THE GREAT MARQUIS 



to general society. Nevertheless, he was highly 

 educated according to the opportunities of the day. 

 He had travelled much, and had found means in his 

 travels to note the mechanical contrivances in which 

 foreign countries then far outstripped England. 



The sight of these inventions inflamed and ex- 

 cited a natural mechanical talent, and set the young 

 lord on that career of invention that filled his later 

 life with shadowy hopes and left behind an equally 

 shadowy reputation. A humorous instance of the 

 use to which Lord Herbert's mechanical contriv- 

 ances were put is given by that patient chronicler, 

 Dircks, who has done so much to save the " Great 

 Marquis's " name from oblivion. It was, he tells 

 us, at the beginning of the Long Parliament that 

 " certain rustics came into Raglan Castle to search 

 for arms, his lordship being a Papist. The Marquis 

 stood on his privilege as a peer of the realm, and 

 eventually so prevailed that they were at last willing 

 to take his word ; but he, not wishing to part with 

 them on such easy terms, had before resolved to 

 return them one fright for another. With that view 



. . he brought them over a high bridge that 

 arched over the moat that was between the castle 

 and the great tower, wherein the Lord Herbert had 

 newly contrived certain water-works, which, when 

 the several engines and wheels were to be set 

 going, much quantity of water, through the hollow 

 conveyances of the aqueducts, was to be let down 

 from the top of the high tower, which upon the first 



29 



