184 LIFE, TIMES, AND SCIENTIFIC LABOURS [1G46-7. 



had already sapped the Earl s available property, 

 and was continually tantalising him with the prospect 

 of coming fortune and ample honours. He fawned 

 on the old Marquis and flattered his son ; inducing the 

 one to place his wealth, and the other his honour and 

 happiness at his disposal. Perhaps in the whole course 

 of his political scheming he never succeeded so com 

 pletely, as in this instance, in thoroughly victimising 

 any single noble family. 



On the 1st of October, 1646, the House of Lords 

 ordered, That a pass be granted to the Lady Herbert, 

 Countess of Glamorgan, into Ireland, with thirty of her 

 menial servants, etc.* 74 So that from August, when she 

 left Eaglan Castle, with the other inmates, to this period, 

 she must have been a wanderer. 



Towards the close of the year 1646, it was decided 

 between the Earl and his own party, to send his 

 brother, the Lord John Somerset, a zealous Catholic, 

 on a mission to the Pope. The Earl s complicity with 

 the clergy in these affairs, which had been conducted 

 with great secrecy, occasioned much suspicion, creating 

 for him many enemies among the Protestant party. 



In August, 1647, the Marquis of Ormond, leaving 

 Ireland, waited on Charles the First at Hampton 

 Court: Dublin being besieged, and likely to fall into 

 possession of the English Parliament. 



While affairs were in this distracted state the Earl 

 was apprised of his father s decease, in December, 1646 ; 

 and as Marquis of Worcester, he wrote from Galway 

 to the titular Bishop of Femes : 26 



&quot;My NOBLE LORD, 



&quot; Although the place whither I go be now 

 changed upon serious consideration, and my Lord Nun- 



* Lords Jour. VIII. 507. 74 Nichols. M Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 380. 



