SOMERSET, Edward (c.1552-1628)

The early Stuart earls of Worcester were descended from Charles Somerset^† (later 1st earl of Worcester), an illegitimate son of Henry Beaufort^†, 2nd duke of Somerset. Charles served as lord chamberlain to both Henry VII and Henry VIII, who in turn created him Lord Herbert in around 1504 and earl of Worcester in 1514. The family continued to hold lesser court offices through the next two generations, though the 3rd earl’s career under Elizabeth was somewhat hampered by his Catholicism. It was presumably at the queen’s behest that the earl’s son and heir, Edward, the subject of this biography, was instructed in Protestant doctrines at Cambridge by John Whitgift^*, the future archbishop of Canterbury.80 CP, xii. pt. 2, pp. 846-9, 851-4; Recs. of Province of Soc. of Jesus ed. H. Foley, iii. 432; Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellata ed. W.P. Baildon, 226. When Edward succeeded his father as 4th earl in 1589, he inherited a substantial patrimony, including approximately 10,000 acres in Monmouthshire and Glamorgan, and the imposing seat of Raglan Castle, which the 3rd earl had converted into a luxurious mansion.81 C142/222/46; WARD 7/77/152; J. Newman, Gwent/Monmouthshire (Buildings of Wales), 490.

Highly regarded by Elizabeth, Worcester was sent to Scotland in 1590 to congratulate James VI on his marriage, and was talked of as a potential president of the council of the North or the council in the Marches of Wales.82 CSP Scot. 1589-93, p. 324; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, ii. 203, 248; Letters and Memorials of State ed. A. Collins, ii. 121-2. His failure to secure either post was in part explained by his religious ambiguity. Although the earl publicly conformed to the Anglican Church, most of his immediate family were Catholic, and his own sympathies evidently lay with Rome. This stance probably increased his local standing in Monmouthshire, which boasted one of the largest Catholic populations in the kingdom.83 P. Williams, Council in the Marches of Wales, 241-2; M.C. Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern Eng. 173, 181, 289; HMC Hatfield, xviii. 200-1; J. Bossy, ‘Eng. Catholic Community 1603-25’, Reign of Jas. VI and I ed. A.G.R. Smith, 102; F.H. Pugh, ‘Mon. Recusants in the Reigns of Eliz. and Jas. I’, S. Wales and Mon. Rec. Soc. iv. 60-1. However, it restricted his opportunities for high office, despite his absolute loyalty to successive monarchs. Consequently, he settled for positions at court which were lucrative and allowed him access to the inner circles of government, where his natural discretion made him a valued adviser. Initially an ally of Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex, Worcester distanced himself from the volatile favourite prior to the latter’s disgrace, and was briefly imprisoned by him during Essex’s abortive 1601 rebellion. In the following months Worcester was appointed master of the horse, and admitted to the Privy Council. He also became lord lieutenant of Monmouthshire and Glamorgan in 1602, a particular mark of royal favour, as these counties traditionally fell under the authority of the lord president of Wales, whose jurisdiction was thereby curtailed.84 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, ii. 308, 397; APC, 1599-1600, p. 351; CSP Dom. 1598-1601, p. 548; Williams, 242. Patron of one of London’s leading companies of players, Worcester’s Men, and owner of a substantial house on the Strand, acquired in 1600 through the marriage of his eldest son Henry (Somerset^*, later 5th earl of Worcester), the earl was now a major figure at court. When Elizabeth died in March 1603, the Privy Council selected his son Thomas^‡ to help notify James VI that he was now also king of England.85 A. Gurr, Shakespearean Stage 1574-1642, p. 65; LCC Survey of London, xviii. 120; Chamberlain Letters, i. 189.

The early Jacobean years: court life and the Catholic threat, 1603-6

Worcester’s reappointment as master of the horse to the new monarch ensured that he remained at the centre of court life, since James was obsessed with hunting and required the earl’s constant attendance. Reputedly ‘the best horseman … of those times’, he also found himself in demand for major state occasions, acting as temporary earl marshal for the king’s coronation, and the royal procession through London in March 1604.86 Nichols, i. 124, 230, 326; Illustrations of Brit. Hist. ed. E. Lodge, iii. 14-15, 40-1, 86; R. Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia ed. J.S. Cerovski, 85. Worcester made good use of his access to James, procuring the appointment of his son Thomas as master of the horse to Anne of Denmark, and probably also obtaining a place in Prince Henry’s household for his own heir Henry. However, he found court life tiresome, reporting drily to his friend Gilbert Talbot^*, 7th earl of Shrewsbury, on the vanity of his fellow courtiers, and the ‘plotting and malice’ of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting.87 Illustrations of Brit. Hist. iii. 65; Add. 12506, f. 317. In January 1604 he attended the Hampton Court Conference, where he intervened briefly to defend irregular but traditional practices such as emergency baptism.88 A. Stewart, The Cradle King: a Life of Jas. VI and I, 193.

At the elections for the first Jacobean Parliament in 1604, Worcester arranged the return of his son Thomas as junior knight for Monmouthshire, and probably also nominated the Member for Monmouth Boroughs, his sometime auditor, Robert Johnson^‡. Shortly before the state opening, his son Henry was summoned to the Lords in his father’s barony, as Lord Herbert.89 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 268-71; SO3/2, f. 226. Worcester attended just over four-fifths of the opening session, the bulk of his absences falling in the closing weeks. Appointed by the crown to the prestigious role of a trier of petitions from Gascony and other overseas territories, he received 30 other nominations. Predictably, a number of these concerned matters of direct interest to the government. Named to three conferences about wardship or purveyance, he was also appointed to a joint subcommittee of both Houses to consider proposals for reforming purveyance.90 LJ, ii. 264a, 266b, 290b, 292a, 303a. In addition, he was nominated to two conferences on the proposed Anglo-Scottish Union, and to a further two about a book on the Union by John Thornborough^*, bishop of Bristol, which had offended the Commons.91 Ibid. 277b, 284a, 309a, 332b. Another conference appointment concerned the bill to establish a royal entail, which failed to find favour. Worcester was also named to the committee for four bills to naturalize a number of Scottish courtiers.92 Ibid. 272a-b, 341b.

