1649-45.] OF THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 95 



CHAPTER VII. 



RAGLAN CASTLE ROYAL VISITS. 



WHILE the Earl of Glamorgan was zealously prose 

 cuting Charles the First s designs in Ireland, he had left 

 his Countess under his father s protection at Eaglan 

 Castle. At the commencement of this period the noble 

 Marquis would be in about the 63rd year of his age, 

 rather feeble, and a martyr to gout, which his fondness 

 for claret may have aggravated ; a pleasant story being 

 related by his chaplain, that on the physician recom 

 mending abstinence from his favourite beverage, he 

 declared that he would rather incur the attacks of his 

 old enemy than abandon his favourite claret. 7 



Between the years 1640 and 1641 Eaglan Castle 

 had been strongly garrisoned, when much activity was 

 evinced in providing and securing stores, arms, and the 

 munitions of war. It must, therefore, have worn a very 

 animated and impressive appearance, occupied as it was 

 by hundreds of soldiers, with a large number of war- 

 horses. The exercising of the troops would most 

 likely take place daily in the extensive paved or 

 pitched court, under full view of the drawing-room 

 windows, a spacious upper apartment, ranging behind 

 the hexagonal towers of the grand entrance, all of 

 which remain to this day. 



A contemporary writer 93 states that in the hall win- 



Bayly . 93 Svmonds. 



