From a rare Medal in the British Museum. (date 1562); by Stephens, of Holland.

WHERGERT

DF IN BRORF

Facsimile of the same, as Earl of Pembroke. (A.D. 1561)

Some Notice of William Herbert, First Earl of Pembroke of the Present Creation.

By J. E. NIGHTINGALE, F.S.A.

CHE career of this remarkable man has had but scant justice done to it. He played no inconsiderable part in the eventful reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. His connection with the county of Wilts began with the grants to him of the abbey lands of Wilton by Henry VIII. Sir R. C. Hoare's account of him, taken mainly from Collins' Peerage, is very short. Aubrey's biography on some points is scarcely to be relied upon; most of his information about the first earl must have come down to him by tradition. All I have attempted to do is to bring together such scattered notices of him as I have been able to find, with the addition only of such matter as is necessary to connect them together; for in truth a complete history of his life would be, in a great measure, the history of the period in which he lived.

The publication of the calendars of State Papers by the Record Commissioners has opened up a rich mine of new information in the smaller matters of history. In the foreign series many personal details are supplied by the untiring energy of the agents of foreign courts, especially of the republic of Venice, who kept their masters well informed of the minutest details of passing events; these now form some of the most valuable and authentic materials for the history of Europe in the sixteenth century. To what effective purpose these materials have been put, reference need only be made to Mr. Froude's work on this period of English history.

The origin of the Herberts is somewhat cloudy. It is in South Wales where we must look for the early history of the family. In the Priory Church at Abergavenny, is a remarkable series of monumental effigies ranging from the thirteenth to the seventeenth cen

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turies; amongst the most interesting are those of different members of the Herbert family, ancestors of the subject of our present notice. Mr. Octavius Morgan has published an elaborate memoir of these monuments, and has also given a full account of the pedigree of the Herbert family, the result, indeed, of a long series of careful and persevering researches which have been undertaken by the most reliable of the Welsh genealogists. It appears then, that they are descended from Sir William ap Thomas, of Raglan, who was knighted by Henry VI. in 1426. His tomb is in Abergavenny Church, he was a native of that part of the country, and must have been the author of his own fortunes, as he was the fifth son of Thomas ap Gwilym ap Jenkin; and here his upward pedigree must stop as far as any authentic documentary proof is known to exist, although the heralds carry it back to Henry I. Sir William ap Thomas was a notable man in South Welsh story, and the father of sons, by Gwladys, daughter of Sir David Gam, of whom two were also remarkable: (1) Sir William; (2) Sir Richard Herbert, of Coldbrook. The fortunes of these brothers are matters of history; they were among the boldest and most powerful supporters of the White Rose, and shared in the varying fortunes of that party. William gained the earldom of Pembroke with large Welsh estates, and on the occasion of his receiving the Garter from Edward IV., he and Sir Richard (of whom more hereafter) had the royal command to renounce the Welsh custom of varying surnames, and to bear that of Herbert, for it appears that the surname of Herbert grew up in the families of the Earls of Pembroke and Powis and their immediate kinsmen as the English name of the race or clan concurrently with the continuance of their old Welsh patronymics. They were called Gwilim ap Jenkin, otherwise Herbert, and so on. This William, Earl of Pembroke, of the first creation in the Herbert family, known as "Gwilim Ddu," or "Black Will," was beheaded at Banbury by Warwick and Clarence in 1469; he left

1 Some Account of the Ancient Monuments in the Priory Church at Abergavenny, by Octavius Morgan, Esq. Printed for the Monmouthshire and Carleon Antiq. Association.

three sons by his wife, Anne, daughter of Sir Walter Devereux, but in these we are not concerned: he also had by his mistress, Maud, daughter and heiress of Adam ap Howell Graunt, two other sons; it is the eldest of them, Sir Richard Herbert, of Ewyas, who, though illegitimate, is ancestor of the men who have really, in modern times, rendered the name of Herbert illustrious. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir Matthew Cradock, of Swansea. His eldest son, William Herbert-the subject of the present memoir-was made Earl of Pembroke (second creation), and is ancestor of the existing Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, and of Carnarvon, of the Duke of Powis, of Pool Castle (extinct 1747), and, in the female line, of the Marquis of Bute, who thence derives his Glamorganshire estates.

This Sir Richard, of Ewyas, has a very fine canopied tomb in Abergavenny Church. It still retains traces of rich colouring, and is ornamented with several shields bearing the three lions of the Herberts with the bendlet, also the three boars' heads and crosslets of the Cradock's.

There is also a fine altar-tomb in alabaster, carrying the effigies of Sir Richard Herbert and his wife, of Coldbrook, already mentioned as brother to the Earl of Pembroke of the first creation. This Sir Richard, of Coldbrook, must be carefully distinguished from Sir Richard, of Ewyas, for by some strange mistake the effigies of this monument are figured in Sir R. C. Hoare's account of Wilton, in his Modern Wilts, as those of Sir Richard Herbert, of Ewyas and his wife, ancestors of the Earls of Pembroke, they being really the effigies of Sir Richard Herbert, of Coldbrook, and his wife, who had nothing to do with the Earls of Pembroke. In the plate they are accompanied with shields of arms of Herbert without the bendlet, which is most conspicuous in the real tomb of Sir Richard, of Ewyas, and also the arms of Cradock, thus mixing up the two monuments by giving the figures of one with the arms of the other. Upon

1 William, second earl (first creation), exchanged the dignity for that of Huntingdon in 1479, King Edward being desirous to confer the earldom of Pembroke upon his son, Prince Edward. This William left an only daughter and heiress, Elizabeth, who married Charles Somerset, first Earl of Worcester, but having no male issue his honours expired. (Burke's Extinct Peerage),

this, Mr. Morgan says, "It is remarkable that so able a man as Sir R. C. Hoare, who had visited Monmouthshire in company with Archdeacon Coxe, and made many of the drawings for his tour of the county, should have made so great a mistake, and fallen into such an error, for on the Ewyas monument that word is most distinct; that being, in fact, the only monument of the series which has any inscription."

William Herbert was born in 1506: of his early history little is known. Aubrey says, "he was a mad fighting young fellow,” and then gives an account of a strange adventure which befel him at Bristol in 1527; this is in the main correct, but the details are more fully given by the Bristol historians. On Midsummer night in that year there was a great fray made by the Welshmen on the king's watch, and on the following St. James's day, the mayor and his brethren returning from a wrestling match, a dispute arose in which one Richard Vaughan, a mercer, was killed on the bridge by William Herbert, the cause being, a want of some respect in compliment." He escaped through the great gate towards the marsh, where a boat being prepared and the tide ebbing he got into Wales, and afterwards went to France; where, according to Aubrey, he betook himself into the army and showed so much courage and · readiness of wit in conduct that he was favoured by the king, who afterwards recommended him to Henry VIII.

His marriage with Ann, daughter of Sir Thomas Parr, must have had an important influence on his career. Sir Thomas Parr, who died in 1517, had three children-William, afterwards Marquis of Northampton, Katharine, and Ann; he left all his extensive manors to his wife for life. He willed his daughters, Katharine and Ann, to have eight hundred pounds between them, as marriage portions, except they proved to be his heirs or his sons' heirs. Four hundred pounds, Ann's moiety, would be scarcely equal to £2000 in these days, and seems but an inadequate dowry for the daughter of parents' so richly endowed as Sir Thomas and Lady Parr. Both Katharine

1 This afterwards happened to Lady Herbert's son. The Marquis of Northampton, says Dugdale, dying without issue, Henry, Earl of Pembroke (his nephew by one of his sisters), became his next heir.