the raid on raglan: sacred ground and profane curiosity

THE RAID ON RAGLAN: SACRED GROUND
AND PROFANE CURIOSITY
*. . . and therefore I call this a Semi Omnipotent Engine,
and do intend that a model thereof be buried with me.'
JOHN HEWISH
Somerset, 6th Earl and 2nd Marquis of Worcester (1601-67) is one of the
best knov^rn of his resilient family, both for his part in the Civil War and his controversial
reputation as the possible inventor of the steam engine (fig. i).
His performance as Charles l's Lieutenant-General in Wales was a tale of defeats.
His mission to bring in the Irish Catholics on the King's side miscarried and was
disowned by Charles, who had ordered it. Poverty drove him back from exile in France
on to the charity of Cromwell. He died during the Restoration, but too soon for the
full revival of his family's fortunes. He was born at the wrong time, with the tastes of
an amateur natural philosopher when fate required him to be a man of action. Yet his
curiosity and mystical dreams of mastering nature by means of machines were
characteristic of the age in which the Royal Society was estabhshed.
His book A Century of the Names and Scantlings of such Inventions as at Present I
can call to Mind, etc. (London, 1663) is a type of compendium common in its ^period,
but it has not slipped into oblivion like most of them. Vagueness was one way an
inventor could protect himself from imitators and many of the devices described in
the Century are undefined or plainly fantastic. But No. 68 'An Admirable and Most
Forcible way to Drive up Water by Fire' describes (though in no great detail) a steam
pressure device arrestingly like that well-known one of Thomas Savery, 'The Miner's
Friend', patented later in 1698. There is a lot of evidence on both sides and it has
been debated by engineer-historians since at least the nineteenth century without
conclusive result.^ In the Marquis's Century of Inventions an anticipation—perhaps
even the source—of Savery's steam pump can be found in company with such a
description as No. 98, from which my heading quotation comes:
EDWARD
An engine so contrived that working the Primum Mobile forward or backward, upward or
downward, circularly or cornerwise, to and fro, straight upright or downright, yet the pretended
operation continueth and advanceth, none of the above motions hindering, much less stopping
the other, but unanimously and with harmony agreeing . . .
The Marquis's Vauxhall workshop, his employment of a continental master mechanic,
and his water-commanding engine at work in some form or other are facts,^ but the
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balance of well-informed opinion has moved against the claims made for him as a
successful and significant practical inventor. Exposure to much of the evidence,
particularly that in his own words, does not inspire confidence. Another review of it
here would be inappropriate; my theme is an attempt made nearly a century and a
quarter ago to settle the question once and for all.
For long no one took any notice of his stated intention to be buried with a modeP
of his Semi-Omnipotent Engine. Then, in the mid-nineteenth century appeared a man
who, by his interests as well as his official position, seemed predestined to take him at
his word. This was Bennet Woodcroft of the London Patent Office. The son of a
Northern textile finisher, he had worked on the shop fioor and exploited his own
inventions in textile machinery and ships' propellers. He left a Manchester practice as
a patent agent to come to London to teach machinery at University College. His work
on indexing the patents buried in the public records so impressed a Parliamentary
committee in 1852 that he was given the key post (to do with specifications) in the
reformed Office.^
Public enlightenment in the arts and sciences was fashionable just after the Great
Exhibition. Woodcroft set up a free public library at the Office and also set up and
ran a small museum of invention for which space was found at South Kensington. Its
successor is still there. He was an early devotee of the cult of the engineer as hero,
exemplified by the works of Samuel Smiles. As a great rescuer of old machines, he
was a conservationist avant la lettre. He was also impulsive and pushing and, for an
engineer, at times oddly cavalier with facts. A project involving a steam engine, a dead
Marquis, a romantic setting and as will appear—a live Duke, could not be resisted.
Woodcroft had been collecting the records of invention for years, and would have
been familiar with the case of the Marquis. Evidence of his intention to recover the
model dates from early i860. ^ The possible buried model was not the only one associated
with the Marquis. There was also the model of his water commanding engine which
an act of 1663 required him to deposit with the Exchequer as part of his side of the
bargain in a grant of privilege.^ In view of the continuity of British institutions it was
perhaps not over-sanguine to hope for its survival. A handwritten circular was
lithographed and sent out from the Great Seal Patent Office to various departments,
including the State Paper Office, the Office of the Queen's Remembrancer and the
Treasury. It reproduced a drawing taken from a nineteenth-century edition of the
Marquis's book,^ showing what the engine might have looked like. 'Her Majesty's
Patent Commissioners', Woodcroft wrote (he often invoked them for his own uses),
'were anxious to collect and preserve for public inspection as many of the earlier proofs
of national ingenuity as may still remain'. There was indeed wide interest in every
aspect of steam engine progress. What Whitehall thought of the request is hidden in
the formality of uniformly negative replies.