Worcester’s remaining conference appointment concerned the Commons’ complaints about ecclesiastical matters. Despite, or perhaps because of, his known religious leanings, he was named to the committees for bills to suppress Catholic books and to enforce the execution of anti-Catholic laws; both measures proved to be defective, and the earl was also nominated to the committees for the revised bills.93 Ibid. 282b, 290a, 301b, 313b, 324b. When the bill for continuance of the 1597 act on vagabonds was consigned to committee in May, Worcester took charge of the measure, moving a week later for a new meeting time for the committee. He reported the bill on 7 June, but the Lords were not satisfied with the measure, which he presented again five days later, after a further committee stage.94 Ibid. 304b, 310a, 315a, 319b. The earl chaired the committee for the bill on apparel, which he reported on 15 May, and probably also the bill to amend the 1563 Statute of Artificers, which failed to return to the House. Named to the committee for the bill to resolve Sir Thomas Shirley’s^‡ case, he was subsequently appointed to the committee for the revised measure rushed through the Lords on 10 May, which was instructed to meet in his chamber at court.95 Ibid. 284b, 295b, 298b, 299b. Later that month, Worcester was nominated to attend the king with the Lords’ proposals for resolving the dispute over the Abergavenny barony, and to help review the clerk’s notes on the formal proceedings in this business. In his only other recorded speech during this session, on 8 May, he excused the absence of Robert Radcliffe^*, 5th earl of Sussex.96 Ibid. 294b, 303b, 307a.

By early 1604 Worcester was part of the inner group of councillors entrusted by the king with the most sensitive government business, the other three members being Robert Cecil^*, Lord Cecil (later 1st earl of Salisbury), Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk, and Henry Howard^*, earl of Northampton.97 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 255; D.H. Willson, King Jas. VI and I, 176. Worcester’s importance was recognized in June that year by the Spanish ambassador, Villa Mediana, who described him as a ‘man of ability’, albeit disappointingly neutral on relations with Spain, despite his presumed Catholicism.98 A.J. Loomie, ‘Toleration and Diplomacy: the Religious Issue in Anglo-Spanish Relations, 1603-5’, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n.s. liii. 53. The earl himself viewed his privileged position as a mixed blessing. Frequently employed as an impromptu secretary during James’s hunting trips, he found these administrative duties an unwelcome burden on top of his role as master of the horse. As he explained in December 1604 to Shrewsbury:

I think I have not had two hours [out] of twenty-four of rest but Sundays, for in the morning we are on horseback by eight, and so continue in full career from the death of one hare to another, until four at night; … by that time I find at my lodging sometimes one, most commonly two packets of letters, all which must be answered before I sleep, for here is none of the Council but myself. … [I] wish heartily to be back at London, … [it] being far from my humour to turn penman at these years.99 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 358-9, 364, 374; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p.170; Addenda, 1580-1625, p. 449; Illustrations of Brit. Hist. iii. 110.

In fact, over time the king found fault with Worcester’s handling of official correspondence, considering him to be insufficiently diplomatic. Although he continued to channel business through the earl well into 1605, James increasingly turned to a more seasoned secretary, Sir Thomas Lake^‡, doubtless to Worcester’s relief.100 Letters of King Jas. VI and I ed. G.P.V. Akrigg, 238; Add. 11402, f. 98; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 70, 72, 79, 84-5, 162-3; Willson, 185.

In June 1605 the earl was dispatched to Monmouthshire, after local Catholics rioted in support of their demands for freedom of worship. Worcester quickly exploited his personal standing in the county to restore order, mobilizing the magistracy to round up the ringleaders. He then notified the government in London that the reports of unrest had been exaggerated, though the bishop of Hereford, Robert Bennett^*, subsequently complained that the earl had under-played the scale of the crisis.101 CSP Ven. 1603-7, pp. 247-8, 252, 254, 266; HMC Gawdy, 101; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 304-6, 314, 360. While Worcester may indeed have tried to disguise the threat posed by Catholics in the Welsh Marches, he had no choice but to respond firmly to the Gunpowder Plot that autumn. On 26 Oct. the earl was dining with Salisbury, Suffolk and Northampton when William Parker^*, Lord Monteagle (later 13th Lord Morley) first broke the news that some sort of attack on Parliament was being planned. Early on 5 Nov., following the capture of Guy Fawkes at Westminster, Worcester undertook the sensitive task of informing Henry Percy^*, 3rd earl of Northumberland, that one of the plot’s ringleaders was the latter’s servant, Thomas Percy.102 M. Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, 6; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, i. 37; Worcester rapidly authorized a search in Monmouthshire for any conspirators, helped to interrogate both the surviving plotters and Henry Garnet, the Jesuit who had advised them, and served as a commissioner at their trials.103 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 253; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 513; CSP Ven. 1603-7, p. 301; Recs. of Eng. Province of Soc. of Jesus, iv. 154.

Presumably because of his active involvement in these inquiries, Worcester missed the three parliamentary sittings in November 1605. He was also absent from the Lords for extended periods in early February and late March, and in total attended only 65 per cent of this session, though he still attracted 36 appointments. Named in January 1606 to the select committee to devise the Gunpowder plotters’ punishment, he was subsequently nominated to scrutinize both versions of the bill for their attainder. Furthermore, Worcester was drawn into the inevitable anti-Catholic backlash in Parliament. Appointed to a conference with the Commons on measures to preserve the state and the Protestant religion, he was named to the committees for bills to suppress both recusancy and popish books. He was also selected to attend a conference concerning other religious grievances raised by the lower House.104 LJ, ii. 363a, 367a-b, 380b, 401a, 410b, 419b.

