Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/249

 moreover, one of the twelve commissioners from the commons who attended the king at Breda (7 May 1660). After Charles's accession he was appointed warden of the Forest of Dean (18 June), and on 30 July, in response to an appeal from the local gentry, lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Monmouthshire. The Monmouthshire estates, which he had obtained by reversion from Cromwell, were allowed to remain in his possession, though they should in strict justice have reverted to his father; the latter wrote bitterly to Clarendon that his son was intriguing against him. But Lord Herbert justified his elevation as a local grandee by an active and able discharge of his county duties and by a staunch loyalty. He kept aloof from court life, but maintained good relations with the Hydes. In 1662 he was occupied with the demolition of the walls and fortifications at Gloucester; but next year he pleaded for the retention of a garrison at Chepstow. He retained the captaincy (conferred in 1660) with a reduced force of sixty men, but the post was transferred from his hands in the autumn of 1685. In 1663 he entertained the king and queen at Badminton, Gloucestershire, an estate which he acquired by devise from his half-cousin Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Thomas, viscount Somerset of Cashel. The latter, a younger son of Edward Somerset, fourth earl of Worcester [q. v.], had died without male issue in 1650. Herbert was created M.A. by Oxford University on 28 Sept. in this year. He represented Monmouthshire in the lower house from 1660 to 1667, when on 3 April he succeeded his father as third Marquis of Worcester. He was created lord president of the council of Wales and the marches in April 1672, a privy councillor on 17 April in the same year, and was installed a knight of the Garter on 29 May 1672. A steady supporter of the court party, he voted against the Exclusion Bill at the close of 1680, whereupon the commons petitioned the king to remove him from his person and counsels (January 1681). Charles regarded his conduct in a different light, and by letters patent, dated 2 Dec. 1682, the marquis was advanced to the title of Duke of Beaufort, as ‘having been eminently serviceable to the king since his most happy restoration, in consideration thereof and of his most noble descent from King Edward III by John de Beaufort, eldest son of John of Gaunt by Catherine Swynford.’ About the same time the duke commenced the remodelling of his seat at Badminton. On the strength of his attitude in regard to the Exclusion Bill, Beaufort figured prominently in Dryden's ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (pt. ii. pp. 940–66) as Bezaliel—the ‘Kenites' rocky province his command.’ ‘Bezaliel with each grace and virtue fraught, Serene his looks, serene his life and thought.’ In November 1683 Beaufort obtained 20,000l. damages in two libel actions against Sir Trevor Williams of Monmouthshire and John Arnold, but the judgment against the latter was partially reversed in 1690. In July 1684 he made, as president of the principality, a magnificent progress through Wales, and was sumptuously entertained, among other places, at Worcester, Ludlow, and Welshpool (, Account of the Duke's Progress, ed. 1888). On 14 Feb. 1685, along with the Duke of Somerset, he supported the Prince of Denmark as chief mourner at the funeral of Charles II. He bore the queen's crown at the coronation of James II (23 April 1685), was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber on 16 May, and colonel of the 11th regiment of foot on 20 June following.

When Monmouth, at the close of June 1685, was hesitating to march upon Bristol, Beaufort (who had been lord lieutenant of the county and city of Bristol since the Restoration) occupied it in force on 16 June. He threatened to fire the city if any of Monmouth's friends were admitted, and locked up a number of dissenters and disaffected persons in the guildhall (cf. and, Bristol Past and Present, 1881, iii. 111, 121). Four days later he reviewed nineteen companies of foot and four troops of horse, and on 24 June twenty-one companies were drawn up on Redclyffe Mead and volunteers enlisted by beat of drum. On 6 July came tidings of Monmouth's defeat. On 24 Sept. James II visited the duke at Badminton, and expressed his satisfaction at his consistent loyalty. In October 1688 Beaufort once more occupied Bristol with the train-bands of Gloucestershire, and some of his men captured Lord Lovelace at Circencester, and lodged him a prisoner in Gloucester Castle [see, third ]. He prepared to defend the city, but had eventually to surrender to the superior force under the Earl of Shrewsbury and Sir John Guise. He voted for a regency in preference to the offer of the crown to William. On 14 Dec. 1688 he waited on the latter at Windsor, but was kept for an hour in an antechamber and coldly received. He nevertheless took the oaths in March 1689, and was so far reconciled as to entertain William at Badminton on 7 Sept. 1690. In 1694 he was living in great seclusion at Chelsea, taking the waters,