HERBERT, Philip, Lord Herbert of Cardiff and 5th earl of Pembroke (1621-69), of Cardiff Castle, Glam., Wilton, Wilts. and Durham House, The Strand, Westminster.

When Herbert’s surviving elder brother Charles, whom he had accompanied on his travels in France and Italy, died of smallpox in Florence in January 1636, Philip became heir to the earldom of Pembroke.40CSP Ven. 1632–1636, p. 527; Diary of Thomas Crosfield, ed. Boas (1935), 87; CP. He had returned home by November 1637, when in the first of a series of recorded altercations with others, he struck the son of the earl of Roxburgh in Pall Mall; the quarrel was resolved.41Strafforde Letters, ii. 130. Like his deceased brother, who before their travels had been married to Mary Villiers, daughter of the late George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, Philip entered the marriage market while still young. Early in 1639, aged just 18, he was courting both Lady Katherine Percy, daughter of Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, and Penelope, widow of Paul Bayning, 2nd Viscount Bayning. Negotiations for the hand of the latter were concluded while the former was on her deathbed, a circumstance which allegedly caused some froideur between the earls of Northumberland and Pembroke, but which was evidently justified to the Herberts by the considerable financial advantages anticipated from the Bayning match. It was reported that, in alliance with Pembroke’s son-in-law Robert Dormer, 1st earl of Carnarvon, they would ‘swallow the whole of Bayning’s estate’, with Viscountess Bayning’s infant daughters being promised as brides to Carnarvon’s son Charles and Pembroke’s youngest son John Herbert*.42HMC Denbigh, v. 46; SP16/415.

In March 1639 Lord Herbert was commissioned to serve in a cavalry regiment raised by his father, the lord chamberlain, to accompany Charles I on his campaign against the Scots.43Coventry Docquets, 49; SP16/427, f. 72. Twelve months later, and still under age, he was returned with Sir Francis Seymour*, younger brother of William Seymour, 2nd earl of Hertford, as a knight of the shire for Wiltshire; in his family’s heartland, the election was reportedly ‘without any opposition’.44SP16/449, f. 77. The only trace of his parliamentary debut was his nomination to a committee to confer with the Lords about the timing of a fast (22 Apr. 1640).45CJ ii. 9a.

That summer Herbert’s public career was launched in earnest when he was appointed a commissioner and joint lord lieutenant in Somerset with the earl of Hertford.46SP16/465, f. 52; SP16/467, f. 32; A. and O. Here he made a more visible impact: when in September he notified the privy council of his desire to join his ailing father in York, secretary of state Francis Windebanke* noted that he had ‘left Somerset in very good order’.47SP16/467, ff. 100, 271. The pair had returned to Wiltshire by the middle of October, perhaps making a considerable detour to take in south Wales.48SP16/470, f. 46. In the meantime Herbert was elected to Parliament for Glamorgan, for which his father had first entered the House and where the family still had networks of tenants and clients; his brother William Herbert II* was returned for three other family seats. The first mention of Lord Herbert in the Journal was again in connection with arranging a fast day with Lords (9 Nov. 1640), while the same day he was ordered to relay to George Morley, his brother-in-law Carnarvon’s chaplain and the Restoration bishop, an invitation to preach on that occasion.49CJ ii. 23b, 24a; Procs. LP i. 59; ‘Morley, George’, Oxford DNB. Like Pembroke, it seems that he combined a less than pious reputation with a predilection for Calvinist theology. Since his next nominations were also to joint committees with the Lords – relating to a breach of peers’ privileges (10 Nov.) and to the impeachment of Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of Strafford (30 Nov.), which the earl supported – it is possible to detect a strategy of family co-operation.50CJ ii. 25b, 39b.