As a leading courtier, Worcester was unsurprisingly nominated to three bill committees concerning the crown’s property, and to a conference to discuss the Union and the latest purveyance bill. Similarly he was named to scrutinize bills to confirm the theology chairs recently founded by the king at Oxford and Cambridge. His status as a commissioner for the office of earl marshal explains his appointment to the committee for two bills containing proposals for reforming the Marshalsea court.105 Ibid. 364a, 386b, 413a, 431b, 436b; Bowyer Diary, 116-17. On a more personal note, Worcester was nominated to the bill committee concerning the estates of his colleague, Sir Thomas Lake. The earl was also named to the committees for all three bills to attaint Henry Brooke^†, formerly 11th Lord Cobham and a prominent Elizabethan courtier, who had been found guilty of trying to overthrow James in 1603.106 LJ, ii. 376b, 379a, 395b, 403a.

Some business during this session was of personal interest to Worcester. He almost certainly opposed the bill against weirs on navigable rivers, as he held a grant of weirs from the crown. He was appointed to the committee, and the measure failed to return to the House.107 Ibid. 410a; HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 172. Conversely, the earl helped to steer through the bill for repairs to the bridge at Chepstow, Monmouthshire, one of his own lordships. Although the bill was initially delivered to the earl of Shrewsbury, it was Worcester who actually chaired the committee, reporting amendments to the Lords on 3 May. As the owner of a mansion in the Strand, he presumably followed the progress of the bill to assure some properties there to his neighbour, the earl of Salisbury, and he was named to the committee. The bill to amend the government of Wales must also have attracted his attention, as he was added to this committee.108 LJ, ii. 409a, 420b-1a, 424a. There may have been unexpected consequences to his nomination to the bill committee concerning the estates of the late Henry Windsor^*, 5th Lord Windsor, another peer with Catholic sympathies; within two years, the latter’s heir Thomas^*, 6th Lord Windsor had married one of Worcester’s daughters.109 Ibid. 376b; CP, xii. pt. 2, p. 800. The earl was also appointed to chair legislative committees on reducing the number of middlemen and relieving London’s artisan skinners and prisoners in execution. He reported the last of these three measures on 7 March.110 LJ, ii. 364b, 383a, 389b.

Mixed fortunes at court, 1606-10

During 1606 Worcester continued to play a prominent part in court events. In January he participated conspicuously in Ben Jonson’s masque of ‘Barriers’, staged to mark the marriage of Suffolk’s daughter Frances to Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex. Seven months later Worcester accompanied James and the king of Denmark when they paraded through London.111 Nichols, ii. 30, 67. However, during the summer, he suffered a personal setback, when his daughter Blanche secretly married Thomas Arundell^† (later 2nd Lord Arundell of Wardour). Worcester’s wife had encouraged this union of two Catholic families, but the king opposed the match, fearing that he would be seen as tolerating popery, the bride ‘being the daughter of so great a councillor and one so much favoured by him’. The earl followed his monarch’s lead, but to no avail, and although he eventually provided Blanche with a dowry, his relations with the Arundells remained acrimonious.112 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 200-1; Geneal. Collections Illustrating the Hist. of Roman Catholic Fams. of Eng. ed. J.J. Howard and H.F. Burke, 234; Questier, 91; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 466.

Worcester attended nearly 90 per cent of the 1606-7 parliamentary session, and received 29 nominations, all but one of them to legislative committees. Appointed in November 1606 to a conference about the Union, he was also named in June 1607 to the committee for the bill to abolish hostile laws between England and Scotland. A week before the session opened, the earl had been appointed a commissioner to compound for defective titles, and despite this vested interest, he was nominated to scrutinize the two versions of the bill to confirm new grants made by this commission.113 LJ, ii. 452b, 471b, 494a, 520b; SO3/3, unfol. (13 Nov. 1606). Worcester was named to two bill committees concerning exchanges of land by the crown, and a third for the augmentation of Nonsuch Park, of which he had recently become the keeper.114 LJ, ii. 503b, 511a, 521b. Once again he was nominated to the committee for a bill to reform the Marshalsea court. He was also selected to consider bills on at least five other issues relating to London, including livery companies’ property, the amendment of the 1604 Watermen’s Act, and restrictions on new buildings in the capital’s suburbs.115 Ibid. 460b, 479a, 516b, 522b.

In May 1607 Worcester was granted a lucrative 21-year monopoly over the manufacture of gunpowder in England and Ireland, a deal which was initially so successful that in January 1610 he was given permission to export his surplus stock. However, another industrial enterprise brought him into conflict in 1607 with his fellow courtier and Welsh magnate, William Herbert^*, 3rd earl of Pembroke, when the latter’s Company of Mineral and Battery Works constructed wireworks on some Monmouthshire land which Worcester claimed as his. The dispute festered for months, and Salisbury was eventually obliged to broker a resolution.116 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 356, 378; Addenda, 1580-1625, pp. 522-3; Illustrations of Brit. Hist. iii. 207. Worcester remained a member of the inner group of royal councillors, but as he approached the end of his sixth decade, he devoted more time to less strenuous duties, such as overseeing improvements to Theobalds, the palatial country house which the king had recently acquired from Salisbury.117 CSP Dom. Addenda, 1580-1625, p. 498; HMC Hatfield, xix. 253. He still attended the king on his progresses, and on occasion communicated official business between James and Salisbury, who became lord treasurer in 1608. Nevertheless, his health was starting to decline, and in February 1608 he was prevented by severe gout from participating in the masque staged to celebrate the wedding of John Ramsay^*, Viscount Haddington [S] (later earl of Holdernesse).118 HMC Hatfield, xxi. 92-3, 95-6, 101; Cal. Talbot Pprs. ed. G. Batho (Derbys. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. iv), 257.

