820 The Wiltshire Compounders. 
to be set off a variety of pensions and liabilities. Two years’ revenue 
had been the fine agreed on in the Oxford articles. Lord Hertford 
argued that an estate of inheritance was more than twice as valuable 
as an estate for life ; and great part of his own being of this latter 
nature he considered that only one year’s revenue ought to be levied 
on such portions. His fine was declared ‘at first £12,603, said to 
be at a tenth, but was finally set at £8345, The ordinance for 
granting his pardon passed the Houses in August, 1648. We may 
be excused from reciting the separate values of all his lordship’s 
estates in Easton, Amesbury, Erchfont, Crofton, East and West 
Grafton, Putthall, Burbage, Collingbourn Ducis, Barton, Alderbury, 
Monckton, All Cannings, Wick, Westcombe, Bedwyn, Neston, 
Bapton, Froxfield, Wotton Rivers, Stapleford, Chisbury, Shalbourn, 
Easteourt, Savernak and Tottenham Parks, and the town of Marl- 
borough; besides lands in Lincolnshire, Somerset, Hampshire, and 
London. He was further entitled to a considerable estate in right 
of his lady by the recent death of her brother, the Earl of Essex, 
but being at present unable to describe it, desired a reserved liberty 
to compound for it hereafter. His debts owing to sundry persons, 
were at least £22,000. 
For larger annals of this house see the History of Marlborough 
and other biographical works. It may suffice in this place to say 
that no one of King Charles’s adherents served him with more 
simplicity and integrity than the Marquis of Hertford, This was 
testified at the Restoration by his elevation to the dukedom of 
Somerset by a special Act of Parliament recognising his heirdom to 
his great-grandfather, the first Duke of Somerset, and by the fol- 
lowing pointed allusion to his merits in the restored monarch’s speech 
to the two Houses in September, 1660:—“I cannot but take 
notice,” said the King, “ of one particular bill I have passed, which 
may seem of an extraordinary nature—that concerning the Duke of 
Somerset; but you all know it is for an extraordinary person, who 
hath merited as much of the King, my father, and myself, as a 
subject can do. And I am none of those who think that subjects 
by performing their duties in an extraordinary manner, do not oblige 
their princes to reward them in an extraordinary manner.” 
