Scientific Studies; or, Practical, in Contrast with Chimerical PursuitsDircks, Henry
History
Scientific Studies; or, Practical, in Contrast with Chimerical Pursuits
Dircks, Henry
Science; Worcester, Edward Somerset, Marquis of, 1601-1667
When civil war was raging in this country, when King and Parliament were
in opposition, when Puritan, Protestant, and Papist sought for mastery,
when cavaliers met roundheads in mortal conflict, and every man stood in
fear of his neighbour, the Marquis of Worcester could no longer remain a
mere student of mechanism and of mathematical problems: if like
Archimedes in one sense, he was now seen, unlike him, buckling on his
armour, raising troops, and doffing the student's gown to become the
soldier. Alas! his military career forms no brilliant page in the annals
of his country's history. He was essentially neither a statesman, nor a
military man. He was bold, courageous, and energetic, but he could
neither be fierce nor ferocious on occasion. He tampered with opponents,
lost means of surprise, and was ever being tricked by the cunning and
chicanery of adversaries not over-scrupulous in their promises or
proceedings. His very goodness of heart, urbanity and uprightness were
the sources of his utter ruin. Himself incapable of deceit, he was
perpetually being made the victim of it: those who appeared his assured
friends, and had every reason to be so, proving in any emergency
shallow, empty, and worthless. Flattered by Charles I. he became
instrumental in assisting that Prince from his parent's private
fortune; and when that was exhausted, the King sapped the property of
the son, repaying both with titles, promises, and valueless bonds. He
created the Marquis of Worcester Earl of Glamorgan, during his father's
life-time; and, inducing him to raise Irish troops to fight against
English subjects, he completed the Earl's ruin; for, that untoward
enterprise failing, and being followed by the fall of Raglan Castle, and
the victories of the Cromwellian army, the Marquis of Worcester had to
quit his native land to seek refuge, with many other political refugees,
at the Court of France. His wife, who had been residing at Raglan
Castle, obtained leave from the Parliament in 1646 to flee to Paris,
where the Marquis also arrived in 1648.
The Marquis was proscribed both as a Papist and a rebel. Throughout his
political career the religion of his father and himself had made many
weak-minded men their enemies; but that his loyalty should be considered
rebellion was nothing more than might be expected from the dominant
party of those troubled times: although undoubtedly the result of that
great moral earthquake benefited our nation.
His only son, Henry, sat in the Cromwellian Parliament, and this fact
may, in part, explain the circumstance that most probably induced the
Marquis of Worcester to visit London in 1652; for he must have been
well-advised before committing such an apparently rash act. He was
immediately incarcerated in the Tower, from which he was released in two
years and a quarter, no doubt on his parole, as in 1655 a warrant was
signed by Cromwell to pay the Marquis of Worcester the sum of _three
pounds per week_ for his maintenance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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