This may have been partly directed towards ensuring Wiltshire grievances were represented: Herbert’s only other nomination before Christmas was to review petitions against the actions of the ecclesiastical court of high commission during the king’s personal rule (3 Dec.). 51CJ ii. 44b. However, having joined other MPs in offering security for the loan raised in the City for the public coffers (21 Nov.), Herbert may also have hoped to ensure a sympathetic hearing for the personal business he intended to put before Parliament.52Procs LP i. 235, 238. For the next seven months this accounted for all his appearances in the Journals of both Houses. On 17 December he, his wife and her co-executor Sir Thomas Glemham petitioned the Lords regarding the recovery of a debt – now amounting to more than £16,500 – owed to the late Viscount Bayning by Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of Cleveland (perhaps pertinently, a kinsman and supporter of Strafford), for which the security was the manors of Stepney and Hackney.53HMC 4th Rep. 33; LJ iv. 208a. From January 1641 hearing of the case by peers proceeded alongside consideration of the conflicting claims of the Herberts (and others) and of the king’s cousin, James Stuart, 4th duke of Lennox (who had married Herbert’s widowed sister-in-law Mary Villiers and who was created duke of Lennox that year) to reclaimed land in Sutton Marsh, Lincolnshire.54HMC 4th Rep. 35–6, 38, 44, 52; LJ iv. 136b, 139a, 181a, 208a, 214a, 223b, 227b–229a, 231a, 277a. The dispute involved many vested interests and for a while may have pre-occupied Herbert to the exclusion of other matters. Sutton Marsh continued to be a distraction even in the busy spring of 1642.55LJ v. 39a.

Herbert was not present to take the Protestation in May. Still largely escaping the routine work of the House, in the summer he appeared again in the Journal as a messenger to the Lords – in relation to raising money (2 July), disbanding the armies in the north (29 July) and negotiating with the Scots (3 Aug.).56CJ ii. 196a, 229a, 233b; Procs LP vi. 136, 142. Keenness for a voice in these discussions at a period when his father lost his place as lord chamberlain and was indeed briefly committed to the Tower, is indicated by Herbert’s inclusion among reporters of a conference with the Lords (16 Aug.).57CJ ii. 253b. He was also nominated to a committee preparing a bill for the abolition of the council of the Marches, of which his father was a long-standing member, but this may simply have stemmed from his being a Welsh MP.58CJ ii. 258a.

After the recess he was again an occasional messenger. On 10 November he went to request a conference on Irish affairs, while on 24 December he led a sizeable group who relayed – among other business – concern about the safety of the kingdom.59CJ ii. 310b, 356b; D’Ewes (C), 116, 346. But as the political situation reached crisis point in the new year, Herbert faced another personal distraction. On 31 January the Commons was informed of a quarrel between Herbert and John Griffith II*, a hanger-on at the royal court, which was alleged to have resulted in a challenge to a duel on Calais sands. Challenges between Members being forbidden, an investigation was launched, and Griffith initially admitted a disagreement six months previously.60CJ ii. 404a, 405a; PJ i. 227, 232, 235. Two days later he claimed before the House to have had a meeting with Herbert, ‘who denied that ever there was any falling out betwixt them, and he did protest the same’.61PJ i. 256. For the time being the matter apparently dropped, although there may have been unseen ramifications; the suspicion that the information had surfaced owing to factional disputes cannot be ruled out.

On 8 February Herbert headed a delegation of four MPs sent with two peers to Windsor, where the king had taken up residence, to obtain his assent to bills for recruiting soldiers and for disenabling ordained persons from exercising temporal jurisdiction.62CJ ii. 421b. Two days later Herbert reported Charles’s procrastinating response.63CJ ii. 424a, 424b; PJ i. 339, 343. He was proposed for another errand to Windsor on the 14th, but seems not to have been among those finally chosen.64PJ i. 374, 381. Meanwhile, he was named lord lieutenant for Brecon, Glamorgan and Monmouth (11 Feb.) and within a week had delivered a petition from the first two counties which was referred to the monopolies committee.65PJ i. 351-3, 396; CJ 426a-b; LJ iv. 578b, 588a, 626a.

