SOMERSET, Edward (c. 1603-67)

Herbert, as he was styled after his father’s succession to the earldom of Worcester in 1628, is best known as an inventor. However, although he may have had a genius for early steam power and was accredited by Edward Hyde, later earl of Clarendon, as ‘a man of more than ordinary affection and reverence to the person of the king’, in most other regards he has come to be perceived as at best a scatterbrained fantasist and at worst a dishonest and fraudulent gold-digger. Clarendon, Rebellion, ii. 524.

Herbert’s family claimed their descent from a bastard line of the Beaufort dukes of Somerset, themselves the illegitimate descendants of John of Gaunt. Marriage into the Herbert family had brought Charles Somerset^† interest in Wales, as a result of which he was elevated to the peerage in 1513 as earl of Worcester. The 5th earl, Herbert’s father, converted to Catholicism as a result of his travels on the continent in the 1590s and thereafter the family seat at Raglan Castle acquired the reputation of a seedbed of popery. It was rumoured to be the headquarters of a Jesuit mission in Wales. M. McClain, Beaufort: The Duke and His Duchess, 12.

The outbreak of The Civil War found both Worcester and Herbert active on the king’s behalf, with Herbert proving to be an unsuccessful if not actually incompetent general in the west. In November 1642 Worcester was promoted to a marquessate for his services and two years later Herbert claimed to have been rewarded with the earldom of Glamorgan. Dircks, Worcester, i. 37. This and subsequent honours have been the cause of debate. J.H. Round, Studies in Peerage and Family History, 368 et seq. There is considerable doubt as to whether the patent for this promotion ever passed the great seal and there was noticeable inconsistency in the manner in which Herbert was styled after the supposed creation. Dircks, Worcester, i. 70, 74–76; Badminton muns. FmD 3 1/1/1. A record in the signet office docquet book for April 1645 does record the intention to create Herbert as earl of Glamorgan, but it seems certain that the great seal was never applied to the bill and Charles I later distanced himself from the supposed grant. Badminton muns. FmD 3 1/1/1.

More controversially still, Herbert also claimed to have been promised promotion to the dukedoms of Somerset and Beaufort as a reward for leading a mission to Ireland to recruit an army from the Catholic confederates there. Ibid. FmD 1/2/1. The king’s commission of April 1644, which was also the subject of lengthy debates after the Restoration, further purported to promise the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to Herbert’s son ‘Plantagenet’ (presumably Henry Somerset, later duke of Beaufort), complete with a dowry of £300,000. Collins, Peerage (1812), i. 235–6. Again, the validity of the documents associated with the grant have been treated with great suspicion. Herbert’s subsequent activities in Ireland rapidly brought him into conflict with the lord lieutentant, James Butler, marquess (later duke) of Ormond, who imprisoned him at Dublin in 1645. Studia Hibernica, iv. 180, 186. Herbert was released the following month. The king strenuously denied ever having ordered his mission, though a letter of February 1646, again purporting to be from Charles I and addressed to ‘Glamorgan’, noted that ‘both you and I have been abused in this business’ and promised to ‘bring you so off that you may be still useful to me and I shall be able to recompense you for your affection’. Badminton muns. FmD 3 1/1/1.

Herbert failed to return to England following his release from custody, remaining in Ireland in alliance with the confederate army. With the death of his father in December 1646 he became the second marquess of Worcester, though he still did not return to England, moving in 1648 to France. The following year he approached the new king about his hoped-for grant, but was rebuffed. Ibid. FmC 3/4. Disappointed, Worcester finally came back to England in 1652, in spite of being excepted from indemnity by Parliament, having been reduced to abject penury in France. His whereabouts were sought out by the council of state and he was soon after thrown into the Tower to await trial. CSP Dom. 1651–2, p. 348.