When Parliament resumed in February 1610, Worcester missed almost a quarter of the sittings, going absent for a month from late March to late April, during which time he was formally excused attendance, presumably on account of illness. In June, again serving temporarily as earl marshal, he participated in the creation of Prince Henry as prince of Wales. Two of the earl’s younger sons were created knights of the Bath in conjunction with this event.119 Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, i. 96, 98, 209; Nichols, ii. 342. The principal business of this session was Salisbury’s proposal for a Great Contract to restructure the royal finances. Worcester was named to the preliminary conference between the two Houses on this issue, this appointment being renewed at intervals as the discussions progressed.120 LJ, ii. 550b; No speeches by Worcester in relation to the Contract were recorded, but he was evidently committed to the success of these proposals. On 16 July, he, Salisbury, Suffolk and Northampton visited James at Theobalds to deliver the Commons’ latest offer, emerging after a lengthy debate with confirmation that the king expected £200,000 a year in return for the concessions being demanded by the lower House. The next day, Salisbury explained to the Lords that the four councillors had attended James ‘not as Parliament-men, but as persons otherwise interested in the king’s service’. However, all these efforts proved insufficient to conclude the Contract.121 Procs. 1610, ii. 285; LJ, ii. 646a.

In the course of this session Worcester attracted 21 other nominations, including appointment to a conference about Dr Cowell’s controversial book, The Interpreter, which was deemed to have disparaged Parliament. Two of the earl’s legislative committee appointments related indirectly to the crown’s affairs. One bill, which went through two drafts, was designed to end the practice of commoners assigning debts to the king in lieu of cash payments, while the other banned the legal strategy of conveying properties to the crown in order to resolve claims of ownership.122 LJ, ii. 557b, 601a, 623a, 632b. Another nomination concerned the bill to confirm the title of William Stanley^*, 6th earl of Derby to the Isle of Man, following an inheritance dispute with which Worcester had become involved at least three years earlier.123 Ibid. 601a; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 359. Several more appointments related to religion. Named to help consider measures to reduce non-residence among clergy, the earl was also nominated to scrutinize bills against blasphemous swearing and scandalous clerics, and for restraint of ecclesiastical canons not confirmed by Parliament.124 LJ, ii. 587a, 611a, 629a, 641b. Worcester’s views on these issues were not recorded, but he certainly opposed the bill to make those wishing to be naturalized or restored in blood to receive first the Anglican communion and take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. Although appointed to the committee, he was one of five peers who stood out against the measure after its third reading on 30 June, the other four all being Catholics or crypto-Catholics, including Northampton. As privy councillors, Worcester and Northampton had almost certainly just taken the oath of allegiance themselves, in compliance with the proclamation of 2 June which followed the assassination of Henri IV of France. Nevertheless, it is testimony to the toleration exercised at the Jacobean court that their apparent gesture of disloyalty over the bill attracted barely any comment.125 Ibid. 606b, 608b; Procs. 1610, i. 121-2.

Worcester spent the remainder of the summer on progress with James, before returning to Westminster in October for the final session of this Parliament. This time his attendance was intermittent, and he was present for barely three-fifths of the sittings. In his only recorded speech, on 16 Oct., he informed the Lords that his son Lord Herbert had obtained licence of absence, and had supplied a proxy, which he himself exercised.126 HMC Hatfield, xxi. 234; LJ, ii. 666a, 667a. This session too was dominated by fruitless discussions about the Great Contract. The earl was appointed to the conference at which the Lords invited the Commons to supply the king’s needs, and although Worcester paid no further emergency visits to James, the latter certainly continued to consult him and the other three leading councillors by letter about the proposals generated by the Commons.127 LJ, ii. 678a; HMC Hastings, iv. 222-6; CSP Dom. 1603-10, pp. 644-5. Worcester received just three other nominations, all to bill committees, the topics being the preservation of timber supplies, lawsuits over bequests of land, and leases made by Prince Henry. The earl was a commissioner both for the proroguing of this session on 6 Dec., and the dissolution of Parliament in February 1611.128 LJ, ii. 669a, 675a, 677a, 683b-4a.

Power shifts at court, 1610-20

The failure of the Great Contract negotiations damaged Salisbury’s standing with the king, but Worcester himself was not blamed, and he remained a member of James’s inner circle of advisers. Nevertheless, it was around now that the earl began to spend more time in attendance on the openly Catholic Anne of Denmark.129 Willson, 268; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, iv. 283. He continued to conform to the established Church, in March 1611 even attending a sermon at Paul’s Cross during which a former recusant denounced Catholic teachings, but he sometimes struggled to conceal his true sympathies. About this time, he helped to interrogate a Catholic priest who had been falsely accused by his gaoler of insulting the king. When the truth emerged, ‘the earl of Worcester, biting his lips, showed plainly by his countenance and gestures what he thought of the underling’s barefaced falsehood’. That said, he had no hesitation in 1611 in backing the new anti-Catholic project for the plantation of Ulster, heading up a consortium in County Armagh with the firmly Protestant Richard Fiennes^*, 7th Lord Saye and Sele. The prospect of a good financial return on his investment apparently outweighed any religious qualms in this instance.130 Birch, i. 108; LMA, Acc/1876/F/03/05/2, no. 25; Recs. of the Eng. Province of the Soc. of Jesus, vii. 1026; CSP Carew, 1603-24, p. 231.

In May 1612 Worcester was a witness to the preliminary marriage treaty for Princess Elizabeth and the Calvinist Elector Palatine. As Salisbury’s health failed, there was some speculation that Worcester might succeed him as lord treasurer. In the event, although the earl was one of the few leading peers to attend Salisbury’s funeral in June, the Treasury was put into commission, with Worcester as one of the commissioners.131 Rymer, vii. pt. 2, p. 183; Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xii), 142n; Chamberlain Letters, i. 353; HMC Hatfield, xxi. 374. This was widely assumed to be a temporary measure, prompting fresh rumours that Northampton would become lord treasurer, with Worcester replacing him as lord privy seal, and the mastership of the horse going to the royal favourite, Robert Carr^*, Viscount Rochester (later earl of Somerset). For several months this was in fact a realistic prospect, the king considering that Worcester no longer attended on him regularly enough to fulfil his duties as master of the horse. Moreover, the earl was one of the few former allies of Salisbury to support the idea of Northampton becoming treasurer. However, Rochester’s ambitions were hampered by competition from the earl of Pembroke, who also coveted the mastership, while Worcester himself demanded ‘somewhat large conditions’, as compensation for surrendering his office, prompting Rochester to lose interest.132 HMC Downshire, iii. 306; Chamberlain Letters, i. 360; HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 41-2; Letters from Redgrave Hall ed. D. MacCulloch, 94-5.