Over the spring and early summer, as political positions polarized, Herbert prevaricated over when, and possibly whether, to follow his brother William in publicly aligning with the king, while issuing private assurances of his intention to do so. Towards the end of March the marquess (formerly earl) of Hertford, on his way in that direction, resigned his interest in the Somerset lieutenancy; Herbert apparently followed suit soon afterwards.66CJ ii. 496a. His letter of 25 June to Edward Hyde*, then, like William, with the king at York, indicated that Herbert and his father, who might have been busy implementing royal commissions of array, were preoccupied in a local conflict within Oxford University with the staunch opposition peer William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele. Herbert hoped that, for the time being, the king would ‘dispense’ with his presence, on the ground that he was more usefully employed staying where he was, nurturing his father’s pro-royalist inclinations.67Clarendon SP iv. 144-5. On 26 July the Commons, impatient with Lord Herbert’s dilatoriness in facilitating implementation of Parliament’s Militia Ordinance in Monmouthshire, asked his kinsman Henry Herbert*, a newly-elected Member for the county, to chivvy him.68CJ ii. 690b. Four days later, hearing that Lord Herbert was ‘sick, and a stranger in the county of Monmouth’, and that the king’s commission of array had already been implemented by the Catholic Henry Somerset, 1st earl of Worcester, Parliament transferred the lord lieutenancy to Pembroke and appointed Henry Herbert one of his deputies.69LJ v. 248b. While clearly hoping for urgent action, Westminster had not given up on Lord Herbert: he was listed as a parliamentarian commissioner for Montgomeryshire on 28 July and for Glamorgan on 3 August.70Northants. RO, FH133. But illness and foot-dragging intervened – in uncertain proportions. On 4 August Herbert explained to Hyde that ‘pure necessity compels me’, along with the instructions of the royal physician Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, ‘to drink the waters at Tunbridge [Wells] for a month, there being no other cure for the appendix of my disease’.71CSP iv. 146. In subsequent letters he continued to profess his willingness to lay his life and fortune at the king’s feet once his health allowed, and the probability of his father’s doing the same, but his choice to seek a cure 35 miles south of London rather than, for instance, at Bath, much closer to his family’s heartland, suggests an inclination to hang back and let events dictate his best course.72CSP iv. 147-9.

The price of caution was that Cardiff Castle, Lord Herbert’s chief seat, soon fell to the hands of royalists under the Herberts’ local rivals the Catholic Somersets. It has been argued that it was because both Pembroke and his son were uninterested in south Wales that royalism under others’ direction took an early hold, but the long-term investment in the area by Pembroke through agents like his former secretary Michael Oldisworth* suggests otherwise. It seems that it was indecisiveness at the critical moment that left others with less complicated allegiances – including other Herberts – to take the initiative.73Glam. Co. Hist. iv. 197.

Lord Herbert played no discernible part in the first civil war. This allowed him to resurface in the House on 31 January 1644 to take the Covenant, at a point where it seemed that Parliament might negotiate a tough peace in alliance with the invading Scots.74CJ iii. 383b. He resumed an occasional, but not unimportant, involvement in the business of the House, largely related to his aristocratic status. Nominated to a committee to consider arrangements for the reception of ambassadors from the United Provinces (6 July), he was included in a conference with the Lords on the reception of the king’s nephew, Charles Louis, elector palatine, whose forthcoming arrival posed awkward political problems for his hosts (30 Aug.).75CJ iii. 552b, 612b. The diarist Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, who had also attended, reckoned that Herbert represented part of the proceedings accurately to the Commons the next day, but that ‘he mistook the later part of his report’, describing an agreement to send a deputation of peers and MPs ‘in compliment to welcome him’. This provoked ‘an unhappy debate’ in which Sir Henry Vane I*, who like his son and others opposed the visit, argued that no such vote had been taken.76Harl. 166, f. 111v. Herbert’s ‘mistake’ had probably been deliberate. The official report to the House from William Pierrepont* recommended that the prince be told that he should curtail his stay in his own and the public interests. In a division on the question, Pierrepont and staunch war party leader Sir Arthur Hesilrige* were tellers for the majority who concurred, while Herbert acted with peace party leader Sir Philip Stapilton* for the minority who dissented.77CJ iii. 614a. None the less, such was the balance of interests in the Commons that it was Herbert who reported the elector’s verbal and written answers to this message from Parliament (2, 3 Sept.).78Harl. 166, f. 112; CJ iii. 616a.

