We are brought by this circumstance to an interesting period in the adventurous life of the Marquis of Worcester. His visit to England was every way extraordinary for its boldness or apparent recklessness; as he was a marked man, one who could have no reason for expecting to be able to conciliate the reigning power, which had already stigmatized him as an “enemy and traitor to the Commonwealth,” his estates to be confiscated, and himself, wherever taken, doomed to “die without any mercy whatever.” The Marquis’s son sat in the Cromwellian Parliament; Cromwell enjoyed the Monmouthshire estates of the Marquis, to the value of £2500 per annum, and allowed Lord Herbert a pretty liberal income. From Edinburgh, Cromwell wrote on the 12th of April, 1651, a letter to his wife:--“My dearest, Beware of my Lord Herbert his resort to your house; if he do so may occasion scandal, as if I were bargaining with him: indeed be wise; you know my meaning.”[A][23] The Marquis might have some private object in view, equally with that of serving his prince, and might have been better assured than history determines, that his life, at all events, would be safe. It is stated in the History of the Tower,[6] in noticing the Marquis of Worcester being added to the number of distinguished persons confined there in 1652, that the wants and distresses to which he had been subjected on the continent had driven him to seek shelter in his own country. [Illustration: The Tower, Map of London, 1658.] BIRD’S-EYE VIEW FROM MAP OF LONDON, 1658. On the 28th of July, 1652, the House of Commons, immediately after prayers, “Resolved, That the Earl of Worcester do stand committed to the Tower of London, in order to his trial.” And, “That it be referred to the Council of State to consider, in what way the Earl of Worcester may be tried, and who hath harboured him; and to consider of all circumstances in his business, and to report their opinion thereon to the House, on Friday morning next.” A year later, being on the 29th of August, 1653, Colonel Rous reports from the Committee of Petitions, “The most humble Petition of Edward Somerset, Earl of Worcester, now prisoner in the Tower. “As also, the humble Petition of Margaret, Countess of Worcester; which were both read.” Followed, on the 3rd of October, by repetitions of the same report, when it was “Resolved that this Petition be laid aside.” While, on the 5th of October, 1654, one year later, after other business, the Earl’s petition was again read, and it was thereon “Resolved, That the Earl of Worcester have his liberty for the present upon bail, until the Parliament take further order. And that the Lieutenant of the Tower do take sufficient bail: And that a Warrant do issue under Mr. Speaker’s hand, to that purpose.”[57]