For the time being, Worcester’s close ties to Northampton protected his status as a leading councillor, but with Rochester increasingly influential, the earl’s standing at court declined. He remained a prominent figure at state occasions, in October 1612 helping to escort the coffin of Mary, queen of Scots when it was brought from Peterborough to Westminster, witnessing Princess Elizabeth’s marriage settlement a month later, and carrying a ceremonial sword at Prince Henry’s funeral in December.133 Willson, 335; Nichols, ii. 463; Rymer, vii. pt. 2, pp. 184-5; Harl. 5176, f. 210. However, he probably offended the king in April 1613 by opposing a proposal for the king’s cousin Ludovic Stuart^*, 2nd duke of Lennox [S] (later duke of Richmond) to be granted an English peerage, and he absented himself from court throughout that summer, preferring to accompany Anne of Denmark on her tour of Somerset. His closeness with the queen was rewarded early in 1614, when Worcester was appointed steward of Greenwich manor, which had just been added to the queen’s jointure estate.134 Chamberlain Letters, i. 444, 450, 487; Nichols, ii. 643, 645-6, 674. By now it was widely expected that a new Parliament would be summoned. Fresh rumours spread of a government reshuffle, in which Worcester would become lord steward and be replaced as master of the horse by Rochester, now earl of Somerset. However, according to a later account of these manoeuvrings at court, Worcester valued his profits from the mastership more highly than the prestige attached to the stewardship, and accordingly refused to exchange offices unless he was also given a £1,000 pension as compensation for his loss of revenue. Somerset baulked at this demand, and the discussions fell through.135 HMC Downshire, iv. 296, 316, 342; Birch, i. 336.

The elections for the Addled Parliament again saw Robert Johnson returned for Monmouth Boroughs, while Worcester’s steward, William Jones, served as senior knight for Monmouthshire, apparently the last occasion when the earl exerted influence over the county seats.136 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 269-70. Worcester was ill when the Parliament opened in April 1614, and the earl of Somerset fulfilled the duties of master of the horse at the state opening, provoking comment that he had taken possession of the office in anticipation.137 ‘Camden Diary’, 10; Chamberlain Letters, i. 522. In fact, Worcester missed the first ten sittings of this short session, and although he was once again appointed a trier of petitions from Gascony, he attracted only three other nominations. Named to the committees for bills to conserve timber supplies, and to confirm the foundation of almshouses and a school at Monmouth, he was also selected to discuss arrangements for the dissolution, for which he served as a commissioner the next day.138 LJ, ii. 686b, 697b, 711b, 716a, 717a.

Northampton died a week after the Parliament ended, having appointed Worcester an executor of his will.139 Archaeologia, xlii. 377. Another government reshuffle followed, the earl of Suffolk becoming lord treasurer, and Somerset lord chamberlain. It was briefly reported that Worcester would relinquish the mastership of the horse to Pembroke, in return for the office of lord privy seal and a pension, but once again nothing transpired.140 Chamberlain Letters, i. 548, 550; Birch, i. 339. So long as the Howard faction remained the dominant force at court, Worcester still enjoyed some influence, since he was on good terms with several members of the family, not least Suffolk. In March 1615, he helped to overturn the appointment of Sir Arthur Ingram^‡ as cofferer of the household, on the grounds that Ingram had breached the normal regulations by purchasing the office. Shortly afterwards the queen made the earl keeper of Greenwich Palace, another clear mark of her personal favour.141 CSP Ven. 1613-15, p. 317; SO3/6, unfol. (May 1615); Holles Letters ed. P.R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxi), 64.

Nevertheless, the balance of power in the government was shifting. In the autumn of 1615, as details of the Overbury murder scandal emerged, Somerset finally fell from grace, and a new favourite, Sir George Villiers^* (later 1st duke of Buckingham) came to the fore. The king was determined to have Villiers as his master of the horse, and this time Worcester had no choice but to give way. In return for his compliance, a grateful James appointed him lord privy seal in January 1616, awarded him a £1,500 pension, and shortly afterwards renewed his gunpowder patent.142 HMC Downshire, v. 388, 398; CSP Ven. 1616-17, p. 100; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 418; SO3/6, unfol. (Dec. 1615). The earl took an active approach to his new duties, which included supervision of both the privy seal office and the Court of Requests, and he moved swiftly to maximise his personal profits, asserting his right to one-fifth of the fees taken by the privy seal clerks.143 G.E. Aylmer, King’s Servants, 14-15; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 346, 350. Worcester remained an active member of the Privy Council, and added the keepership of the queen’s London residence, Somerset House, to his existing duties. In March 1617 he also secured a further pension of £1,500 p.a.144 APC, 1616-17, p. 215; C231/4, f. 19; SO3/6, unfol. (Mar. 1617). This was almost certainly compensation for Worcester, who had been obliged to accept a revised patent for gunpowder production following sustained complaints about his management of this vital industry.145 APC, 1615-16, pp. 508-9; 1616-17, pp. 47-8, 132-3; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 454.