Though they were Roman Catholics, certain of the post-Reformation Earls of
Worcester were buried in the parish church at Raglan, in Monmouthshire, and it was
easy for Woodcroft to establish that the inventor Earl was among them. For instance,
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he was in touch with John Timbs, who mentions it in his Stories of Inventors. In March
i860 he sent a copy of his circular to Francis P. Hooper, of Watkins, Hooper, Baylis,
and Baker, of Sackville Street, acting for the 8th Duke of Beaufort. Seated at Badminton
since the early eighteenth century, the family still owned Raglan and other Monmouthshire estates. He requested the Duke's permission to open the vault 'to obtain an
examination of the buried model'. 'Should it come to light', he wrote in his idiosyncratic
prose 'it would be the most interesting mechanical relict in the kingdom'. 'I do not
want the model, but I wish to have the model to see exactly what it was the
Marquis achieved, and to have a model made of it'.
So began a year of negotiations, which at first went promisingly. Mr. Hooper wrote
to Mr. Osmond A. Wyatt, the land agent of the Monmouth estates, who replied that
he believed the 6th Earl 'the inventor of the steam engine' was buried at Raglan: *if I
am right, and the Model in question really was placed with the Marquis' coffin, it
ought to be found in Raglan church, with the remains.' The Duke was agreeable to
his ancestor being disturbed but anxious that the proper ecclesiastical authority should
be obtained. He was one of the great sporting Dukes, and founder of the Badminton
Library; his letters convey his celebrated directness and charm.
Also, if the model should be there, exposure to the air after being shut up so many years
will simply destroy it, so that someone should be present to make a drawing of it. If it is found
and does not fall to pieces, a copy may be made and the original must be returned to its coffin.
They had no right, he added subsequently 'to disturb the arrangements a gentleman
chooses to make for himself after death'. This was a check to the impetuous Woodcroft,
who maintained that the model would turn out to be made of brass and copper and
would 'drive up water by fire if such duty were required of it'. In making it known
to posterity, he stressed, they would only be carrying out the Marquis's unstated wishes.
If not at Raglan, 'I have still hopes of meeting with it in the Royal Observatory at
Kew, or in a cellar under the British Museum, where the early models of the Royal
Society have been ignominiously stowed away'. 'I have been at engine hunting before',
he added, 'the pace is slow, the last one I ran to earth took me from five to six years,
and the reward in some instances rather equivocal.' He was referring here to the saving
of the Symington marine steam engine, now in the Science Museum, his greatest
success.^ The Duke had mentioned that the Duchess had signified her intention of
attending the opening, but if apprehensive at this prospect Woodcroft did not show
it. The former, however, was firm that 'Chancellor's Licence' should be obtained.
'I have not been idle', Woodcroft wrote Hooper in early April, 'John Macgregor,
whom you know, is preparing all the necessary documents for His Grace's signature.
I have another barrister reading in the Museum Heath's History of Ragland Castle.'
Macgregor, traveller, barrister, and freelance collaborator with Woodcroft plays a notable
part in these events and will be mentioned again. He evidently advised, correctly, that
an ecclesiastical faculty would have to be obtained. 'The documents' resolved themselves
into a petition from the Duke to the Chancellor of the Diocese of Llandaff. More than
185
one version of it has survived. In it the Marquis's intention has hardened into the
statement that he 'left instructions' that a model of his engine should be huried with
him, just as it does in Woodcroft's letters. The most likely place for the Marquis's
instructions to be left would be in his will, but no will has been found. In his massive
if shapeless nineteenth-century biography of the Marquis, Henry Dircks fails to mention
a will, nor did one come to the attention of the editors of the Complete Peerage.^
*It is a matter of great interest', the petition read,
I
to all who value the invention of the steam engine to ascertain the origin of the same, and if
the engine used by the Marquis in the 17th century shall be found to embody the principles
afterwards so successfully employed. Englishmen will be gratified to find their country has
contributed even more than was supposed to the advancement of civilisation.
Woodcroft was evidently not confident as to its reception. A few days before the
date on the petition draft (2 May i860) he wrote to one of his wide range of acquaintances,
J. K. Homfray, of Penllyn Castle, Glamorgan, one of the family of Welsh ironmasters,
requesting information about the Revd. Hugh Williams, the Chancellor. 'I am told
that if I am not cautious how I proceed, the Chancellor will refuse the Duke's petition.
I therefore wish some kind friend to present the petition, and to take no denial.'
Homfray did not rise to this.
Perhaps because there had been substantial changes in ecclesiastical law during the
previous half century there was evidently, from ducal palace to the Llandaff chancery,
not to mention in many attorneys' offices, considerable uncertainty as to the procedure
necessary in order to disturb consecrated ground. Before sending the Duke's petition
Woodcroft wrote to one John Burdcr, of Burder and Dunning, 27 Parliament Street,
described as 'secretaries to the Bishop of Llandaff'. They appear to have advised that
neither the Chancellor nor the Bishop had power to grant the petition. Nevertheless
it went off to the Chancellor with a covering letter. 'Although I yesterday learned',
Woodcroft wrote, 'from Messrs Burder and Dunning that there is no power vested in
your Worship nor in the Bishop to grant the request made by His Grace of Beaufort',
he was nevertheless sending it as desired by his Grace's law agents. The letter continues
even more curiously. 'There is a mistake in the document', he wrote, 'which I dare
not alter, since it has received the signature of the Duke.' He then makes clear, which
the petition did not, that all that was sought was an examination of the vault, not of
the individual coffins it contained.