Soon after, for reasons that do not appear, Herbert went to Stafford. The moderate parliamentarian leader in the midlands, Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh, was informed on 28 September by one of his subordinates in the town that Herbert was with them and was unwell, but would soon be returning to Parliament.79HMC 4th Rep. 270. However, for the next 12 months and more, private affairs again dominated his appearance in its records. By 5 December John Griffith – who had in the interim sailed close to the wind with another sexual scandal – was in the custody of Black Rod awaiting a hearing at a committee of both Houses, having been arrested for claiming that he had slept three times with Herbert's wife.80HMC 7th Rep. 449b. Petitioning unsuccessfully against his detention (25 Mar. 1645), Griffith denied any intention to affront Lord Herbert, but an investigation reported on 26 July found that, even as he remained in prison, he had elaborated his allegations, claiming that both he and the elector palatine had enjoyed Lady Herbert’s favours at his lodgings.81HMC 6th Rep. 52a; LJ vii. 510b, 512a-b. ‘Quarrels’ between Griffith and Herbert erupted again in December 1646.82LJ viii. 612a, 616a. The former’s repeated protestations of lack of animosity towards the latter apparently received little credence, but the case must have undermined Lord Herbert’s reputation, not least because he and his wife evidently had marital differences. Meanwhile, Herbert had also been distracted by a renewal of the case against Lennox concerning Sutton Marsh.83HMC 6th Rep. 56b, 61b, 91b.

Herbert’s visible engagement with other Commons business during this period was minimal, but as before, momentarily telling. On 2 July 1645 he was a teller with another peer’s heir, Charles Cecil*, Viscount Cranborne, for the majority who concurred with the Lords’ decision to release from custody the servant of the Spanish ambassador as a good-will gesture to his master – a relatively minor victory, but one which required an ability to muster support.84CJ iv. 193b. He retained his religious credentials sufficiently to be included on the committee of both Houses to judge offenders to be denied the sacrament (3 June 1646), although attempts by the Lords to persuade the Commons to expedite his appointment as steward of the duchy of Cornwall and lord warden of the Stannaries, in succession to his father, seem to have fallen on deaf ears.85CJ iv. 562b, 704a, 713b, 714a. In February 1647 Parliament evinced the modicum of trust in his loyalty, or at least recognition of his family’s importance, necessary to permit Herbert and his brothers James Herbert* and John Herbert to join their dangerously ill father at Holdenby Hall, whence the earl had been despatched to receive the king from the Scottish army.86CJ v. 97b.

The context was the dominance that spring of the Presbyterians, whose peace-making agenda Pembroke and his sons shared at this juncture. On 3 June 1647, as a teller against Nathaniel Fiennes I*, son of an Independent peer, Lord Herbert could not secure sufficient votes to prevent the expunging from the Journal of the Commons’ declaration – at a peak of Presbyterian strength on 29 March – against the supporters of the army petition.87CJ v. 197a. On 8 June, this time acting with Presbyterian leader Denzil Holles*, he failed to persuade a majority of MPs to endorse the Lords’ vote to remove the king to Oatlands, out of army control.88CJ v. 203a. Thus he might have been expected to welcome the Presbyterian coup of 26 July; his father, for one chose to stay in London, and thereby appeared to endorse it. Yet when the army arrived and the coup collapsed, Lord Herbert was a teller with an (at this stage) Independent, John Bulkeley*, for the majority who gave their voices to repealing all votes which had passed between 26 July and 3 August (13 Aug.).89CJ v. 273b. However, the majority was sizeable and seems to have included others who were not Independents but simply saw no future in obstinate adherence to a temporarily lost cause. When on 7 September peace overtures to the king were once again in prospect, Herbert pitted himself against Independent grandees Hesilrige and Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire* in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent John Glynne*, one of the coup leaders, being excluded from the House.90CJ v. 295a.

