There's an interesting linkage going on here between the industrial revolution (and thus possibly Capitalism) with the creation and even litigation of "the poor" classes in Britain.

Did "the poor" exist in the same way they do today prior to the Industrial Revolution? What are the subtle differences? (Compare with Thompson, E. P. “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism.” Past & Present, no. 38 (1967): 56–97.)

Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount of Falkland (c. 1610-1643), fought on the Royalist side during the Civil War and was killed in action at the First Battle of Newbury.

Victor is referring to Chalgrove Field in Oxfordshire, where the revolutionary leader John Hampden was fatally wounded in a battle with Royalist leader Prince Rupert.

In 1642, the absolutist monarch Charles I of England (1600-1649) gathered forces loyal to him, and used Oxford as a home base to combat the rebelling Parliamentarian Forces led by the Earl of Essex, Thomas Fairfax, and Oliver Cromwell. The conflict culminated in the execution of the monarch for treason in 1649. See Ann Hughes, The Causes of the English Civil War 2nd ed (New York: Palgrave Macmillon, 1998).

Victor's admiration for John Hampden (1595-1643)--a leading English dissident opposing Charles I in the early years of the English Revolution--sits uneasily with his earlier nostalgia for the days of Charles I. Where the Creature had shown a consistent and clear sympathy with the radical Enlightenment, Victor seems as confused about the reactionary and progressive elements of the English past as he had about the modern and premodern versions of "natural philosophy" in the history of science. See also Iain Crawford, "Wading Through Slaughter: John Hampden, Thomas Gray, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein," Studies in the Novel, 20.3 (1988): 249-61.

No university in Europe could have been more the opposite of the University of Ingolstadt (where Victor learned his science) than Oxford University, the seat of theological learning and a holdout against any form of Enlightenment sciences. Victor is also initially nostalgic for the days of Charles I when the absolute monarch was beleaguered in the early years of the English Revolution (1642-1659). He later praises the republican opponent of Charles I, John Hampden. What version of England's political past Mary Shelley means to commemorate in this chapter remains an interesting question.

Sir Thomas Gower, 2nd Baronet (c. 1605–1672) twice served as the High Sheriff of Yorkshire and supported the Royalist cause during the Civil War. In his 1823 edition of Shelley's novel, her father William Godwin changed "Gower" to "Goring," the name of another Royalist leader in the Civil War, and the 1823 change is retained in the 1831 revision of the novel.

George Goring, 1st Earl of Norwich (1608-1657), was an English politician and soldier, supporting Charles I against Parliament and an aggressive military strategist. His reputation for insubordination and "insolence" led the great English historian Lord Clarendon to remark that he "would, without hesitation, have broken any trust, or done any act of treachery to have satisfied an ordinary passion or appetite" [in Lord Clarendon, History of the Rebellion (1702-4)]. In editing the 1818 version of the novel in 1823, William Godwin had changed "Gower" in Mary Shelley's original text to "Goring," doubtless following Clarendon's History. The 1818 text had referred to another Royalist supporter of Charles I, Sir Thomas Gower, 2nd Baronet (1594-1651).