THE GREAT MARQUIS 



his needs had become greater and his friends 

 fewer. 



The fifth Earl, who was about fifty years of age 

 when he succeeded to the title, found himself out of 

 sympathy with the court party. We can readily 

 understand that neither James I. nor Charles were 

 monarchs much to the taste of a nobleman who was 

 honest and straightforward in his dealings, firm in 

 his principles, and perhaps more than a little obsti- 

 nate in his prejudices. Possibly the old nobleman 

 belonged to the not very unusual type of English- 

 man who is unable to discern between his prejudices 

 and his opinions. At all events we find him living 

 chiefly at Raglan. Soon after his accession to the 

 earldom he obtained a dispensation from attendance 

 in Parliament. This probably made little real 

 difference to his way of living, as he had for some 

 time before this retired from public affairs. The 

 religious position of this Earl was somewhat peculiar. 

 He was undoubtedly a Catholic, but he kept a 

 nominally Protestant chaplain. Dr. Bayley, the 

 worthy clergyman to whom we owe the collections 

 of the Earl's wise and witty sayings.^ Dr. Bayley 

 was probably only outwardly a Protestant con- 

 formist, his subsequent submission to Rome being 

 most likely but the declaration in the face of the 

 world of a faith he had long held. The Earl's 

 religious views made him an object of suspicion to 



^ Worcester's Apothegms, or Witty Sayings of the Right Hon. 

 Henry, late Marquis a7id Earl of Worcester, 1650. By F. B. 



33 