Woodcroft had already mentioned 'Heath's History of Ragland Castle', a work by a
Monmouth printer, Charles Heath, published in 1797.^° When Heath visited Raglan
church he found that part of the chancel floor had collapsed, giving access to the
Somerset vault. His book contains a plan of the two chambers of the vault (fig. 2), the
larger containing five lead coffins and the smaller, adjoining chamber, two. One of
these two he described as being 'according to the ancient mode of burial, viz., the
exact shape of the body at full length, with only the eyes, nose and mouth formed on
the metal', the other figure being 'wrapt in lead, devoid of any form or care whatever'. ^^
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form ojthe VA ULT, with the Order in di'hkh Ihe Xohlc P:rsou(^cs arc placed hi <7.
AHVK A a V l
EDWARD MAKQUIS OF WORCKSIER.
l..\OY GUANViLI.K.
jCtidiu Kiglit I'cct long- liiuro vvitk-Tv ; IVcl U IMIIC.
ANCIENT FIGURE.
].ORD CHARLES SOMERSET.
LORD JOHN SOMERSET.
-s s T 3
K.
['T-j;o yards
Fig. 2. Charles Heath's first plan of the vault. From his Historical and Descriptive Account of
the Present State of Ragland Castle (1797)
He also found that 'the substance of the wood that covered the lead had all mouldered
away (the plates, which contained the inscriptions, being found on the ground)'.^^ He
identified the occupants of the five coffins in the outer chamber from the inscriptions,
naming them in position on his plan. However, the first edition of his book identifies
a further figure, the 'formless' one in the inner chamber, as 'Marchioness of Worcester'
but in later editions this figure is left anonymous as 'figure wrapt in Iead'.^^ Perhaps
Heath went back to his notes after the first edition—he sounds on the defensive: 'in
this research I was most particular, and not satisfied with a first, made a second visit
to the vault'.^* The difficulty of identifying coffins in a confined space when the plates
have fallen down and when they have to be transcribed ex situ, can easily be imagined.
'The coffin of this lady', he wrote, i.e. the one that he identified as that of Lady
Granville, first married to Lord Charles Somerset, 'served as a writing desk'.^^ Despite
the uncertainties he consistently identified the coffin furthest from the entrance, except
for that of an infant displaced to a corner, as that of the Marquis.
The seven coffins he, and, as will be seen, others, found in the vault are insufficient
for all the Somersets on general record as being interred there. (See my appendix
below. Perhaps contemporary Somersets or other authorities can explain the anomalies.)
The 3rd Earl, and the 4th, with his wife, should be among them, and are not accounted
for in Heath's description or in those of our nineteenth-century investigators. The
discrepancy may be partly explained by the destruction of certain tombs and monuments
by the Roundheads. Three damaged effigies still to be seen in the Beaufort chapel are
187
usually linked with these earlier burials. ^^ The identity, too, of the 'ancient figure' (as
I will call it, following Heath) remains a mystery. Heath's account leaves no douht
that the formless object 'wrapt in lead' is a coffin, but Woodcroft had sent one of his
assistants to study the book^*^ which may explain why for him the object could be only
one thing—the model engine. Hence, almost certainly, his hopes that it could be found
without disturbing the human burials. He ended his letter to the Chancellor on a
provocative note: 'Should no power to grant the request be vested in the Ecclesiastical
Courts, do they possess the power to prevent such an examination being made?'
The Chancellor was the Revd. Hugh Williams, vicar of Bassaleg, near Newport. He
was then about sixty years old, a scholar of New College, Oxford, Welsh Examining
Chaplain to the diocese and a translator of some minor works into Welsh. ^^ He replied
by return, encouragingly; he knew of no canon or statute prohibiting the issue of a
faculty, but the case was a new one to him. After taking advice he replied formally to
the petition in a beautifully engrossed document dated 23 May 1860. It went, not to
the Duke, but the way the request had come, to Woodcroft with a covering letter. He
sympathetically explained what was then, as now, the procedure: on instuctions from
a solicitor the Registrar to the diocese would issue a public proclamation or 'citation'
and if there were no objections the faculty could be authorized by a consistory court.
'I shall be able to decree it at the 3rd court as is usual in such cases', he wrote, 'as
there will doubtless be no cause shewn against the granting of the faculty', adding that
if it were unopposed 'the expense would be but trifling'.
Then, in late May i860, there was a hitch and it is possible only to conjecture what
it was. There is no evidence that further steps were taken to obtain the faculty. The
most probable explanation is that Woodcroft and Hooper were alarmed at the prospect
of the publicity involved in the faculty procedure. Certainly Woodcroft seems less than
frank in a letter to a friend of antiquarian tastes in Sheffield, Samuel Mitchell, dated
5 June. 'The longer my correspondence with the parsons extends', he wrote, 'the further
I seem from the end in view.' Gaps in the records are always possible, but there is
no evidence that his correspondence with the parsons had extended. Mitchell replied
'you should give the parson a jolly good dinner'. The project did leak out the same
month: on 12 June the Birmingham Daily Post carried a gossip paragraph, 'Interesting
Search' giving an inaccurate account and concluding:
Mr Woodcroft, having obtained the Duke of Beaufort's permission to open the coffin, is only
waiting for the necessary permission of the Bishop to do so. The Duchess has signified her
desire to be present. ^^
In the manner of Victorian journalism, this was repeated, word for word, in other
journals. There was no reaction from Badminton, but Woodcroft wrote curtly to Hooper,
'I am exceedingly annoyed at the circumstance, and shall be much obliged if you will
tell me what would be best to do in the matter,' The mole may have been in the
Patent Office—there was more than one candidate.