Worcester’s return to England was probably connected with his efforts to secure his inheritance. As early as 1637, the 1st marquess had attempted to steer control of the family estates away from his son and, according to the evidence of the 1st marquess’s chaplain, he bemoaned the fact that his heir was so prodigal that, though he ‘had a chamber full of gold he would throw it all away’. The 1st marquess’s intention appears to have been to settle his estates as far as possible on his grandson Henry (styled Lord Herbert), but he died leaving only a nuncupative will and the details of this appear to have been suppressed by his sister, Lady Montagu, and perhaps also by the 2nd marquess. Glos. Arch. Badminton pprs. D2700/P4/1, D2700/P4/2, D2700/P4/3, D2700/P4/4. There followed a family feud as Lord Herbert attempted to recover his inheritance in the teeth of his aunt’s and father’s opposition. McClain, Beaufort, 14. Herbert was also compelled to negotiate with Oliver Cromwell^‡ for restoration of many of the family estates, which had been granted to the lord protector by Parliament. P. Little, ‘“Would not the lord protector make himself great, and his family great?” Marriage, Money and the Dynastic Ambitions of Oliver Cromwell’ (unpublished paper).

With no trial forthcoming, Worcester petitioned successfully to be released from his imprisonment in October 1654, pleading old age and the presence of smallpox in the area. CJ, vii. 373; Diary of Thomas Burton, ed. J. Rutt, i. xlvii–xlviii. As Raglan Castle had been slighted and only a small proportion of the family’s lands had been returned into Herbert’s control, Worcester was left to eke out the remainder of the interregnum on a pension of £3 a week granted to him by Cromwell to allow him to concentrate on his inventions. Dircks, Worcester, i. 212–13. Prior to the civil wars he had established a laboratory at Vauxhall with Caspar Kaltoff. He now revived this to pursue his dream of constructing a ‘water commanding engine’ and in 1655 he composed a treatise, The Century of Inventions, detailing inventions and prototypes which he claimed to have developed. The collection was published following the Restoration, dedicated to the king and the House of Lords. E. Somerset, marquess of Worcester, A Century of the Names and Scantlings of such inventions as at present I can call to mind … (1663). There was later some discussion as to how much of the work was original and, of that, how much Worcester’s and how much Kaltoff’s. Finding that Cromwell’s pension barely provided them with enough to survive, Lady Worcester submitted a bill before Parliament in May 1657 for settling Worcester House on her during her husband’s lifetime. CJ, vii. 529. The measure attracted warm support from several members, one being earnest in his pleas on Lady Worcester’s behalf ‘in point of charity’. Diary of Thomas Burton, ii. 102–6.

At the Restoration, Worcester was noted as a papist in an assessment of the Lords compiled by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, in March 1660. Bodl. Carte 81, f. 63. On 9 May, before Worcester had taken his seat, the marchioness submitted a further petition, complaining that Worcester House had been undermined by Colonel Copley. The House ordered a stop to all activities there and on 30 May responded to a further complaint by ordering a stop to the felling of timber on lands belonging to Worcester, formerly in Cromwell’s possession. Worcester took his seat at last on 13 June, after which he was present on 34 per cent of all sitting days. That month he placed Worcester House at the disposal of Sir Edward Hyde rent free (though by a later agreement of 1663 Hyde, by then earl of Clarendon, agreed to pay £400 per annum). CCSP v. 39; Bodl. Clarendon 79, f. 136. Correctly identifying the rising star in the new regime, Worcester declared that he had chosen Hyde ‘as a bosom friend’ and in an earlier letter along the same lines he invited his new ally to ‘spit in my face’ should he ask of him anything that was not ‘honourable just and fitting’. Bodl. Clarendon 73, f. 31. For all that, he was quick to make the most of the connection by attempting to employ his interest on behalf of Percy Herbert, 2nd Baron Powis, father of Worcester’s son-in-law, for advancement to an earldom, which he claimed had been promised by the late king. Worcester qualified his support for Powis’ earldom, the proofs of which had been lost during The Civil War, by admitting that, although the king did not doubt his word on the matter, Powis’ advancement might bring into question his own pretensions to be advanced in the peerage. Ibid. f. 102; CCSP, v. 45.