Despite his elevation to the office of lord privy seal, Worcester was now rapidly losing influence at court. Although he acted as an assistant to Villiers when the latter was created earl of Buckingham in January 1618, he never established that familiarity with the young favourite which he had enjoyed with Salisbury or Northampton. To make matters worse, his friend Suffolk was sacked as lord treasurer in July that year, while Anne of Denmark died in March 1619. Worcester, who had spent increasing amounts of time with the latter, attended her deathbed, and acted as a principal mourner at her funeral.146 Harl. 5176, f. 227v; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 565; CSP Ven. 1617-18, p. 315; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 219; Nichols, iii. 540. Now aged nearly 70, his life was becoming progressively more difficult. In January 1620 he finally surrendered his gunpowder patent, the revised terms of 1617 having failed to silence the barrage of criticisms. About the same time, on the king’s instructions, he began attending the Court of Requests to hear cases in person, an onerous duty which he was expected to combine with a host of other minor commissions. By February that year, the newsletter writer John Chamberlain was reporting that, ‘having received some rubs of late’, Worcester was ‘willing to retire himself’, and was negotiating terms for Thomas Howard^*, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel, to succeed him as lord privy seal.147 APC, 1619-21, p. 117; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 289, 323; Add. 72303, f. 173. These discussions failed to bear fruit, and Worcester remained in post. However, in September 1620 he went too far in his covert support for Catholicism, sending one of his daughters to become a nun in the Spanish Netherlands. This news infuriated the king, who was currently preoccupied with the threat posed to his own daughter and son-in-law, now king and queen of Bohemia, by the advancing Habsburg armies. Shortly afterwards Worcester donated 1000 marks towards the defence of the Palatinate, but this was a less than generous sum, considering the benefits which he had received from the crown, and it compared unfavourably with the gifts from most other earls.148 ‘Camden Diary’, 61; SP14/117/2; 14/119/14.

Loss of influence, 1621-5

It is symptomatic of his declining influence by the early 1620s that Worcester may not have exercised any electoral patronage ahead of the third Jacobean Parliament. Thomas Ravenscroft^‡, who sat for Monmouth Boroughs, possessed links to the earl’s circle, but could equally have been returned through his own local standing.149 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 271. Worcester himself attended the Lords for barely half of the 1621 session, missing most sittings from mid March to mid May. He was noted on 17 Apr. as having leave of absence, though no reason was given. The earl’s record after the long summer recess was very much stronger, with just three absences during the final month of the Parliament. Nevertheless, he contributed to business only intermittently. Aside from his customary appointment as a trier of petitions from Gascony, a role for which he now automatically qualified as one of the great officers of state, he received just 13 nominations during the entire session.150 LJ, iii. 7a, 75a.

Worcester was probably more active away from the upper House than the records now indicate, for he was one of the more senior figures in the new committee for privileges, to which he was named on 5 February. Three days later he delivered the committee’s preliminary report, and secured the Lords’ agreement that it should continue to meet throughout the session. However, he cannot have continued to chair its meetings, since his next report, on the privileges enjoyed by peers’ servants, was not presented until 14 December.151 Ibid. 10b, 12b-13a, 194b; ‘Hastings 1621’, p. 8; LD 1621, p. 121. The earl also chaired the committee for the bill to amend the government of Wales, which he reported with amendments on 31 May. As this measure failed to receive its third reading prior to the summer recess, he moved on 27 Nov. for it to be recommitted. This motion was accepted, and on 8 Dec. he again reported the bill, with further amendments.152 LJ, iii. 130a, 146b, 172b, 186b. Worcester’s only other speech, on 11 Dec., was a procedural motion to finish dealing with the complaint made by Sir John Bourchier^‡ concerning the latter’s treatment by Chancery. The earl was twice appointed to conferences concerning the petition of both Houses against recusants. Of his remaining legislative committee nominations, he probably took an interest in those concerned with the trades in Welsh cloth and butter, and the foundation of the London Charterhouse, of which he was a governor.153 LD 1621, p. 113; LJ, iii. 17a, 18b, 32b, 101b, 185b. In June, in his capacity as a commissioner for the office of earl marshal, he participated in the ceremony for degrading Sir Francis Michell from his knighthood, in fulfilment of the sentence imposed on him by Parliament for abuse of his powers as a magistrate.154 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 383.

In August 1621, Worcester decamped from London to Raglan, leaving the privy seal in the custody of the archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot^*, with whom he was on close terms, despite the latter’s staunch anti-Catholic views. Such behaviour probably fuelled the persistent rumours in the following autumn that the earl of Pembroke was about to take over as lord privy seal, with Worcester retiring upon ‘some reasonable conditions’. The same story circulated for several months from November 1622, but no compensatory pension was forthcoming, and the earl remained in office.155 Ibid. 401, 462, 471; Add. 72254, f. 61; 72275, f. 119v. Worcester continued to serve on important Privy Council committees, such as that for Irish affairs, while in July 1623 he was one of the councillors who swore the oaths to implement the marriage articles for Prince Charles and his intended Spanish bride. He also maintained a close eye on Welsh affairs, overseeing militia business within his lieutenancy, and intervening with Pembroke in December 1623 to address alleged abuses by deputy clerks of the market in Glamorgan. Nevertheless, it was clear that he was no longer influential in government.156 APC, 1619-21, pp. 225-6, 357; 1623-5, pp. 146, 206-7; HMC Hatfield, xxii. 185.

Worcester probably arranged the election of the courtier Walter Steward^‡ at Monmouth Boroughs ahead of the 1624 Parliament. He himself attended the Lords for three-quarters of its sittings, with frequent but generally brief absences throughout this session. From 1 Mar. he held the proxy for his son, Lord Herbert, who had initially awarded it to Ludovic Stuart, the recently deceased duke of Richmond.157 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 271; Add. 40087, f. 3. The most pressing business of this Parliament was the intended breach with Spain. Worcester was appointed in mid March to confer with the Commons about the financial support required as a precondition for war with Spain. Having secured this nomination, a string of other conference appointments on related business automatically followed, and he was also selected to attend the king on with Parliament’s proposals for supply.158 LJ, iii. 258b, 273b, 275a, 285a, 312b. However, Worcester was in a difficult position over the drive to war, which also encouraged the Commons to seek a new clampdown on Catholics. Both he and Lord Herbert were presented in the lower House on 27 Apr. as recusant officeholders; the Monmouthshire Members declined to name Worcester themselves, and he was instead listed under Yorkshire and County Durham, where he was an ex officio magistrate in consequence of being lord privy seal. In the event, the Commons dropped the earl from the final schedule transmitted to the Lords, but Lord Herbert’s inclusion was an uncomfortable reminder to the peers of Worcester’s divided loyalties.159 CJ, i. 776a; LJ, iii. 394b.

