“In 1648, the Duke of Ormond considered the Parliament was grown jealous of him, and wanted a pretext to seize his person. He had notice likewise given him, that a warrant was actually issued out for that purpose, though in breach of the articles.[A] Upon this advertisement, he quitted Acton--ten miles from Bristol, where he was then residing,--and crossing the country to Hastings in Sussex, he took shipping for France, and landed happily at Dieppe in Normandy. From thence he went in the beginning of March [1648] to Paris, there to wait upon the Queen and Prince, and assist with his advice in the present conjuncture of affairs, when matters of the greatest consequence, the most intricate nature, and the most embroiled circumstances, were under their consideration, and resolutions to be taken therein for his Majesty’s service:”--he having just previously escaped from the Isle of Wight. “The Earl of Glamorgan[B] had come to Paris a few months before him, recommended by the Nuncio Rinuccini to Cardinal Mazarine, and to the Pope’s Nuncio in that place, on account of his attachment to the Holy See, though unfortunate in all his undertakings, and not endued with that prudence which was necessary to the post he desired. His business there was to solicit the Queen to make him Governor of Ireland, but he met with so ill a reception at Court, that he soon despaired of succeeding. His Lady, to whom the Marquis of Ormond had once made his addresses, (before he had hopes of marrying his cousin, and uniting the estate of his family) resented the neglect shewed of her Lord, and imputed it, as well as his imprisonment at Dublin, to the influence and power of the Marquis. She carried her resentment so far, that when he waited upon her after his arrival at Paris, and offered to salute her, she turned away her face with great disdain. The Marquis thereupon made her a reverence, and with great presence of mind, said, ‘Really, Madam, this would have troubled me eighteen years ago;’[C] and then went to the next, the company present being of his acquaintance, and much pleased with what he had said.” We may here pause to remark that, from the close of the year 1640, when the Long Parliament commenced its memorable sittings, the prominent events affecting the history of art and science in England are comparatively meagre, as might be expected, while the public mind was being perpetually distracted and disturbed not by intestine war alone, but also by plague and pestilence in fearful forms. Of remarkable events of the period we especially notice the fortifying of London in 1643, and the delivering up of Charles the First to the Parliament by the Scots in January 1647, followed by his execution on the 30th of January 1649, the establishment of the Commonwealth on the 6th of February following, and of the Protectorate under Cromwell in 1654.