Herbert was apparently at Westminster late in 1647, since on 23 December he was ordered to go forthwith to Wiltshire, alongside his brother James and two other local MPs, to get in assessments.91CJ v. 400b. But in 1648 he was twice recorded as absent without excuse – on 24 April and 26 September – and surfaced only twice more in the Journal.92CJ v. 543b; vi. 34a. On 3 July he was a teller for the minority who wished to give the king more leeway in the Newport negotiations, while on 7 November, as they dragged on without resolution, he told for the majority to avert proceedings against former courtier Henry Jermyn*.93CJ v. 622a; vi. 71a.

Alhough his name appears on an early listing of those secluded, it seems more likely that Herbert evaded Pride’s Purge by staying away.94A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62). Once Charles I had been executed, however, and Pembroke himself had entered the Commons as Member for Berkshire, it probably surprised no-one when Herbert too eventually re-appeared. He was re-admitted on 23 July 1649.95CJ vi. 268a. Initially he was no more active than previously, earning one committee nomination that year – to discuss how the Engagement to the new republic might be administered nationwide (9 Nov.).96CJ vi. 321b. But this altered following the death of his father on 23 January 1650 and his succession to the earldom of Pembroke, which owing to the abolition of the House of Lords, did not affect the tenure of his Commons seat.

Once again, his somewhat greater prominence in the Journal stemmed partly from direct private interest, especially related to the problem posed by debts and encumbrances on his inherited estates.97Sheffield Archives, EM1355/3, EM1358/1–4. As the Commons pondered the bill removing obstructions in the sale of royal lands, the new earl submitted a petition concerning his claims to Clarendon Park in Wiltshire, which was referred with it (7 Feb.); at least some of his rights were registered in an ordinance relating to Clarendon and Bowood forest issued on the 18th.98CJ vi. 358b; A. and O. A few days later he secured a recommendation to the commissioners of the great seal that he step into his father’s shoes as lord lieutenant of Derbyshire and of Wiltshire (11 Feb.).99CJ vi. 360b. Placed on the committee to consider the best way to elect four further men to the council of state (12 Feb.), he nonetheless narrowly missed securing a place for himself (20 Feb.).100CJ vi. 363b, 369a. He did obtain an order for possession of Durham House (25 Feb.), the lease of which had been granted to his father when it was forcibly vacated by its previous owner the bishop, but this was in anticipation of the removal of the soldiers quartered there latterly and restoration of the fabric to its former condition; leaving aside any building work, the handover took many months owing to the tenacity of the former bishop and the fact that the late earl was four years in arrears with rent.101CJ vi. 371a; CCC, 1930–1; CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 23, 26, 346. A bill enabling the new earl (and others) to sell property to pay debts was not signalled in the Commons until 10 June 1651, but, named to consider also others’ claims (13 June), he was in some position to influence directly treatment of his own case.102CJ vi. 585b, 587a, 587b. By October 1652 he had sold his estate at Ramsbury in Wiltshire to his nephew, Charles Dormer, 2nd earl of Carnarvon.103CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 440.

