Herbert fitz Roy and to forego the British order and manner.” But this commission, whose date anticipates by some years the true date of the creation of the earldom, is the work of one of the many genealogical forgers who flourished under the Tudors.
Sir William Herbert, called by the Welsh Gwilim Ddu or Black William, was a baron in 1461 and a Knight of the Garter in the following year. With many manors and castles on the Marches he had the castle, town and lordship of Pembroke, and after the attainder of Jasper Tudor in 1468 was created earl of Pembroke. When in July 1469 he was taken by Sir John Conyers and the northern Lancastrians on Hedgecote, he was beheaded with his brother Sir Richard Herbert of Coldbrook. The second earl while still a minor exchanged at the king’s desire in 1479 his earldom of Pembroke for that of Huntingdon. In 1484 this son of one whom Hall not unjustly describes as born “a mean gentleman” contracted to marry Katharine the daughter of King Richard III., but her death annulled the contract and the earl married Mary, daughter of the Earl Rivers, by whom he had a daughter Elizabeth, whose descendants, the Somersets, lived in the Herbert’s castle of Raglan until the cannon of the parliament broke it in ruins. With the second earl’s death in 1491 the first Herbert earldom became extinct. No claim being set up among the other descendants of the first earl, it may be taken that their lines were illegitimate. One of the chief difficulties which beset the genealogist of the Herberts lies in their Cambrian disregard of the marriage tie, bastards and legitimate issue growing up, it would seem, side by side in their patriarchal households. Thus the ancestor of the present earls of Pembroke and Carnarvon and of the Herbert who was created marquess of Powis was a natural son of the first earl, one Richard Herbert, whom the restored inscription on his tomb at Abergavenny incorrectly describes as a knight. He was constable and porter of Abergavenny Castle, and his son William, “a mad fighting fellow” in his youth, married a sister of Catherine Parr and thus in 1543 became nearly allied to the king, who made him one of the executors of his will. The earldom of Pembroke was revived for him in 1551. It is worthy of note that all traces of illegitimacy have long since been removed from the arms of the noble descendants of Richard Herbert.
The honours and titles of this clan of marchmen make a long list. They include the marquessate of Powis, two earldoms with the title of Pembroke, two with that of Powis, and the earldoms of Huntingdon and Montgomery, Torrington and Carnarvon, the viscountcies of Montgomery and Ludlow, fourteen baronies and seven baronetcies. Seven Herberts have worn the Garter. The knights and rich squires of the stock can hardly be reckoned, more especially as they must be sought among Raglans, Morgans, Parrys, Vaughans, Progers, Hugheses, Thomases, Philips, Powels, Gwyns, Evanses and Joneses, as well as among those who have borne the surname of Herbert, a surname which in the 19th century was adopted by the Joneses of Llanarth and Clytha, although they claim no descent from those sons of Sir William ap Thomas for whom it was devised. (O. Ba.)
HERBERT, GEORGE (1593–1633), English poet, was born at
Montgomery Castle on the 3rd of April 1593. He was the fifth
son of Sir Richard Herbert and a brother of Lord Herbert of
Cherbury. His mother, Lady Magdalen Herbert, a woman of
great good sense and sweetness of character, and a friend of
John Donne, exercised great influence over her son. Educated
privately until 1605, he was then sent to Westminster School,
and in 1609 he became a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge,
where he was made B.A. in 1613, M.A. and major fellow of the
college in 1616. In 1618 he became Reader in Rhetoric, and in
1619 orator for the university. In this capacity he was several
times brought into contact with King James. From Cambridge
he wrote some Latin satiric verses[1] in defence of the universities
and the English Church against Andrew Melville, a Scottish
Presbyterian minister. He numbered among his friends Dr
Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Izaak Walton, Bishop Andrewes
and Francis Bacon, who dedicated to him his translation of the
Psalms. Walton tells us that “the love of a court conversation,
mixed with a laudable ambition to be something more than he
was, drew him often from Cambridge to attend the king wheresoever
the court was,” and James I. gave him in 1623 the sinecure
lay rectory of Whitford, Flintshire, worth £120 a year. The
death of his patrons, the duke of Richmond and the marquess
of Hamilton, and of King James put an end to his hopes of
political preferment; moreover he probably distrusted the
conduct of affairs under the new reign. Largely influenced
by his mother, he decided to take holy orders, and in July 1626
he was appointed prebendary of Layton Ecclesia (Leighton
Bromswold), Huntingdon. Here he was within two miles of Little
Gidding, and came under the influence of Nicholas Ferrar.
It was at Ferrar’s suggestion that he undertook to rebuild the
church at Layton, an undertaking carried through by his own
gifts and the generosity of his friends. There is little doubt
that the close friendship with Ferrar had a large share in Herbert’s
adoption of the religious life. In 1630 Charles I., at the instance
of the earl of Pembroke, whose kinsman Herbert was, presented
him to the living of Fugglestone with Bemerton, near Salisbury,
and he was ordained priest in September. A year before, after
three days’ acquaintance, he had married Jane Danvers, whose
father had been set on the marriage for a long time. He had
often spoken of his daughter Jane to Herbert, and “so much
commended Mr Herbert to her, that Jane became so much a
Platonic as to fall in love with Mr Herbert unseen.” The story
of the poet’s life at Bemerton, as told by Walton, is one of
the most exquisite pictures in literary biography. He devoted
much time to explaining the meaning of the various parts of the
Prayer-Book, and held services twice every day, at which many
of the parishioners attended, and some “let their plough rest
when Mr Herbert’s saints-bell rung to prayers, that they might
also offer their devotions to God with him.” Next to Christianity
itself he loved the English Church. He was passionately fond
of music, and his own hymns were written to the accompaniment
of his lute or viol. He usually walked twice a week to attend
the cathedral at Salisbury, and before returning home, would
“sing and play his part” at a meeting of music lovers. Walton
illustrates Herbert’s kindness to the poor by many touching
anecdotes, but he had not been three years in Bemerton when
he succumbed to consumption. He was buried beneath the
altar of his church on the 3rd of March 1633.
None of Herbert’s English poems was published during his lifetime. On his death-bed he gave to Nicholas Ferrar a manuscript with the title The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations. This was published at Cambridge, apparently for private circulation, almost immediately after Herbert’s death, and a second imprint followed in the same year. On the title-page of both is the quotation “In his Temple doth every man speak of his honour.” The Temple is a collection of religious poems connected by unity of sentiment and inspiration. Herbert tried to interpret his own devout meditations by applying images of all kinds to the ritual and beliefs of the Church. Nothing in his own church at Bemerton was too commonplace to serve as a starting-point for the epigrammatic expression of his piety. The church key reminds him that “it is my sin that locks his handes,” and the stones of the floor are patience and humility, while the cement that binds them together is love and charity. The chief faults of the book are obscurity, verbal conceits and a forced ingenuity which shows itself in grotesque puns, odd metres and occasional want of taste. But the quaint beauty of Herbert’s style and its musical quality give The Temple a high place. “The Church Porch,” “The Agony,” “Sin,” “Sunday,” “Virtue,” “Man,” “The British Church,” “The Quip,” “The Collar,” “The Pulley,” “The Flower,” “Aaron” and “The Elixir” are among the best known of these poems. Herbert and Keble are the poets of Anglican theology. No book is fuller of devotion to the Church of England than The Temple, and no poems in our language exhibit more of the spirit of true Christianity. Every page is marked by
- ↑ Printed in 1662 as an appendix to J. Vivian’s Ecclesiastes Solomonis.
