SOMERSET, Henry, Lord Herbert of Raglan (c.1630-1700), of Badminton, Glos. and Troy, Mon.

Distinguished courtiers and peers since the reign of Henry VII, until the 1640s the Somersets survived every political vicissitude in spite of their adherence to the Roman Catholic faith.65CP. They served in Parliaments through the sixteenth century, and successive heads of the family were pre-eminent as magnates in south-east Wales.66HP Commons 1509-1558; HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-1629. In 1639 this MP’s grandfather, Henry Somerset, 5th earl of Worcester, was among recusants granted protection for religion; the same year his right to exercise ecclesiastical patronage in the Church of England was endorsed by the king.67SP16/415, f. 100; SP16/430, f. 134; SP16/437, f. 107. Although as a Catholic he could not legally bear arms, Worcester was quick to support the commission of array in south Wales in 1642, was made a marquess by Charles I in 1643 in acknowledgment of his substantial contribution to the royalist war chest, and was secretly sent a patent for a dukedom in January 1645.68LJ v. 248b; J.F. Rees, Studies in Welsh Hist. (Cardiff, 1947), 64; HMC 12th Rep. IX. 10-15; Newman, Royalist Officers, 352. Even more active in the cause than the aged Worcester, the MP’s father, Edward Somerset, Lord Herbert of Raglan, was close to the king at Oxford, an absentee and ultimately ineffective commander in the Welsh border, and from 1646, as ‘earl of Glamorgan’ a fruitless negotiator for reinforcements from Irish confederates, before fleeing from Ireland to France in 1648.69Clarendon, Hist. ii. 479-84; Glam. Co. Hist. iv. 197; Rees, Studies in Welsh Hist. 64; LJ v. 444a-b, 503a, 581b; HMC 12th Rep. IX. 10-15; SP16/513/1, f. 97; CJ iv. 419a; Newman, Royalist Officers, 350-2; ‘Edward Somerset’, Oxford DNB.

The defeat of the royalists hit the family hard. Worcester died a prisoner in the Tower in December 1646, his castle of Raglan devastated and his estates, and those of his sons, sequestered.70CJ iv. 139b, 186a, 316a, 330b, 416a, 484a, 518b, 529a, 535b, 651a; v. 11a, 18a, 20b. Edward, who succeeded as 2nd marquess, could only view from afar the further disintegration of his inheritance; the estates were granted to parliamentarian activists including Oliver Cromwell* and the preacher Hugh Peter, while Worcester House in the Strand was destined for sale in March 1648, although in practice it was retained by the state.71CJ v. 39a, 63b, 74a, 121b, 162b, 301b, 482a, 511b-512a, 513b. On 14 March 1649 the marquess was among delinquents banished by the Rump on pain of death.72CJ vi. 165b.

Meanwhile, young Henry the future MP, now in his turn known as Lord Herbert of Raglan, escaped embroilment in the civil wars. Investigations launched by the Rump and its committees in spring 1651 served to corroborate his testimony that he had been in the royalist headquarters at Oxford only until 22 October 1643. Although he had been seen there ‘riding with a sword by his side’, he was ‘but 12 years old’, the sword was a child’s weapon, and ‘during all the time of his abode there, he was employed at his book, and at tennis, and other recreations, with children’. Equally, while it was claimed that he had appeared in arms under his father at Newent during the royalist siege of Gloucester in August-September 1643, it was conceded that he was still only 13 and that he was constrained by his tutor, ‘to whose rod he was then so far subject, as that he was often seen to shed tears’. He had participated in a ceremonial review of troops by the king, but did not attain the ‘age, strength and stature ... for bearing arms’ before leaving in October 1644 for travel abroad, from which he returned only in 1650.73CJ vi. 565b-566a, 576b; CCAM 637-8; CCC 435, 1706; CP. Fortunately for him, a proposal by Charles I at some date that he should marry the Princess Elizabeth, allegedly with a dowry of £300,000, had come to nothing.74Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 405n. By 6 June 1651 Parliament had concluded that Herbert was not to be defined as a delinquent within the terms of the acts of indemnity and sale, and, having established that family settlements had given Worcester only a life interest in much of his property, it considered provisos in legislation for land sales which would reserve some rights for his son.75CCAM 638; CJ vi. 576b-577a, 601a-602a.