Alongside this, in 1650 and 1651 Pembroke was periodically involved in dealing with delinquents, as well as once in the case of a London Grocer who declined to serve in public office (Henry Box, 10 July 1650).104CJ vi. 439a; ‘Box, Henry’, Oxford DNB. Placed on the committee for the bill for the sale of their estates (6 Apr. 1650), the following year he was twice a teller on related divisions – unsuccessfully (owing to the Speaker’s casting vote) against the proposal that the quorum for the seven trustees appointed under the bill should be five (14 May 1651) and, by an equally narrow margin and in opposition to hardliners Hesilrige and Colonel Algernon Sydney*, successfully for excluding the estates of William Craven, 1st Baron Craven, from the bill (12 June).105CJ vi. 574a, 587a. Nominated to committees investigating charges of corruption levelled against Edward Howard*, 1st Baron Howard of Escrick, in connection with the latter’s activities on the Committee for Compounding (30 July, 18 Sept. 1650), Pembroke seems to have been more often than not lenient towards former royalists.106CJ vi. 448b, 469a. Perhaps for reasons connected with their early lives at court, he was a teller with former courtier Sir Henry Mildmay* for the inclusion of the poet, playwright and former lieutenant-general of the royalist ordnance, (Sir) William Davenant, among those to be tried before a high court of justice (3 July) – a move once again blocked by the Speaker’s casting vote.107CJ vi. 436b. However, Pembroke successfully opposed Hesilrige and his republican ally Thomas Scot I* to secure a lesser fine for the former Cornish MP John Arundell II* (21 Mar. 1651).108CJ vi. 552a.

Notwithstanding his financial difficulties, Pembroke’s rank and far-flung territorial interests gave him much potential influence, as did his accession to some of his father’s offices. For instance, while he did not become chancellor of Oxford University, he was placed on the committee for the regulation of the universities (29 Mar. 1650).109CJ vi. 388b. His status, and perhaps also his perceived moderation, probably lay behind his inclusion on the parliamentary delegation sent to Sir Thomas Fairfax*, now 3rd Baron Fairfax of Cameron, in a vain attempt to forestall his resignation as commander-in-chief of the imminent expedition to Scotland (25 June).110CJ vi. 431b. The earl reported the next day the general’s polite acknowledgement of their expressions of favour and respects.111CJ vi. 432a. In the aftermath of Cromwell’s victory at Dunbar, Pembroke joined Henry Marten* to endorse the council of state’s robustly-worded dismissal of the Declaration to his subjects which the would-be Charles II had fruitlessly subscribed as the price of allegiance from the kirk (17 Sept.).112CJ vi. 469a; A Declaration by the Kings Majesty (Edinburgh, 1650). Pembroke’s background put him in a good position to judge the likely sincerity of this disavowal by their son of the religious preferences of Charles I and Henrietta Maria; once a crucial battle was won it was in his interest to ensure the campaign was justified convincingly.

Yet there was lingering uncertainty as to Pembroke’s loyalty to the new regime. In the poll for the council of state (10 Feb. 1651), he once again failed by a whisker to gain sufficient support.113CJ vi. 532b, 533a. In the late spring the council received information which suggested some royalists had thought they could rely on him in the recent insurgency. George Morley, the Calvinist whom he had recruited to preach before the Commons in 1640, was alleged to have recommended him – ‘not without the said Lord’s privity [knowledge]’ – to the king in exile as ‘a person both of affection and will to serve him’, with the result that the earl ‘was thereupon designed to be general of south Wales ... in this present Scotch enterprise’. The agent despatched from the royal court to recruit him had then had no opportunity to do so, but the informant insinuated that Pembroke’s ‘late forward appearance in the Parliament’s service ... may perhaps to judicious persons not at all diminish the suspicion’ of an intention to defect.114HMC Portland, i. 600.

Perhaps the claims were not taken seriously, but in this context the June appearance of the bill to allow Pembroke to sell estates might be seen as an effort to ensure his continued involvement in Parliament. If so, it seems to have worked. On 8 July he was a teller for the minority who tried to resist amendment of a bill appointing duchy of Lancaster officials, including the president of the council, John Bradshawe*.115CJ vi. 599a. Three days later, in unlikely partnership with Sir Henry Vane II*, he won three divisions to secure swift capital punishment for the Presbyterian plotter Christopher Love.116CJ vi. 603a-b. He was also, on 9 September, nominated to the committee discussing the bill for incorporating Scotland into the commonwealth.117CJ vii. 14a.

