HERBERT, Edward III (1582-1648), of Montgomery Castle and Queen Street, London.

The earlier part of Herbert’s life has been graphically but selectively documented in his autobiography. He spent his first nine years at his grandmother’s at Eyton, before being sent to the Thelwall household at Plas y Ward, Denbighshire, to learn Welsh so as to be able to ‘treat with those of my friends and tenants who understood no other language’; but illness retarded his progress. Two years with a tutor in Didlebury, Shropshire, were followed by Oxford. Herbert was 14 years of age at the time of his father’s death. The widow sought the wardship jointly with her brother, but it was transferred to George More of Loseley, at the cost of £800 as well as £1,000 ‘more’. Herbert appears to have been fortunate in his guardian: More not only rejected an offer of £3,000 for his ward’s marriage, but in 1599 procured him a marriage ‘with not much less than £30,000’. The bride, some years older then Herbert, was the daughter of a distant kinsman, whose will made her inheritance conditional upon marriage into the clan.

His parliamentary experience passes unrecorded in the Life, and nothing has been discovered about his 1601 Membership. However, as knight for Montgomeryshire, he may have attended the main business committee (3 Nov. 1601) and the monopolies committee (23 Nov.). Much of his Jacobean career was spent abroad. He died in London on 5 Aug. 1648. His will, made four days before his death, was proved on 5 Oct. Though he thought ‘so wretched a thing as a carcase’ deserved no pomp, he provided for a monument (already made) to be set up at a cost of £45, and for a chapel to be built at Montgomery, near to his ancestors.2Autobiog. of Lord Herbert of Chirbury, ed. Lee, passim; J. Hurstfield, Queen’s Wards, 112-14; Bradney, Mon. iv. 298; DWB, 352-3; D’Ewes, 624, 649; J. W. Stoye, English Travellers Abroad, 60, 113, 259-60; PCC 138 Essex.