Many weeks passed without progress though the Marquis was not lost sight of.
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Woodcroft obtained a tracing of his autograph from the manuscript of the Century of
Inventions in the British Museum^° and sent it to Badminton for comparison with
manuscripts in the Badminton archives. Via Hooper, the Duke asked Woodcroft's
advice about Thomas Wright, the prolific editor of texts and member of the Camden
Society. He was urging the Duke to allow him to produce a facsimile edition of a
manuscript work at Badminton, T. Dineley's account of the ist Duke's Progress through
Wales in 1684. The irritation apparent in Woodcroft's reply indicates that he suspected
a rival. No edition by Wright came of it, but the Progress was privately printed three
years later. ^^
As late as the end of October Woodcroft and Hooper seem to have been still hopeful
of proceeding without the authority of the Church. On the 24th the Duke wrote from
Gopsall, 'What has become of Mr Woodcroft and his digging?' and later, 'I don't
understand about the steam engine—you say you are waiting for me. In the Spring
you told me probably the month of June would suit Mr BW.'
Hooper replied:
The matter about the steam engine model stands thus: now that there is reason to think that
it is contained in the separate case and not in the coffin, we consider that the Chancellor has
no jurisdiction in the business, and that your Grace can do as you please—we are of course at
no certainty on the point of the model and I thought perhaps considering the uncertainty her Grace
would not desire to be present . . .
This was not good enough for the Duke, who replied: 'If the model is not there,
we can't open the other tomb without leave. It is nonsense his objecting^he will have
all the scientific men at his back if he refuses', a letter which indicates that the faculty
procedure, so carefully explained by the Chancellor, had never been reported to him.
At the end of November it seems they were still trying to satisfy the Duke without
involving the Church: Woodcroft, citing a Victorian statute (18, 19 Viet. Ch. 128)
relating to the inspection of burial places on the authority of the Secretary of State,
approached the Home Office and got a short reply on behalf of Sir George Cornewall
Lewis, 'If the incumbent and the Duke cannot together authorise the search which
you desire to make, the Secretary of State can give no further authority.' Having failed
with the state, Woodcroft evidently reconsidered the possibility of the Church. The
same month he sent copies of the Chancellor's replies of May to Hooper, asking 'Will
you have the goodness to reconsider the matter, and see if tbe course recommended
by the Rev4 Williams cannot be adopted?' After that, unaccountably, and certainly
without the Chancellor's course being adopted, things began to move. Near midwinter
cannot have seemed an ideal time for such an expedition and so, evidently, the Duke
and Duchess decided. In early December Hooper put Woodcroft in touch with the
land agent of the Monmouth estates, Mr. Osmond Arthur Wyatt. His co-operation is
inconceivable without the consent of the Duke, so perhaps the latter was persuaded
that nothing would be disturbed. My enquiries to Badminton, where the relevant
correspondence is most likely to be, have not so far thrown any light on this.
189
The antiquarian Heath concluded his account of the vault by stating that after his
inspection it was closed up so thoroughly *as in all human probability never to be again
exposed to public view'.-^-^ He was wrong. Hoping to render a visit from London
unnecessary, the agent, Mr. Wyatt, inspected the vault himself, probably the first person
to do so since the eighteenth century. On i i December he sent to London a detailed
account of his experience with a dimensioned plan of the vault (fig. 3) showing the
positions of the seven coffins. Wyatt's interest and the quality of his account are as
might be expected. Like John Macgregor whom he was soon to meet with Woodcroft,
he was a barrister of the Inner Temple. His father, Arthur Wyatt, was the energetic
agent of the Duke who did so much to restore the Castle and to make it a popular
ruin.^^ Later he became clerk to the Lieutenancy for Monmouthshire and—apparently
at the age of seventy-nine—clerk to the County Council.^ He reported that the position
of the coffins conformed closely to Heath but he was baffied, he wrote, by the absence
of the figure 'devoid of any form or care whatever'. Instead 'I came to lead coffin No 7,
the inscription on which I copied and enclose'. This was not surprising since they
were one and the same, as Heath's account (in this respect at least) makes clear. The
inscription, of which he sent a copy to London which survives, is in perfect agreement
with Heath's, and is that of the inventor Marquis:
Illustrissimi Principis Edwardi, Marchionis et Comitatis Wigorniae, Comitis de Glamorgan,
Baronis Herbert de Ragland, et qui obiit apud Londini tertio die Aprilis, A. Dni MDCLXVII.
Loyall to his Prince, a true lover of his country, and to his Friend most constant.
This, found on the coffin 'without form or care' by Wyatt, was by Heath related to
the coffin in the larger chamber, as described. The doubts raised as to the correctness
of Heath's account will be seen to be justified by Woodcroft and Macgregor's findings.