These issues aside, the earl received 18 other appointments, all linked to legislation. In total, he chaired five committees, the bills in question being those for the better stewarding of the crown’s revenues, the partial repeal of the Henrician statute on Welsh government, changes to the cloth trade in Wales, the sale of Sir Richard Lumley’s estates, and the confirmation of a Chancery decree concerning Painswick manor in Gloucestershire. The Welsh government bill also required two conferences with the Commons, to which Worcester was named, while he reported the Lumley bill twice after the Lords rejected an initial amendment.160 LJ, iii. 257a-b, 260b, 263b, 273a, 279b, 303b, 304b, 314b, 327b-8a, 403b; Add. 40087, f. 118v. The earl’s remaining nominations included a conference on the bill for continuance or repeal of statutes, and the committees for the monopolies and subsidy bills.161 LJ, iii. 267b, 400b, 406b; PA, HL/PO/CO/2/3, f. 28.

With the country now gearing up for war, Worcester was repeatedly instructed, as a lord lieutenant, to recruit soldiers for service in either the Low Countries or Ireland. Thus, on returning to Monmouthshire in July 1624 (when, as usual, he entrusted the privy seal to Archbishop Abbot), he probably had public business to attend to, rather than just his private affairs.162 APC, 1623-5, pp. 249-51, 351-3, 371-2; Add. 72276, f. 112v. The accession of Charles I in the following spring made little immediate difference to the earl’s circumstances. He remained lord privy seal and a privy councillor, and continued to levy troops in the Welsh borders. The fact that he was instructed to help plan the late king’s lavish funeral merely reflected his official position, not his personal standing within the government. In short, while Charles opted not to discard him, neither did he hold out any prospect of new favours.163 APC, 1625-6, pp. 3, 7, 21, 43-5; E403/2563, f. 2.

Final years, 1625-8

The new reign necessitated the summoning of a new Parliament. Walter Steward was again returned for Monmouth Boroughs, presumably with Worcester’s assistance. While the Lords sat at Westminster during June and July 1625, the earl attended assiduously, missing only three sittings. On 22 June he took the oath of allegiance for the first time since 1610. The next day, he was appointed in his absence to confer with the Commons about their proposal for a general fast, while in July he was nominated to attend the king when the joint petition of both Houses against recusancy was delivered. Worcester was also named to three legislative committees, concerned with the country’s military preparedness, licences of alienation, and the manorial customs of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, a duchy of Cornwall property.164 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 271; Procs. 1625, pp. 40, 43, 52, 72, 95, 97.

On 11 July, Worcester signed the Privy Council’s letter alerting Oxford University to prepare to host the Parliament, which was leaving Westminster on account of the plague. However, notwithstanding the Journal, which records that the earl attended the Lords on 6 Aug., the balance of evidence indicates that he actually absented himself from the Oxford sitting, and instead probably travelled straight to Raglan, where he remained until at least late September.165 Procs. 1625, p. 661. Extraordinarily, he took the privy seal with him, perhaps thinking that this was the safest course given the departure from the capital of many royal officials. Due to the general dislocation of government departments, it was late August before most of his colleagues noticed. As an emergency measure, the Council agreed that the signet could be used temporarily in lieu of the privy seal, and the king shortly wrote to Worcester demanding the immediate return of the genuine article. The earl’s explanation has not survived, but since he was not summarily dismissed, his strange behaviour was evidently deemed to be accidental. He can scarcely have anticipated that Parliament would fail to grant adequate supply, thereby necessitating the government’s resort to privy seal loans in a bid to fund the war effort.166 APC, 1625-6, pp. 147-8; E403/2563, f. 63v; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 99.

By the time Worcester resumed his seat on the Council in mid October, planning was already well advanced. The bulk of the paperwork in relation to the loans was doubtless handled by the earl’s officers in the privy seal office. However, for the next eight months at least, Worcester was the conduit through which the government channelled its instructions, as numerous demands for money were challenged, cancelled, and redirected.167 APC, 1625-6, pp. 167, 265, 270-1, 318-19, 343-4, 370-2, 396, 423-5, 433, 454-6, 487; 1626, pp. 41-2; CSP Dom. Addenda, 1625-49, pp. 104-5, 107, 721-3. As a lord lieutenant, the earl was himself expected to implement the loan scheme in his two counties, mobilizing his deputy lieutenants to prepare lists of people capable of lending the sums required. Nevertheless, by late December he had still not produced the necessary details, prompting a sharp reminder from the Council. Monmouthshire eventually generated £300, a good result which bore testimony to Worcester’s personal influence. In stark contrast, Glamorgan refused to cooperate at all, the deputy lieutenants insisting that the county’s residents were too poor to produce a sum worth collecting.168 CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 213; APC, 1625-6, pp. 288-9; L. Bowen, Pols. of the Principality: Wales, c. 1603-42, pp. 111, 114, 272. It was in fact a mark of Worcester’s strong loyalty to the crown that he persevered in Monmouthshire, for in November 1625 the government ordered that Lord Herbert be disarmed on account of his recusancy. In the event, weapons were confiscated from other prominent Catholics in the county, but Herbert himself was able to claim that he had nothing to hand over, given that he still lived at Raglan with his father, whose own allegiance had not been called into question.169 CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 151, 176, 189.

