Valence tried to regain the palatine rights which had been attached to the earldom of Pembroke. But his energies were not confined to South Wales. Henry III. heaped lands and honours upon him, and he was soon thoroughly hated as one of the most prominent of the rapacious foreigners. Moreover, some trouble in Wales led to a quarrel between him and Simon de Montfort, and this soon grew more violent. He would not comply with the provisions of Oxford, and took refuge in Wolvesey Castle at Winchester. where he was besieged and compelled to surrender and leave the country. In 1259 he and Earl Simon were formally reconciled in Paris, and in 1261 he was again in England and once more enjoying the royal favour. He fought for Henry at the battle of Lewes, and then, after a stay in France, he landed in Pembrokeshire, and took part in 1265 in the siege of Gloucester and the battle of Evesham. After the royalist victory he was restored to his estates and accompanied Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., to Palestine. He went several times to France on public business; he assisted in the conquest of North Wales; and he was one of Edward’s representatives in the famous suit over the succession to the crown of Scotland in 1291 and 1292. He died at Bayonne on the 13th of June 1296, his body being buried in Westminster Abbey. His eldest surviving son, Aymer (c. 1265–1324), succeeded to his father’s estates, but was not formally recognized as earl of Pembroke until after the death of his mother Joan about 1307. He was appointed guardian of Scotland in 1306, but with the accession of Edward II. to the throne and the consequent rise of Piers Gaveston to power, his influence sensibly declined; he became prominent among the discontented nobles and was one of those who were appointed to select the lord ordainers in 1311. In 1312 he captured Gaveston at Scarborough, giving the favourite a promise that his life should be spared. Ignoring this undertaking, however, Guy Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, put Gaveston to death, and consequently Pembroke left the allied lords and attached himself to Edward II. Valence was present at Bannockburn; in 1317, when returning to England from Rome, he was taken prisoner and was kept in Germany until a large ransom was paid. In 1318 he again took a conspicuous part in making peace between Edward and his nobles, and in 1322 assisted at the formal condemnation of Earl Thomas of Lancaster, and received some of his lands. His wife, Mary de Chatillon, a descendant of King Henry III, was the founder of Pembroke College, Cambridge.
In 1339 Laurence, Lord Hastings (d. 1348), a great-grandson of William de Valence, having inherited through the female line a portion of the estates of the Valence earls of Pembroke was created, or recognized as, earl of Pembroke. His son John (d. 1376) married Margaret Plantagenet, daughter of King Edward III., and on the death without issue of his grandson. In 1389 the earldom of Pembroke reverted again to the Crown, while the barony of Hastings became dormant and so remained till 1840.
In 1414 Humphrey Plantagenet, fourth son of King Henry IV., was created duke of Gloucester and earl of Pembroke for life, these titles being subsequently made hereditary, with a reversion as regards the earldom of Pembroke, in default of heirs to Humphrey, to William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk. Accordingly, on the death of Humphrey, without issue, in 1447 this nobleman became earl of Pembroke. He was beheaded in 1450 and his titles were forfeited. In 1453 the title was given to Sir jasper Tudor, half-brother of King Henry VI. Sir Jasper being a Lancastrian, his title was forfeited during the predominance of the house of York, but was restored on the accession of Henry VII. On his death Without heirs in 1495, his title became extinct.
During his attainder Sir jasper was taken prisoner by Sir William Herbert (d. 1469), a zealous Yorkist, who had been raised to the peerage as Baron Herbert by Edward IV., and for this service Lord Herbert was created earl of Pembroke in 1468. His son William (d. 1491) received the earldom of Huntingdon in lieu of that of Pembroke, which he surrendered to Edward IV., who thereupon conferred it (1479) on his son Edward, prince of Wales; and when this prince succeeded to the throne as Edward V., the earldom of Pembroke merged in the crown. Anne Boleyn, a few months previous to her marriage with Henry VIII., was created marchioness of Pembroke in 1532, It is doubted by authorities on peerage law whether the title merged in the royal dignity on the marriage of the marchioness to the king, or became extinct on her death in 1536.
The title of earl of Pembroke was next revived in favour of Sir William Herbert (c. 1501–1570), whose father, Richard, was an illegitimate son of the 1st earl of Pembroke of the house of Herbert. He had married Anne Parr, sister of Henry VIII.’s sixth wife, and was created earl in 1551. The title has since been held by his descendants.
An executor of Henry VIII.’s will and the recipient of valuable grants of land, Herbert was a prominent and powerful personage during the reign of Edward VI., both the protector Somerset and his rival, John Dudley, afterwards duke of Northumberland, angling for his support. He threw in his lot with Dudley, and after Somerset’s fall obtained some of his lands in Wiltshire and a peerage. It has been asserted that he devised the scheme for settling the English crown on Lady Jane Grey; at all events he was one of her advisers during her short reign, but he declared for Mary when he saw that Lady Jane’s cause was lost. By Mary and her friends Pembroke’s loyalty was at times suspected, but he was employed as governor of Calais, as president of Wales and in other ways. He was also to some extent in the confidence of Philip II. of Spain. The earl retained his place at court under Elizabeth until 1569, when he was suspected of favouring the projected marriage between Mary, queen of Scots, and the duke of Norfolk. Among the monastic lands granted to Herbert was the estate of Wilton, near Salisbury, still the residence of the earls of Pembroke.
His elder son Henry (c. 1534–1601), who succeeded as 2nd earl, was president of Wales from 1586 until his death. He married in 1577 Mary Sidney, the famous countess of Pembroke (c. 1561–1621), third daughter of Sir Henry Sidney and his wife Mary Dudley. Sir Philip Sidney to whom she was deeply attached through life, was her eldest brother. Sir Philip Sidney spent the summer of 1580 with her at Wilton, or at Ivychurch, a favourite retreat of hers in the neighbourhood. Here at her request he began the Countess of Permbroke’s Arcadia, which was intended for her pleasure alone, not for publication. The two also worked at a metrical edition of the Psalms. When the great sorrow of her brother’s death came upon her she made herself his literary executor, correcting the unauthorized editions of the Arcadia and of his poems, which appeared in 1590 and 1591. She also took under her patronage the poets who had looked to her brother for protection. Spenser dedicated his Ruines of Time to her, and refers to her as Urania in Colin Clout’s come home againe; in Spenser’s Astrophel she is “Clorinda.” In 1599 Queen Elizabeth was her guest at Wilton, and the countess composed for the occasion a pastoral dialogue in praise of Astraea. After her husband’s death she lived chiefly in London at Crosby Hall, where she died.
The Countess’s other works include A Discourse of Life and Death, translated from the French of Plessis du Mornay (1593), and Antoine (1592), a version of a tragedy of Robert Garnier.
William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke (1580–1630), son of the 2nd earl and his famous countess, was a conspicuous figure in the society of his time and at the court of James I. Several times he found himself opposed to the schemes of the duke of Buckingham, and he was keenly interested in the colonization of America. He was lord chamberlain of the royal household from 1615 to 1625 and lord steward from 1626 to 1630. He was chancellor of the university of Oxford in 1624 when Thomas Tesdale and Richard Wightwick refounded Broadgates Hall and named it Pembroke College in his honour. By some Shakespearian commentators Pembroke has been identified with the “Mr W. H.” referred to as “the onlie begetter" of Shakespeare’s sonnets in the dedication by Thomas Thorpe, the owner of the published manuscript, while his mistress, Mary Fitton (q.v.), has been identified with the “dark lady” of the sonnets. In both