Another interesting observation by Wyatt, which he sketched, was that the Marquis's
coffin (according to Heath) had been opened, two small triangular fiaps of lead having
been rolled back at the head. Had there, after all, been a pre-Victorian attempt? Wyatt
also described the poor condition of parts of the vault and the 'many bones and pieces
of coffin furniture lying on the floor in each of the chambers'. Since the seven coffins
were clearly intact, were these the remains of the missing burials? This account of
Wyatt's findings, an anticipation of the 'main event', is justified for its detail and for
comparison with Heath's and the later findings. 'I had four strong-burning oil lamps',
he wrote, 'and nothing escaped me.' He did not think Woodcroft would do any better,
but he was free to come: 'he will at all events see what there is to be seen, if an opening
of the coffin should finally be decided upon.'
Woodcroft put off his visit until after Christmas, pleading (though still a bachelor
at this time) much to do in London. He strong-mindedly declined until later Wyatt's
invitation to stay with him at Troy House, a mile out of Monmouth and one of the
many Beaufort great houses (though one no longer). The Beaufort Arms at Raglan,
almost opposite the church, had been recommended. When informing Wyatt that his
companion would be John Macgregor, Woodcroft wrote: *He will keep the visit a secret
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Fig. 3. *I had four strong-burning oil lamps, and nothing escaped me.' Osmond Arthur Wyatt's
sketch of the vault. Science Reference Library, Woodcroft Collection, Worcester file
. . . he is writing the most learned work on the Steam Engine that has been undertaken.*
Macgregor was indeed a remarkable man, one of those Victorians whose combination
of versatility, rectitude, energy, and capacity for survival invite satire or incredulity.
When only a few weeks old he had miraculously been saved from the burning wreck
of the East Indiaman Kent in the Bay of Biscay. Now nearly thirty-six, he had had a
varied career as part-time evangelist and philanthropist (among the Ragged Schools),
technical writer for The Mechanics Magazine, and traveller to Russia, Spain, and
America. He was a good draughtsman and had illustrated some of Livingstone's works.
After qualifying as a barrister he decided that patent law offered the best prospects.
Later he became famous for his accounts of lone voyages in his made to measure canoe,
the Rob Roy?^ A formidable polemicist in technical matters, he was intellectually more
impressive than Woodcroft, who was nevertheless good at gaining the enthusiastic
co-operation of such men.
The two left London by rail on the morning of 3 January 1861, equipped for a village
inn on the Welsh borders in midwinter. ^^ Arriving at Ross-on-Wye they took the coach
to Monmouth and hired a fly for the eight miles to Raglan. There, as Macgregor put it 'the
Beaufort Arms furnished us with warm rooms prepared by my directions some days
before'. They sat up late discussing their plans for the following day. In his account
he could justifiably evoke picturesque Raglan, with its old pub 'The Ship', the
fourteenth-century church of St. Cadoc, and the book of hours silhouette of Raglan
castle against the north-western sky. Today the visitor is all too aware of the humming
loop road from the A40 to Abergavenny which cuts off the straggly village with its
new 'executive' style houses from the castle. The 4th was a 'fine clear sunny day, with
snow in the fields and icicles thick on the cottage thatch'. Mr. Wyatt arrived early
with his 'confidential carpenter' and with the sexton, the clerk, and three labourers
they went to St. Cadoc's. Was that snow just a heavy frost? Mr. Wyatt had come eight
miles from Troy House, and next day the vicar, aged eighty-four, officiated at a burial.'^''
His absence—unless he was Macgregor's 'clerk' is significant. He, the Revd. William
Powell, A.M. held the living for the later editions of Heath's book. 'Our appearance
seemed to excite much curiosity among the simple and quiet villagers', Macgregor
wrote, but entering the church with the workmen they 'locked all curious people out'.
Wyatt's closing of the vault a month earlier had been thorough, and now they had
again to remove the flags with a pickaxe and shift earth and loose stones, before revealing
a great stone block bearing the fleur-de-lis of the Somerset arms. To negotiate the
'deep black hole with seven or eight steps leading inwards' Woodcroft's patent prismatic
lantern was lit, and backed up by Macgregor's candles (fig. 4). They negotiated the
first, larger chamber containing the five leaden coffins, the first of which Macgregor
noted was a child's. This agrees with Heath's account in being that of Lord John
Somerset, who died in 1704 aged ten, here—according to the plates copied by
Heath—with his day-old infant sister, Mary, his brother Charles, and his mother
Rebecca. ^^ Next, Macgregor noted a 'huge coffin in lead placed somewhat askew with
a brass plate resting on it but not secured, telling us that a Lady Somerset was interred
192
Fig. 4. 'Position of the Tomb of the Marquis of Worcester, looking to the North from the
Nave of Raglan Church. From A we look straight into the vault down the steps and upon the
coffin of Lady Granville. The passage to the right leads to B under which is the coffin of
the Marquis of Worcester. C is a large old chest in the corner of the church. D is a door leading into the church.'—John Macgregor's caption (By courtesy of the Science Museum)
within'. This coffin, on the position and size of which Wyatt's plan, and Macgregor's
own sketch in his manuscript all agree, was—as will be seen—certainly that of a lady
though not of a *Lady Somerset', in fact of Rebecca, Lady Granville. She died in 1712
and is there by right of her first husband, Lord Charles Somerset, beir to Henry, the
1st Duke of Beaufort. He was killed in a coach accident in Monmouthshire in 1698
his son succeeding to tbe title instead.^^
193
'The vault was dry', Macgregor wrote,
and the air not unwholesome: The ground was strewn with bones, broken stones and bricks,
and fragments of old coffins, and of the decorations and ornamental furniture belonging to the
leaden shells which have been noticed above.