The comparative failure of the privy seal loans scheme forced the king to summon a new Parliament in early 1626. Whether Worcester actually made a nomination to Monmouth Boroughs is unclear, though the Member returned, William Fortune^‡, was a local resident with links to the earl’s circle, and would presumably have been acceptable to him.170 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 271. Worcester’s attendance of the Lords during this session was intermittent. He was formally excused four times during March, probably due to illness, and from late April he missed every sitting until the dissolution in June. In total, he sat for barely half the session.171 Procs. 1626, i. 99, 127, 216, 231. Admittedly, his presence at Parliament was crucial only at the very start, when he acted as lord steward, with responsibility for swearing in the Members of the Commons (the Venetian ambassador mistakenly reported that Worcester acted as lord great chamberlain, probably confused that the earl had performed the latter role at the coronation on 2 February).172 Ibid. ii. 2; CSP Ven. 1625-6, p. 324. Assigned this office for the duration of the session, it was probably this additional status in the Lords which explains Worcester’s appointment to the committee for privileges, for the first time since 1621. Of his eight speeches, three were brief comments on the committee’s business, but he was evidently not a significant member. On 24 Apr. he was excused attendance at one of its meetings, on the grounds that he was needed at the Privy Council.173 Procs. 1626, i. 46, 48, 71, 76, 309-10. In contrast, the earl chaired the committee for the bill to improve the country’s stock of weapons, which he reported with assorted amendments on 27 Feb. and 14 March. His only other committee appointments concerned the bills to conserve the crown’s revenues, and confirm the charter of the New River Company.174 Ibid. 43, 53, 75, 79, 144, 149.

On the crucial issue of the parliamentary attack on Buckingham, Worcester lined up firmly with the duke. When the Lords moved to limit the number of proxies held by a single peer, an indirect criticism of the favourite, the earl disputed whether the existing system was in fact open to abuse. Possibly referring to his friend Shrewsbury’s voting behaviour on 29 June 1610, he observed: ‘I have known the trust so precisely given in this House that a lord has given his own vote one way and the proxy vote another way’.175 Ibid. 72. Similarly, when the king attempted to weaken Buckingham’s opponents in the Lords by detaining the earl of Arundel, Worcester insisted on 15 Mar. that the House should merely draft a protestation about its privileges ‘for the future’, rather than petitioning the king immediately. His views were overruled, and four days later he was nominated to attend Charles to request an audience for the presentation of the Lords’ remonstrance against Arundel’s imprisonment.176 Ibid. 158, 287. During the Commons’ inquiry into Buckingham, it was noted that Worcester had received a £1,500 pension in return for surrendering the mastership of the horse to the favourite. This fact was included in the impeachment charges against the duke, as evidence that he bought offices, but Buckingham in response insisted that he had not procured the pension, which was merely evidence of James I’s generosity.177 Ibid. i. 476, 583-4; iii. 127. The Commons’ attitude to Worcester himself was ambiguous. Their committee for religion initially included him in its presentment of recusant officeholders, but the House then omitted him from the final draft. Nevertheless, the earl’s Catholic sympathies remained a sensitive issue in wartime, and he again made a point of taking the oath of allegiance. On 15 June, when the persistent attacks on Buckingham brought the session to a premature end, Worcester finally attended the Lords again, in what would prove to be his final appearance there, to act as a commissioner for the dissolution.178 Ibid. i. 49, 634; ii. 321.

The Parliament ended without a grant of supply, obliging the king once again to resort to arbitrary taxation. The Forced Loan of 1626-7 involved the issuing of letters under the privy seal, and this time the government clearly had doubts about Worcester’s capacity to handle the workload. The earl was once again absent in Monmouthshire during the early planning of the Loan, with the seal in the custody of the lord president of the Council, Henry Montagu^*, 1st earl of Manchester. In September 1626 one newsletter writer, Edward Skory, speculated that, even if Worcester returned to London, he would be relieved of his office.179 CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 403; Add. 11043, f. 72. In the event, the earl was spared this indignity, and he campaigned actively in Monmouthshire and Glamorgan in support of the Loan, achieving a good response in the former county at least by negotiating a simultaneous refund of coat-and-conduct money from the Exchequer.180 Holles Letters ed. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxv), 339; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 509; Bowen, 132-3; APC, 1627, p. 65.

Even so, it was clear that Worcester was now approaching retirement. He stopped attending the Privy Council after 22 Nov. 1626, although he continued to sign its letters occasionally until the following summer.181 APC, 1626, p. 379; 1627, pp. 402-3. In early December Lord Herbert was joined with him in his lieutenancy, to augment his own failing powers. Shortly afterwards, in what looked like a valedictory act of royal benevolence, the earl’s younger son, Thomas, was given an Irish viscountcy.182 C231/4, f. 212; Coventry Docquets, 24. In fact, Worcester lingered on for over a year, though he was virtually bed-bound by mid 1627. Possibly due to his persistent illness, he omitted to contribute himself towards the Forced Loan until July that year, when he paid £200 after receiving a sharp rebuke from the king.183 HEHL, HAM 53/6, ff. 210-11; APC, 1627, pp. 419-20; E401/1914, unfol. (26 July 1627). Ever money conscious, he wrote to Buckingham in December 1627, asserting his right to the profits from two French ships impounded in Glamorgan, which the duke was claiming as lord admiral.184 CSP Dom. 1627-8, pp. 452, 459.

Worcester finally died in March 1628, in his London home, though his body was carried back to Raglan, where he had already erected ‘a sumptuous tomb’ in the parish church for him and his late wife. His will, drafted in May 1627, dealt only with personal bequests to his children. Its religious preamble was Protestant in tone, and he appointed Archbishop Abbot as one of its overseers, the other being the earl’s Catholic son-in-law, William Petre^*, 2nd Lord Petre. The last surviving senior figure from Elizabeth I’s court, Worcester ‘died rich and in a peaceable old age’, leaving ‘a very noble and remarkable reputation’. His successor, Lord Herbert, held the earldom in more dangerous times, and the grand monument at Raglan was destroyed during the Civil War.185 Sandford, 338; Diary of the Marches of the Royal Army during the Great Civil War ed. C.E. Long (Cam. Soc. lxxiv), 207; PROB 11/153, ff. 242v-3; Naunton, 85.