1647-9.] OF THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 189 



not by intestine war alone, but also by plague and 

 pestilence in fearful forms. 



Of remarkable events of the period we especially 

 notice the fortifying of London in 1643, and the deli 

 vering up of Charles the First to the Parliament by 

 the Scots in January 1647, followed by his execution 

 on the 30th of January 1649, the establishment of the 

 Commonwealth on the 6th of February following, and 

 of the Protectorate under Cromwell in 1654. 



Under the new regime, public taste either was greatly 

 changed, or was to be compulsorily directed into new 

 channels, for, in 1647, theatrical performances were pro 

 hibited, actors were declared rogues and vagabonds, 

 and all places usually employed for theatrical perfor 

 mances were ordered to be demolished. Such was the 

 narrow-minded and furious puritanical zeal of the then 

 governing power. 



Charles the Second held his Court at Paris, where 

 alone the Marquis of Worcester associated with the 

 libertine monarch at least no circumstance occurs to 

 show that he ever removed with the Court in its several 

 changes to Cologne, Bruges, Brussels, and other conti 

 nental towns. 



Sir Eichard Browne, ambassador at Paris, in his cor 

 respondence with John Evelyn, when writing from Paris, 

 the 3rd of August, 1648, incidentally observes in a 

 postscript : &quot; Our Court wants money, and lives very 

 quietly at St. Germains : where no peer appears but my 

 Lord Jermiii. The Marquis of Worcester, the Lords 

 Digby and Hatton, though yet in France, yet live for 

 the most part in Paris.&quot; 



37 



^ Evelyn. The Editor of the Diary erroneously indexes the Marquis as&quot; Henry 

 Somerset, &c ,&quot; instead of &quot;Edward Somerset, &c.&quot; 