The 'ornamental furniture' of decayed wooden coffins is not surprising hut again
there is a suggestion of burials not accounted for. Among these must be included that
of Lord Charles, buried here after the coach accident in 1698.
Entering the second, smaller chamber by a narrow passage (omitted in Heath's
diagram but shown clearly in Wyatt's) they started on the 'figure devoid of form or
care' on which Wyatt had found the Marquis's inscription but which Heath had identified
first as 'Marchioness' and later left anonymous. The lower end seemed most promising:
the lead on the outside was dry and well preserved, and when a part of it had been cut and
rolled back some holes were made with the bit and brace in the elmwood cover [Macgregor
sketched this] which allowed a few smart blows with the chisel to take out a small piece of
wood. We opened the coffin exactly at the feet and found them closely bound up in a continuous
casing of what seemed to be a strong fine linen, thickly impregnated with a white cerous soft
flexible antiseptic paste. This caused the six or seven folds of the stuff to adhere together so
as to form one coating . . .
Not for nothing had Macgregor written a monograph on The Language of Specifications.
Outside this there was matter 'exactly like the wet slush in an Irish bog and emitting
a strong but not pungent or disagreeable odour'. Macgregor was experiencing at first
hand typical aristocratic funeral practice of the Marquis's period; his findings recall
accounts of, for instance, the funerals of James II and of Cromwell. With difficulty
they then cut the wrappings 'and found two legs inside with the skin very white and
the flesh not very much shrunken'. 'Mr W. then found it advisable to take Wyatt to
see Raglan Castle, and to leave me to prosecute my further search alone with the old
carpenter.' This is curiously put, as Wyatt was in charge of the castle.
With Wyatt out of the way, Macgregor then opened the same coffin at the head,
but 'out of respect for the remains of the mighty dead we did not open the cloth over
the face'. He then thought that the model might be hidden in the huge coffin in the
first chamber, that identified by all as Lady Granville's, so he decided to make sure
that it contained the body of a woman and was not that of the Marquis.
The lead was therefore cut and folded back and underneath there was found a carefully placed
ceiling of beautifully glass-like green wax which seemed quite untouched by decay.
They then cut out a section of the wood below (he sketched the operation)
but the mephitic fumes were now most powerful and they immediately put out the candle.
We tried several times to introduce a lighted paper into the great dark void over the body and
within this ample coffin, but it was always extinguished in a moment. However, by a judicious
arrangement of the reflector of the lamp and aided by the powerful condensing lens I cast a
beam of light along the dark body and saw that the two breasts of a female lying in state
confirmed the supposition that the plate was correctly laid on this coffin.
194
Having established that it could not be the Marquis's coffin, Macgregor—to put it at
its most charitable—allowed his explorer side to take over. He cut open the head
covering 'which did not long resist my efforts':
the mouth was soon disclosed and five or six long and rather misshapen teeth appeared. The
lower jaw was much separated from the other and I raised it to search carefully below for any
necklace or other ornament which might be buried there
After more probing, the details of which can be passed over,
the pestilential atmosphere of the vault seemed to make us both drowsy and required fresh
and energetic efforts on my part to make good use of our time.
Despite the cigars which Macgregor smoked from the first, and found a good defence,
they were forced above ground before making a final search. 'We saw the Christmas
holly in the church windows and the crisp frost on the panes with little birds huddling
from the cold', he wrote, touching in his gothick Christmas card.
Descending again to our task we cut the lead of the coffin B along the whole length and
prised up the lid with the chisel and a pickaxe . . .
The atmosphere of the vault seems to have affected Macgregor as well as Heath before
him, his sketch of this operation and his stated intention makes it quite clear that he
had returned to the coffin already opened at head and feet, but 'B' on his sketch plan
of the coffins in fact is against the ancient effigy figure in lead, which was not opened.
. . . and then making a long cut through the stiff close shroud and inserting the axe point in
the edge we lifted it up off the naked body of the renowned Marquis of Worcester. The hands
were crossed over the lower part of the stomach, the right hand being uppermost and bound
to the other with a lanyard of rope yarn. The skin and fiesh were soft and a little shrunken
and the nails were long, beautifully shaped and perfectly preserved. There was a good deal of
reddish hair on the body. No sign of any substance metal wood or other hard matter being in
the coffin could be observed. I was determined however to make a thorough search when I was
about it and therefore sending for a large screw driver which was nearly two feet long I probed
carefully round the whole of the body at intervals of about an inch to see if under any part or
concealed by the dark mud like matter there might haply be any small metallic ring to indicate
the model we were in search of.
