This document divulges at least one important secret in regard to the Marquis of Worcester’s personal history, in connection with his practical mechanical pursuits. We now find that he actually built suitable premises as workshops at Vauxhall,[J] for “engineers and artists to work public works in.” That in that “operatory,” or laboratory, he had “expended above £50,000, trying experiments and conclusions of arts.” And that on the building alone he had laid out above £9000. It is, however, only by bearing in mind the enormous amount that these sums of money represent, considered in reference to the value they bore two hundred years ago, that we become fully alive to the princely expenditure of this great scientific experimentalist, whose patronage and encouragement of experimental philosophy, for practical designs, is without a parallel in any other age or country. The very next month his Lady was necessitated to petition in the following terms, in regard to Worcester House.[K] “To the right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, now assembled in Parliament. “The humble Petition of Margaret, Marchioness of Worcester, wife of Edward, now Marquis of Worcester. “HUMBLY SHEWETH, “That the said Marquis for his services to his Majesty did expend many vast sums of money, and thereby contracted great debts; that although the said Marquis, since his Majesty’s happy restoration, hath paid above fifty thousand pounds of those debts so contracted, as aforesaid, yet there remains so many great debts, that the said Marquis his estate is all seized on by his creditors upon judgments, statutes, and recognizances, insomuch that the said Marquis is deprived of his whole estate; and nothing left for his and your Petitioner’s support and maintenance. “That in particular the said Marquis his estate was extended by one Mr. John Hall[L] in March last, upon a judgment of six thousand pounds for money borrowed by the Petitioner’s husband in 1642, to pay the garrison of Monmouth, then in a mutiny. “That the said extent is assigned now to the Lord John Somerset, who now threatens (having got most part of the estate) to turn the Petitioner out of Worcester House, so that she will be destitute of an habitation and maintenance. “The Petitioner humbly prayeth your Lordships’ consideration of the Petitioner’s most necessitous condition, and to find out a way for her relief, and also your Lordships’ recommendation of her case to the Right Honourable the Lords and Commons of England. “And your Petitioner shall pray. “WORCESTER.” “Die Jovis, 7 die Febr. 1666.