Herbert was assisted by the forbearance of Oliver Cromwell and his own renunciation of his Catholic heritage, which he accomplished by appearing publicly in the chapel at Whitehall, thereby demonstrating his conformity. Apparently introduced to the lord general by Colonel Philip Jones* – perhaps because the latter, a commissioner for compounding, saw in this Somerset a potentially pliable counter-weight to the aristocratic interest in south Wales wielded in a distinctly moderate direction by the family of Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke – the young man, said to have been given £2,000 a year and lodgings in Whitehall, then seems to have frequented the Cromwell household.76N. Rogers, Memoirs of Monmouth-shire (1708), appendix, 105. Cromwell warned his wife on 12 April 1651 to ‘beware of my Lord Herbert his resort to your house’ on the ground that it ‘may occasion scandal, as if I were bargaining with him’.77Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 405. Bargaining was at work somewhere. On 9 January 1652 Herbert was granted present possession of lands worth £1,700 a year (nearly half the total value of the Worcester estates), on an initial payment of £800 to the trustees for sale of delinquent lands.78CJ vi. 566b-567a; vii. 67a-b. While other family members petitioned for their shares of the Somerset inheritance pleading their extreme poverty, Herbert managed to find and deposit the £800 within ten months.79CJ vii. 210b; SP18/26, f. 181; CCC 1705-15.

In the meantime, Worcester, ‘with encouragement from persons then at the helm’ as he alleged, ‘came only out of confidence to submit to this government’ and returned to England, but was committed to the Tower on 27 July 1652.80SP18/65, f. 157; CJ vii. 309b; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 273. Although trial by a high court of justice was in contemplation, this did not materialise.81CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 349-50. Two years later, after many applications for release, the earl was still there – albeit with an allowance of £3 (sometimes £5) a week, six servants to attend him and the opportunity to develop mechanical inventions.82CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 398, 445, 482, 499; 1652-3, pp. 67, 100, 224, 244, 330; 1653-4, pp. 295, 315, 380, 401; 1654, pp. 123, 150, 273, 351, 450; CJ vii. 328b. Despite the suspicions under which his father evidently lay, in December 1652 Herbert, who continued the fight to retrieve ancestral estates from land sales, was added to the commission of the peace for Monmouthshire, to be followed by appointment in Brecon and Devon the following spring.83C231/6, pp. 248, 254, 255, 294; CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 124, 214, 228, 230, 309-10, 361.

In the summer of 1654 Herbert was returned to the Parliament for Breconshire. Especially since this was only on the periphery of his family’s former sphere of influence, he must have owed his election to substantial backing from the government. Perhaps the most likely sponsor was again the protectorate loyalist Philip Jones, who had previously sat for Breconshire, who was busy building up his interest in south Wales through the acquisition of former Somerset family estates, and who had nominated the earl of Worcester’s former servant Edmund Jones* as attorney-general in the area.84s.v. ‘Philip Jones’. Some stratagem was clearly at work. Lord Herbert received his first parliamentary appointment on 15 September, when he was named immediately after Colonel Jones – plausibly Philip – to the committee to investigate the proceedings of the judges at Salters’ Hall over prisoners for debt.85CJ vii. 368a. Three days later he was included in the delegation of otherwise seasoned MPs chosen to attend the lord protector with the declaration of a fast day.86CJ vii. 368b. He subsequently collected nominations to the important committees for the army and navy and for Irish affairs (26, 29 Sept.), before being added on 5 October with many other MPs to the committee of privileges.87CJ vii. 370b, 371b, 373b. The next entry in the Journal that day recorded the resolution to grant his father release from prison on bail.88CJ vii. 373b.

Thereafter Herbert’s rate of activity appeared to slow down. On 10 October he was placed on the committee reviewing the legislation passed the previous year by the Nominated Parliament – another significant appointment.89CJ vii. 375a. He was also named to consider fen drainage (31 Oct.), and a petition from the purchasers of Sir John Stawell’s confiscated estates (3 Nov.).90CJ vii. 380a, 381a. There was then a lengthy gap before his final appearance in the record. On 19 January 1655 he joined Colonel Jones, who had been supervising the passage of the bill to settle the protectoral regime, as a teller for the majority in favour of the adjournment of the unproductive debate upon it.91CJ vii. 420b. Three days later a frustrated Cromwell dissolved the House.