Then, entirely convinced, at least as far as the two coffins were concerned he saw
them closed up 'as well as we could arrange them . . . and stopped till the great stone
was placed on the vault and the loose earth above was filled in'. Presumably Woodcroft
and Wyatt had not returned, as he does not mention them again. His account is written
in a fluent hand, with very few alterations, and is datelined 'Temple, London, January 5,
1861', showing that unlike Woodcroft, he did not stay in Monmouthshire. He ends
with some not very pertinent speculations as to the absence of the model: the coffin
may have been sealed before the will was read . . . the Marquis's intention may not
have been taken seriously, etc. As mentioned, no such testamentary instruction is
known. Inadequate study of the evidence is a charge that sticks against both Woodcroft
and Macgregor in this affair.
195
Woodcroft had stated his intention to stay a while in Monmouthshire 'to look about
him' and his stay at Troy House was evidently a success. At the end of the month
Wyatt acknowledged his presents, one of which was a copy of his de luxe edition of
the Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria, and invited him to come again. Before the end
of the Worcester file, there is evidence of justifiable anxiety at what had been done,
on the part of Mr. Hooper.
I have had two almost sleepless nights since I heard of the Ragland vault business, and I
am afraid of its being reported before I see Mr Wyatt at the Duke's. Perhaps the matter will
be betrayed by the effiuvia rising into the church, and if so a fever might be the end of the
business . . .
He manifests a typical and understandable—if scientifically ill-founded—Victorian
phobia. But Woodcroft was stoutly rational:
As for fever arising from what has been done, that is a phantom or it would have arisen
when the other lead was cut and left open . . .
alluding to the small opening found in the coffin Heath had identified as that of the
Marquis. 'Mr Whyatt [sic] knows what has been done', Woodcroft wrote, 'and he said
he thought the family ought to be much obliged.' He was ready to try again, as his
correspondence shows.
Was the Somerset family given the chance to be obliged? The answer may lie in
the Badminton or other archives. The raid on Raglan now looks somewhat crude, like
other antiquarian excesses, but though they appear ridiculous from certain angles,
Woodcroft and Macgregor should at least be given credit for the mid-century national
pride and scientific curiosity that drove them to such uncomfortable work on a January
morning in 1861. Archaeology had not come of age, in England at least. It is not so
long ago that similar investigations were contemplated into the burials of Marlowe and
Shakespeare.
The last note on the file is an appointment to meet, between Macgregor and Woodcroft,
for a post-mortem.? The raid then slipped from view in a remarkable way. John
Macgregor died in I8Q2 and mention of Raglan seems to have been excluded from his
main journal, used by his biographer Edwin Hodder. It is more curious that Dircks'
biography of the Marquis, pubhshed in 1865, does not mention it: he used some of
Woodcroft's material, and must have known him. He also went to Troy House, and
met Wyatt. Did he suppress it, as working against his conviction that the Marquis was
a great inventor? The leak to the press in July i860 seems not to have been followed
up by local papers. References to the search in the technical press and in the D.N.B.
article on the Marquis (by those familiar with Woodcroft's papers) were not noticed
or followed up by later writers on Raglan and the Somerset family.
To end by taking, for a moment, the Marquis's statement as seriously as Woodcroft
did (personally I do not) a doubt remains as to whether the coffin so thoroughly probed
by Macgregor was the right one. The coffin identified as that of the Marquis by Heath
remains unexamined, except for the small openings scarcely wide enough for a hand
196
noted by Wyatt. It is probably that of the Marchioness, first wife of the Marquis, since
a man's body was found in the other, but to adopt the Victorian phrase, 'we can be
at no certainty' in the matter. The burial of the Marchioness is well attested (Dircks
quotes a College of Arms funeral certificate)^^ but no inscription was noted by Heath
or the others, nor is she included on the 8th Duke's omnium gatherum memorial in
the church. The colouring of the hair on the male body examined by Macgregor, and
the style of burial (hands crossed, etc.) may be significant in this connection. There is
also the possibility that the model was a document, and so eluded discovery. Nevertheless
it now seems unlikely that the hunt for this elusive engine will again be up, and the
vault of the Somersets further ravaged.
APPENDIX
THE SOMERSET BURIALS AT RAGLAN
Even the limited research for the pupose of describing the raid reveals some puzzling
inconsistencies. A summary account may as well begin with the memorial tablet in the
church put up by the 8th Duke in 1868 [my numbering];
In the vaults beneath are interred the remains of
1
2
3
4
5
6
William, 3rd Earl of Worcester, K.G. died 21st February, 1589.
Edward, 4th Earl of Worcester, K.G. died 3rd March, 1627.
Elizabeth, his wife, daughter of Francis Hardinge, Earl of Huntingdon, died 1621.
Edward, 6th Earl and 2nd Marquis of Worcester, died 3rd April, 1667.
Mary, daughter of Edward, 6th Earl, and his second wife, died in infancy.
Charles, 2nd son of Henry, jth Earl, 3rd Marquis, and ist Duke of Beaufort, died 13 July,
1698.
7 Edward, ^rd son of the above, died in infancy.
8 Henry, 4th son of the above, died ist April, 1667.
9 Elizabeth, elder daughter of the above.
10 Rebecca, wife of Charles, Marquis of Worcester, eldest son of Henry, ist Duke of Beaufort,
[died] July 27th [1712] aged 44.