Worcester submitted a petition for the return of his own estates on 20 June 1660, emphasizing that his father had ‘spent more than any other subject for the service of the late king’. CSP Dom. 1660–1, p. 61. His request was granted accordingly and on 30 June he was allowed the same power as had been granted to James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton, to take possession of lost goods. On 9 July the House ordered that both Elizabeth Cromwell, Oliver Cromwell’s widow, and Lord Herbert should deliver up papers relating to the family’s estates, and on 27 July it was ordered that the gatehouse of Worcester House was to be comprehended as a part of the mansion following a dispute with Anne Tisser, who claimed to have purchased the gatehouse as a discrete building during the interregnum and who continued to contest attempts to remove her throughout the following month.

On 7 Aug. Worcester was granted leave to bring in a bill for restoration of his estates and it received its first reading six days later. His legitimate aspiration to recover his lands was cast into the shade on 18 Aug. when William Seymour, marquess of Hertford, informed the House of Worcester’s intention of presenting a patent claiming the dukedom of Somerset and Beaufort jointly (the former of which was also claimed by Hertford). Worcester’s claim rested on his 1644 commission from the former king but, although the Venetian resident reported that it was difficult to predict which side would prove the stronger in the dispute, it was widely believed that Worcester’s patent was a forgery. CSP Ven. 1659–61, pp. 190, 199. On 23 Aug., following investigation by committee, Henry Pierrepont, marquess of Dorchester, reported that Worcester was willing to admit that he had not fulfilled the terms under which the patent had been offered, thereby offering him a convenient opportunity to withdraw his questionable claim with a modicum of dignity. On 3 Sept. Henry Arundell, Baron Arundell of Wardour, informed the House that Worcester had surrendered the patent to the king, shortly after which Worcester allowed the matter to drop. As a result, the Lords ordered that all other patents granted during the Civil War and Interregnum should be submitted to the House’s consideration. More fortunate than his rival, Hertford’s pretensions were acknowledged shortly after with his creation as duke of Somerset. Later investigations into Worcester’s patent by John Anstis on behalf of Henry Somerset* , 3rd duke of Beaufort, uncovered no documentary evidence supporting Worcester’s claims to a dukedom, though Anstis did conclude that Worcester’s parallel pretensions to the earldom of Glamorgan were credible. Bodl. Carte 130, f. 419.

Worcester’s motivation in petitioning for the dukedom is difficult to divine. It seems quite possible that he was warmly encouraged by his marchioness, who was notoriously unstable, but his own flamboyant nature no doubt contributed to his desire to be recognized for what he perceived to have been exceptional service to the former king. Thwarted in his efforts to secure the peerage, he turned his attention to overseeing other business. He returned to the House for the second session of the Convention on 6 Nov. 1660, after which he was present on 60 per cent of all sitting days. Named to two committees on 27 Nov., two days later he reported from that considering the tobacco bill and on 4 Dec. he was named to the committee for Sir Thomas Grimes’s bill. On 12 Dec. two provisos (one of Worcester’s and the other of his son Herbert’s) to the bill for attainting the murderers of Charles I were referred to a subcommittee and two days later Worcester’s proviso was agreed to following some slight amendments. Worcester reported from the committee for Grimes’s bill on 15 Dec. and from that for Sir Anthony Browne’s bill five days later. Although the latter bill was recommended to the House as fit to pass, it was later rejected.