Herbert returned to fighting for his lands, apparently attempting to ingratiate himself further with the protectorate by revealing property of his grandfather hitherto undetected by the state.92CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 164, 166-7, 172, 218; 1655-6, pp. 100-1, 239, 242, 255. In 1655 his kinswoman Elizabeth Somerset, daughter of Thomas Somerset, 1st Viscount Somerset of Cashel [I], and a recusant, bequeathed to him what remained of her estate, principally at Badminton in Gloucestershire and Troy in Monmouthshire.93Glos. Archives, D2700/P5/1. Herbert soon settled at the former, while the latter provided a fresh base for the recovery of his family’s hereditary stake in that county.94SP18/128, f. 169. Re-appointed in 1656 after an interval to the commission of the peace for Monmouthshire, in 1657 he received his first nomination as an assessment commissioner (in Gloucestershire).95Justices of the Peace ed. Phillips, 360-8; A. and O. On the other hand, he was not elected to the second protectorate Parliament: perhaps at this point he had less need of the ancillary benefits of a seat at Westminster; perhaps his loyalty was becoming less certain in some quarters. Married before a justice of the peace in the approved interregnum manner in August 1657, Herbert nevertheless chose as his bride the widow and daughter of royalists, the latter of whom – a leader of insurgents in 1648 – had then been executed by Parliament.96Marsh, Annals of Chepstow, 256; CP.

The death of Oliver Cromwell seems to have removed any residual loyalty he may have had to the protectorate. In June 1659 a royalist agent reported hopes that Herbert’s mother-in-law would encourage him to take a lead in insurgency both in Gloucestershire and south Wales.97CCSP 242. Having received intelligence that Herbert, Sir Edward Massie* and others had planned a rendezvous for 1 August in order to ‘fall upon Gloucester’ as part of the co-ordinated risings named after Sir George Boothe*, government cavalry rounded them up, seizing Herbert at home; although most captives then escaped, Herbert did not.98Clarke Pprs. iv. 33, 35-6; CCSP 312; The Humble Addresse of the Lord Maior (1659), 5. Brought before the council of state following an order of 12 August, he was sent to the Tower.99CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 101, 127; HMC 12th Rep. IX. 49. Now he too faced delinquency proceedings, but in the midst of a deepening political crisis, he was released on 1 November without further action.100CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 208, 230; CCC 764; ‘Henry Somerset’, Oxford DNB.

Returned to the Convention of 1660 for Monmouthshire, he was as yet unable to carry Gloucestershire, where he was defeated.101HP Commons 1660-1690. In May he was part of the delegation sent to escort Charles II home to England.102Instructions Lately Agreed (1660), 1 (E.1027.9); HMC 12th Rep. IX. 50. Following the Restoration he rapidly acquired public offices in all the counties within his family’s traditional sphere of influence, far exceeding his father in power and wealth.103CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 72; 1667, pp. 369, 400; 1667-1668, pp. 76-7; SP29/4, f. 47; SP29/8, f. 206; SP29/16, f. 143; Justices of the Peace ed. Phillips, passim. He vacated his seat in the Cavalier Parliament on succeeding as 3rd marquess of Worcester in 1667.104HP Commons 1660-1690.

Appointed in 1672 as lord president of the council of Wales and the marches, he was the last to hold this position.105SP44/35A, f. 39. Created duke of Beaufort in 1682, he was a court tory and retired from public life after 1688, but continued to live in splendid style at Badminton. He died on 21 January 1700 and was buried in the Beaufort chapel, St George’s, Windsor. 106CP; HP Commons 1660-1690. His eldest son Charles Somerset†, Lord Herbert of Raglan, who from 1677 was elected seven times to the Commons, pre-deceased him; Charles’s younger son, Lord Charles Somerset†, a Jacobite, was returned to Parliament for Monmouth in 1731.107HP Commons 1660-1690; HP Commons 1715-1754.