With a modest 42 votes, on 25 November Pembroke finally gained a place on the council of state.118CJ vii. 42b, 43a. He proved to be a more assiduous attender at its meetings than might have been anticipated from his visible record in Parliament, his 157 appearances over the year from 1 December matching those of middling prominence like Marten, Bulstrode Whitelocke* and Isaac Penington*.119CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. xlvii. At the outset he was placed on conciliar committees for Scotland and Ireland, the Mint, trade and foreign affairs; throughout he was regularly called upon to assist in receiving diplomats.120CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 43, 67, 85, 151, 173, 247, 348, 436.

In the same period he occasionally did similar service from the Commons, receiving agents from the Hanse towns (21 Feb. 1652), the king of Denmark (12 Mar.) and the king of Spain (14 Dec.).121CJ vii. 99a, 104b, 228b, 229a. On 9 March he joined forces with Marten against familiar opponents Hesilrige and Sir John Danvers* in a vain attempt to prevent the committal of a petition from Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, while on 16 April he narrowly lost a division relating the case of a chancery sinecure.122CJ vii. 102b, 123a. All this suggests a continuing presence in the chamber, but his most concentrated appearance in the Journal arose during the month from 14 June, when as president of the council he reported to the House its dealings with the envoy from the States General.123CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 291; CJ vii. 143a, 144a, 145a, 145b. On 13 August he was named to the committee to consider a petition from the army and on 15 December, his stint on the council ended, he was added with Vane and others to meet deputies sent from Scotland.124CJ vii. 164b, 229b. This was his last recorded contribution to proceedings before the Rump was dissolved in April 1653.

Pembroke did not sit in any of the protectorate parliaments. In 1655 renewed information suggesting his secret allegiance emerged in royalist circles, but although he certainly had some royalist friends, at this juncture the specific allegation was probably without foundation: throughout the decade he held local commissions in different parts of England and south Wales.125CCSP iii. 80; Mems. of Anne Lady Fanshawe, ed. Loftis, 137; A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 79; Justices of the Peace, ed. Phillips, 144–5; C181/6, passim. Indeed, appointed in 1654 a commissioner to eject scandalous ministers in the latter region, he apparently became steadily more radical in his religious preferences.126A. and O. In the late 1650s he was reported to be meeting with the wife of Oliver St John* and others thrice weekly for lengthy sessions of prayer and singing.127CCSP iv. 248. The quest to settle his father’s debts continued to engage him and the 4th earl’s executors (who included Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland, William Cecil, 2nd earl of Salisbury, and the widely-connected Oldisworth) and necessitated the cultivation of friends in the protectorate council and in Parliament, where the matter occasionally surfaced.128HMC 3rd Rep. 87b; CJ vii. 528b, 561b; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 168; Burton’s Diary, ii. 79-94. When Pembroke and his second wife Katherine Villiers quarrelled, it was Oliver Cromwell* who in July 1658 was reported to have reconciled them.129HMC 5th Rep. 145. The report was premature: Fairfax’s son-in-law and the countess of Pembroke’s kinsman, George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, was arrested in September while he was in Kent on the same mission.130CCSP iv. 82. In November Pembroke was said to have stood bail for this suspected conspirator, so perhaps by this time he was hedging his political bets.131CCSP iv. 112.