11 Mary, daughter of Charles, 2nd Duke of Beaufort, died in her infancy, 1685.
12 John, 3rd son of Charles, 2nd Duke of Beaufort, died 31st December, 1704.
Of these, the resting place of i, 2, and 3 is unknown, but their effigies and monuments
were destroyed by the Roundheads, likewise, possibly, their tombs. The 'ancient figure'
in the inner vault might be one of them, though Heath was advised that the style of
burial is too early. Then nos. 4, 10, 11, and 12 are accounted for by the inscriptions
copied by Heath and confirmed by Macgregor, though they do not agree as to the
coffin of the Marquis. This leaves 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. The absence of coffins is
explicable—one remembers the bones and coffin 'furniture' noted by the visitors but
it is curious that no memorial inscriptions were found and particularly so in the case
of Charles (no. 6) the victim of the coach accident in 1698, and heir to the ist Duke
197
of Beaufort. The reference to him in ii and 12 as '2nd Duke' is presumably a courtesy
title, since he did not succeed. Most curious, perhaps, is the inscription found by Heath
to Lord Charles Somerset who died in Rome in 1710, aged twenty-one (noted also hy
Macgregor) as he is on general record as being buried in Christ Church, Oxford. There
is no question of this being a memorial without a burial, as it clearly refers to 'the
body' and Heath transcribes part of it in Latin 'cast in lead below the arms' and thus
presumably on the coffin itself
•notes and a biographical memoir, by C.F.P. (London, 1825).
8 The Engineer (1876), pp. 389, 390.
9 G. E. C. [G. E. Cokayne], The Complete Peerage
of England (I^ondon, 1910).
10 Charles Heath, Historical and Descriptive
Accounts of the Ancient and present state of
Ragland Castle. Collected by C.H. (Monmouth,
1797, and many subsequent editions).
11 C. Heath, op. cit. (1829 ed.), p. 122.
12 C. Heath, op. cit., pp. 122, 123.
13 C. Heath, op. cit., plan, p. 127.
14 C. Heath, op. cit., p. 128.
1 Most cogently by W. R. Thorpe, 'The Marquis 15 C. Heath, op. cit., p. 123.
of Worcester and Vauxhall', Nexpcomen Society 16 Horatia Durant, St Cadoc^s Church, Raglan
Transactions xiii (1933), pp. 75-8.
(Monmouth, n.d.).
2 W. R. Thorpe, art. cit.
17 Request slip, Woodcroft Collection.
3 Model often meant 'drawing' or 'plan' but no 18 Church House, Westminster, Information
one involved in the raid seems to have been
Service.
aware of this significant earlier sense of the 19 Cutting, Woodcroft Collection.
word.
20 B.L., MS. Had. 2428.
4 Woodcroft and the early Patent Office are dis- 21 Thomas Dineley, An Account of the Progress of
cussed in H. Harding, Patent Office Centenary
His Grace Henry ^ the ist Duke of Beaufort through
{London, 1952); A. A. Gomme, Patents of InvenWales, 1684, edited from the original MS. by
tion (London, 1946); papers by J. Harrison in the
Charles Baker, printed for private circulation
Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (1979-80)
(London, 1864). Charles Baker may be the Baker
and the present writer's The Indefatigable Mr
of the Duke's London attorneys. The B.L. copy
Woodcroft (London, B.L., 1980).
of the first edition is a gift from the 8th Duke.
5 Science Reference Library, Woodcroft Collec- 22 C. Heath, op. cit., p. 126.
tion, Worcester file, the main MS. source for 23 A. J. Taylor, Raglan Castle, Gwent (London,
the raid, complementing Macgregor's narrative
1950)in the Science Museum (File 1897-115). This 24 J. A. Bradney, A History of Monmouthshire (Lonremarkable series of letters, letter-copies, and
don, 1914), vol. 2; Kelly's Handbook to the Titled,
other documents includes even the British
Landed and Official Classes (London, 1890).
Museum and Public Record Office request slips 25 Edwin Hodder, jfohn Macgregor, Rob Roy (Lonused by Woodcroft's assistants. Excerpts from
don, 1894).
letters, except where otherwise stated, are taken 26 Macgregor's narrative is now the main source.
from this file.
27 Raglan Church Registers, Gwent Record Office.
6 Henry Dircks, The Life, Times and Scientific 28 C. Heath, op. cit., pp. 123-5.
Labours of Edward Somerset^ Second Marquis of 29 Horatia Durant, The Somerset Sequence (London,
Worcester (London, 1865), Appendix, p. 565.
19507 C. F. Partington, The Century of Inventions^ rvith 30 H. Dircks, op. cit., p. 23.
I am grateful to the following for help, advice or
hospitality: Mr. D. Bryden, Pictorial and Archive
Collection, Science Museum; Horatia Durant,
Raglan; the Revd. P. C. G. Gower, Vicar of Raglan;
Mr. A. Holme, Monmouth Museum; the Law
Society Library; R. McDonald, Department of
MSS. and Records, National Library of Wales; the
Worshipful Chancellor the Revd. E. Garth Moore;
Mr. D. J. M. Smith, Archivist, Gloucester County
Record Office; Dr. A. J. Taylor, C.B.E., D.Litt.,
Mr. D. Tibbott, Gwent County Record Office;
Church House Information Centre.