Worcester took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was present on 35 per cent of all sitting days but was named to just one committee. He was marked absent at a call on 20 May but resumed his place a little under three weeks later on 8 June. Still plagued by financial difficulties, on 2 July he was forced to claim privilege to protect himself from creditors, who were pursuing debts estimated at £20,000. His predicament prompted the House to issue an order on 8 July to prevent further waste of his estates. Worcester was again absent at a call of the House on 25 Nov. 1661 but he returned to his place the following day, when he was named to the committee for the heralds’ bill. On 7 Dec. he was added to the committee for privileges and on 12 Dec. his own bill received its first reading. Following its second reading on 17 Feb. 1662, counsel were ordered to be heard in the matter the following day and on 28 Feb. Worcester was granted leave to withdraw the bill. A (presumably amended) version was presented to the House shortly after and read for the first time on 10 Mar. but no further progress was made in the business before the close of the session. In the meantime, Worcester’s steward, John Tippetts, threatened to nullify an agreement with the navy commissioners for the purchase of timber from Worcester’s forests, insisting that the arrangement was contrary to the marquess’s best interests. CSP Dom. 1661–2, p. 281.

Worcester’s efforts to secure his estates were complicated by his continuing troubled relationship with his heir but by September 1662 a settlement was arrived at, whereby Herbert agreed to take on Worcester’s debts and pay him an annuity. In return Herbert took control of the estates. The following year, Worcester appointed Robert Raworth and Richard Cocks trustees to oversee his remaining lands in England and Wales. TNA, C 6/179/15. A subsequent deed of 1664 transferred Worcester’s interests to his brother Lord John Somerset. Bodl. Clarendon 81, f. 189. Even so, Worcester continued to face demands from creditors, among them John Hinde, who attempted to recover £1,200 plus costs, which had been awarded to him in 1659. TNA, C 6/179/15. Herbert was later to discover that the extent of his father’s indebtedness was far greater than Worcester had declared and in the mid-1670s he was still saddled with more than £40,000 of his father’s debts. McClain, Beaufort, 53–54.

For all his monetary worries, Worcester was willing on occasion to use what little interest he had on behalf of others, and in December 1662 he petitioned Henry Bennet, later earl of Arlington, for a Captain Foster to be admitted to bail. Worcester had known Foster while imprisoned in the Tower and insisted that his wife ‘was ever a most hardy cavalier’. CSP Dom. 1661–2, pp. 562, 589. Missing at the opening of the new session, Worcester was also absent at a call of the House on 23 Feb. 1663 but took his seat two days later, after which he was present on 49 per cent of all sitting days and was named to two committees. On 16 Mar. he was present for the first reading of the bill to allow him to garner the profits from his water-commanding engine. Committed three days later, on 21 Mar. the bill was considered in committee under Northampton’s chairmanship, during which first session a number of amendments were proposed, including (significantly) the omission from the first clause of the phrase ‘and earl of Glamorgan’ from Worcester’s title. When it was also queried why Worcester had submitted a request for a lease of 99 years, he answered that he still expected to spend a further two or three years perfecting the machine and estimated that he would be out of pocket to the tune of £40,000 or £50,000.

Following several adjournments, the committee reconvened on 26 Mar. when it was resolved by 11 votes to 1 to report the bill with the committee’s proposed amendments. Reported by Northampton on 28 Mar., following debate the bill was ordered to be recommitted. It was considered in committee once more on 30 Mar. with the lord privy seal (Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey) in the chair, before being reported to the House again by Northampton, after which it was ordered to be engrossed. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, pp. 300, 304, 315. The bill was enacted on 3 June and later that year Worcester published his Century of Inventions. He appended the text of the act, as well as a description of the water-commanding engine on which he now pinned his hopes for the restoration of his fortunes. In his dedication to the Lords and Commons, he begged that they would ‘spare me not in what your wisdoms shall find me useful, who do esteem my self not only by the act of the water-commanding engine (which so cheerfully you have passed) sufficiently rewarded, but likewise with courage enabled to do ten times more for the future’. Worcester, Century of Inventions.