Following the return of the Rump in May 1659, Pembroke resumed his seat promptly. Between 10 May and 8 September he received an unprecedented 12 committee nominations, involving him in business from the relatively unfamiliar (for example, prisoners of conscience, 10 May, and conservation of the River Thames, 8 Aug.) and to the familiar (delinquent land sales, 5 Aug., and greeting the French ambassador, 22 Aug.).132CJ vii. 648a, 748b, 751a, 765b; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 135. His knowledge of Westminster was potentially tapped in his appointment to consider what goods in former royal residences belonged to the state (23 May) and he was named to the important committee considering the powers to be given to commissioners for the treasury and to bring in revenue (20 July).133CJ vii. 663a, 726a. In a summer of insurgency and of unrest among the army leadership, he was placed on committees to prepare the bill appointing Charles Fleetwood* as commander-in-chief (4 June), to pay soldiers (18 June), to impress seamen (22 June), to settle county militias (27 June) and to review the claims of maimed servicemen (30 July).134CJ vii. 672b, 689a, 691b, 694b, 741b. In the midst of this he submitted a petition of his own – one of the very many in this Parliament which failed to progress beyond committal (12 July).135CJ vii. 714b. Edward Hyde*, who had never been convinced of his likely defection, despaired of the earl’s ever being ‘made of any use[?] to the king’ and on 20 August the council of state accepted Pembroke’s offer to raise a regiment of horse at his own charge, provided he submit a list of officers for vetting.136HMC Heathcote, 10; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 131; Clarendon, History, v. 384.

As the royalist threat subsided, on 8 September Pembroke was included on a committee for the settlement of the government.137CJ vii. 775b. But the next day he was given leave to go into the country for the recovery of his health – genuinely afflicted or otherwise.138CJ vii. 776a. He thereby avoided implication in the military-civilian struggles of the next few months. He reappeared in the Journal on 21 January, when he was named to review offices in the patronage of the commonwealth, and received one further Commons committee nomination on 9 February, to legislate for a new common council in London.139CJ vii. 818a, 838b. Before the end of the session on 10 March he was in communication with the exiled royalist court through his brother John, but Hyde expressed no confidence that his support had yet been secured.140CCSP iv. 580, 587.

Following the Restoration there was a report that Pembroke and Salisbury had been cashiered by the newly-resuscitated House of Lords, but this soon proved false.141CCSP v. 10, 18; Pepys’s Diary, i. 127. A man of some skill in chemistry, according to John Aubrey, Pembroke was appointed a commissioner for trade and navigation, and was on the councils of the Royal African and the Royal Fishing Societies.142Aubrey, Brief Lives, 304; Pepys’s Diary, i. 258; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 83; CCSP v. 128. He also had a ceremonial role at the coronation of Charles II in April 1661.143CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 584. But ‘though never so seeming pious’, he was, according to Samuel Pepys, ineffective as treasurer of the Fishing Society and his religion made him a figure of fun.144Pepys’s Diary, v. 294; CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 138. In April 1665 an anecdote of ‘the Quaking lord the earl of Pembroke’ related that he had presented himself at the king’s bedside ‘very early’ one morning with a message that Charles should prepare for ‘the end of the world’ that year, at which the latter had offered to buy Wilton cheaply; declining, the earl had affirmed that ‘it shall die with me’ and departed, leaving ‘his majesty and the whole court merry with this fancy’.145HMC Hastings, ii. 150-1. Observers found it incongruous that on the tennis court a reputed Quaker should ‘swear to himself when he loses’, and ‘the king made mighty mockery at’ his eccentric views on the book of Genesis.146Pepys’s Diary, ix. 150-1.

In his will, drawn up on 28 August 1669, Pembroke contemplated the sale by his executors, John Poulett†, 3rd Baron Poulett, and the duke of Buckingham, of further lands to meet debts and funeral expenses and to provide for his younger son Sir Philip Herbert and his daughter Lady Mary Herbert.147PROB11/331/630. He died on 11 December and was buried in Salisbury cathedral.148CP. He was succeeded as 6th earl of Pembroke by his son from his first marriage, William Herbert, Lord Herbert†, who was a sitting Member for Glamorgan. The second son from his second marriage, Thomas Herbert†, later sat three times for Wilton, before succeeding his elder brothers as 8th earl.149HP Commons 1660-1690.