please his Majesty, though he pleased not them, the men who were so much displeased already protesting unto his Majesty, that no man was so much for the absolute power of a king as Aristotle. Desiring the book out of the King’s hand, he told the King that he would show him one remarkable passage to that purpose, turning to that place that had this verse:--

“A king can kill, a king can save, A king can make a lord a knave, And of a knave a lord also,” &c.

“Whereupon there were divers new-made lords who slunk out of the roome, which the King observing, told the Marquess--‘My lord, at this rate, you will drive away all my Nobility!’

“The Marquess replied--‘I protest unto your Majesty, I am as new a made lord as any of them all;[248] but I was never called knave and rogue so much in all my life, as I have been since I received this last honour, and why should not they bear their shares?’”

But the Marquess, like many of the King’s party, seems to have wanted that undoubting confidence of success, which not unfrequently secures it. How different from the determined tone of a Cromwell is this:--“When the King first entered the gates of Raglan, the Marquess delivered his Majesty the keys, according to the ordinary custom; the King restoring of them to the Marquis, the Marquis said, ‘I beseech your Majesty to keep them, and you please, for they are in a good hand; but I am afraid that ere it be long, I shall be forced to deliver them into the hands of those who will spoil the compliment.’” And so it happened.

The plans taken by the King, while residing in Raglan Castle, to persuade the Marquess of Worcester to farther advances of money, afford a subject for a humiliating chapter in the royal history. The aged Marquess had three ruling principles--loyalty to the King, attachment to the Roman Catholic religion, and fondness for money. His loyalty had been already extensively drawn upon, and there remained now to be tried an attempt upon his proselytizing zeal. He had now to be flattered with the idea that he might possibly persuade the King to profess the tenets of his ancestors. Charles, indeed, had not made great progress in Protestant doctrines; and the Marquess, confident in his theological powers, imagined he would find an easy convert. Here is Dr. Bayly’s account of the matter:--

“Thus affected was that noble and, indeed, in his way, heavenly disposed, Henry, late Marquess of Worcester, to play the greatest prize that ever was played between any two that ever entered within those lists. Three diadems were to encounter with the tripple crowne, and the tripple crowne with three sceptres. Opportunity, that lucky gamester, that hardly loses a game in twenty, was on the Marquess’ side; time and place directed him how to take points in his own tables; the King at that time being in the Marquess’s own house at Raglan, and necessitated to borrow money to buy bread, after so great a loss in battle. The King being thus put to play the aftergame with the old Marquess, was a little mistrustful that he had not played the foregame with him so well, as that he had not thereby prejudiced the latter: for, though the Marquess and his son were the two ablest and most forward’st shoulderers up of the declining throne, especially the chip of the old block, whose disposition expressed itself most noble in not caring who had loved the King, so that he might be but permitted to love Alexander; whom he affected not only with the loyal respects of a subject towards his soveraigne, but also with such passionate ways of expressions and laboriousnesse in all good offices, as are wont to be predominant in those in whom simpathy is the only ground of their affections; yet there were not wanting some kind of men who made the averseness of this nobleman’s religion an occasion of improving their own envies. Which, though it could never lose him the least ground in his master’s good opinion of him--who never would judge no more a saint by his face than a devil by his feet, but both according to their several ingagements--yet there were some things which happened, as having relation to this family, which were not altogether pleasing. However, though his Majesty came thither ushered by necessity, yet he came neither unwelcomed nor uninvited; and entertained as if he had been more than a king, by reason of some late atchievements, rather than otherwise: and though money came from him like drops of blood, yet he was contented that every drop within his body should be let out at his command, so that he might performe so meritorious a piece of worke as, he thought, the being an instrument of bringing the father of his country to be the son of his church, would be unto his soul’s health. The Marquess having these resolutions within himselfe, thought to give them breath at the same time that his Majesty should make his motion for a further supply of money, which he daily and hourly expected; but was deceived in his expectations; for the relation having already reach’d the King’s ear, how an accident had made me no less fortunate to his lordship, than in being the means of preserving his lordship’s person, and no inconsiderable fortune then in the same venture with him; and how that I preserved both the one and the other, in concealing both, for the space that the moon useth to be twice in riding of her circuit,[249] (the particulars hereof, here to insert, would tend rather to much arrogance than any purpose, wherefore I further forbear,) until such time as the trust which Providence had reposed in me was crowned by the same hand with such successe as brought the Marquess safe to his own house in peace; which I had no sooner brought to passe, but the Marquess drew from me a solemn engagement never to leave him so long as we both should live; which I was so careful for to observe, that I neither left him in life nor death, faire weather nor foule, until such time as he left me, and I laid him under the ground in Windsor Castle, in the sepulchre of his fathers.”

The author of the notice of the Marquess of Worcester in “Lodge’s Portraits,” says, that “the adventure here alluded to by Dr. Bayly is and must remain unknown.” It is, however, made sufficiently clear in the “First Apophthegm,” where Bayly tells us that he met the Marquess in the Welsh mountains, “flying a danger with a softer pace than it made after him.” Bayly, whose knowledge of the country must necessarily have been great, had it in his power to conceal the Marquess. This was their first meeting, and they ever after were inseparable. In nearly the words already used, Bayly in this passage also says, “From which time forward, until the time that I laid him in his grave in Windsor Castle, I never parted from him.”