Two years previously Worcester had offered a share in the venture to John Maitland, 2nd earl, later duke, of Lauderdale [S], describing it as ‘the greatest gift of invention for profit that I ever yet heard of’, but Lauderdale appears to have declined taking advantage of the opportunity. Add. 23115, f. 44; Dircks, Worcester, ii. 223–4. Despite the successful passage of the act, Worcester continued to be plagued by financial concerns and on 8 July he was compelled to claim privilege to protect him from further entanglements in the case Langham v. Warner. He was added to the committee for the Bedford Level bill on 17 July and the following day he was named to that for the Peters naturalization bill.

Worcester took his seat in the new session on 4 Apr. 1664, after which he was present on 44 per cent of all sitting days. On 14 Apr. the House ordered a stay of proceedings during the time of privilege in Langham v. Warner, but Worcester undertook not to insist on his privilege in the future for this case. Absent at a call on 7 Dec., he returned to the House two days later but this proved to be the only occasion on which he attended during the session. He was absent from the opening of the subsequent session held in Oxford on 9 Oct. 1665, delaying taking his seat until the 16th. Present on just over half of all sitting days, he was named to two committees on 26 October. He sat for the last time five days later.

Following the close of the session, Worcester submitted a new petition to the king, rehearsing the by now well-worn theme of his father’s vast expenditure in the royal cause, as a result of which he pleaded that he was ‘reduced to a small pittance’. To add to his miseries he was also being sued by John Hall, one of the receivers of revenue, for a loan of £6,000, which Hall had since assigned to the crown. Worcester begged for the king’s intercession in the affair to save him from falling further into desperation. CSP Dom. 1665–6, p. 72. It was probably in connection with this that George Monck, duke of Albemarle, wrote to Arlington (as Bennet had since become), desiring his assistance in gaining Worcester some relief. Noting Worcester’s ‘sad condition’ he asked that if Arlington would ‘find an occasion to incline the king thereunto I shall not fail to second your lordship therein or any other who may be instrumental to get from his majesty a due consideration of my lord marquess’s just pretension to as much favour and recompense as any subject I know’. Badminton muns. FmD 3/7, Albemarle to Arlington, n.d.

Once again, Worcester was disappointed in his expectations. On 1 Oct. 1666 he was excused at a call. Although he registered his proxy with Northampton on 17 Dec., he appears to have attended a committee of the House during the session, as it was reported on 22 Dec. that both he and George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, had been sent to the Tower following a scuffle during which Buckingham was said to have taken Worcester by the nose ‘and pulled him about’. HMC Portland, iii. 303. It was probably shortly after this episode that Worcester presented the king with a draft speech which he proposed should be read rather than spoken (protesting his rhetorical inadequacies). In it he offered to raise an auxiliary troop of life guards, to oversee the building of causeways in London, to found a charity for indigent officers and to assist with the rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral. In return, he requested his expenses in the king’s service be considered, which he now claimed amounted to £918,000. None of his projects was acted upon. HMC 12th Rep. IX, 56–63; Badminton muns. FmD 3/8.

At about the same time that Worcester was attempting this final throw, his wife also petitioned the House for relief. She cited her husband’s great debts contracted in the king’s cause and that, although he had paid off £50,000 of the arrears, his estate was now seized upon by creditors and the couple were in danger of being ejected from their London residence. CSP Dom. 1666–7, pp. 500. It was in this predicament that Worcester died on 3 Apr. 1667 at Worcester House, intestate. Administration of his estate was granted to his heir, Herbert. Worcester’s corpse was conveyed to the ancestral ruin of Raglan Castle, where it was interred in the surviving family vault. He was succeeded by Herbert as 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort), to whom also fell the responsibility of coping with his unstable step-mother. She was eventually certified as a lunatic but not before she offended the king by pursuing her claim to the title of Plantagenet. TNA, C 142/735/97; PROB 18/13/13; Badminton muns. FmD 4/2, W. Travers to marchioness of Worcester, 6 Sept. 1670. Her second husband, Donogh Kearney, also gained notoriety for his supposed involvement in the Popish Plot. HMC Le Fleming, 161; CSP Dom. 1680–1, p. 328.