HERBERT, William I (1609-42), of Cogan Pill, nr. Cardiff, Glam.

The Herberts of Cogan (three miles west of Cardiff) descended from a son of Sir George Herbert, brother of William Herbert, created 1st earl of Pembroke in 1551. Herbert’s father, who sailed with Sir Walter Ralegh†, was not an MP, but his grandfather, Nicholas Herbert† of Cogan Pill, sat for Cardiff in 1584 and his father’s first cousin, another William Herbert† (d. 1645) of Grey Friars, sat for the same seat in 1621 on the interest of the 3rd earl of Pembroke. Herbert of Grey Friars (sometimes referred to as White Friars or Cardiff Friars), to whom the Herberts of Cogan Pill were heirs male and with whom they had a close co-operative relationship, held many offices in south Wales, including the constableship of Cardiff Castle, and throughout the early and mid-seventeenth century members of the wider family remained active in the region’s administration and in Parliament.13Glam. Co. Hist. iv. 161-4; Thompson, Cardiff, appendix 2; HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-1629.

This Herbert succeeded his father at Cogan Pill while still a youth and soon afterwards joined his Grey Friars cousin on the Glamorgan commission of the peace.14Justices of the Peace, ed. Phillips, 298-9; PC2/40, ff. 251–2. He may have been the William Herbert of Glamorgan who in December 1635, with John Bussy, was granted a pass to travel to France.15SP16/305, ff. 99, 149. While there is no certain record of his having attended university or an inn of court, he was evidently reputed an educated man. A few years later William Gamage, rector of Eglwysilan, who aspired to the living of Roath, in Herbert’s gift, sent him a Welsh glossary, advising him to add ‘our worthy British one to those three [tongues] you have already, wherein you have not only a competency but also an excellency above others in your free and fluent English’.16Cartae Glam. vi. 2220; Al. Ox. (Gamage).

It was presumably by agreement with his other kinsmen as well as through the patronage of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, that Herbert was returned for Cardiff at both elections in 1640. He made no recorded impact on the Short Parliament. Over the summer which followed, he might have served in the army mustered at York to resist the Scottish invasion; his military command in 1642 makes previous experience likely, but the Captain William Herbert recorded there in the regiment of Sir John Meyricke* seems to have been the future parliamentarian officer from mid-Wales.17Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 1242, 1247; Newman, Royalist Officers, 188; Procs. LP v. 145; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. 385-6. Back at Westminster in November, he was one of three Mr Herberts in the chamber, not counting the attorney-general, Edward Herbert*, who was soon knighted. The fact that he, Richard Herbert* (who had also served in the northern army) and William Herbert II*, son of the earl of Pembroke and a knight of the shire for Monmouth, were all to become royalists makes the task of distinguishing them the more difficult.

If he had indeed been at York, it was perhaps this Herbert who on 16 November reported to the House that Francis Cottington, 1st Baron Cottington, had told him that soldiers in London were to be discharged as soon as the money to pay them arrived.18Procs. LP i. 156. However, Richard Herbert plausibly had links to Cottington through his father, Edward Herbert, 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury. Either of these two was more likely than Pembroke’s son to have voted on 21 April 1641 against the attainder of Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of Strafford.19Procs LP iv. 42. Meanwhile, perhaps William I or Richard was the Mr Herbert who at the committee on vintners on 12 February suggested how to bring to book wealthy merchant Rowland Wilson (perhaps the father of Rowland Wilson*).20Two Diaries of Long Parl. 5.

Both William Herberts took the Protestation on 3 May.21CJ ii. 133a; Procs LP iv. 171. As a Glamorgan justice of the peace, this Herbert was probably the Member who on 26 June, when Sir Robert Harley* delivered a petition from preachers Henry Walter and Walter Cradock claiming to have been prevented by local magistrates from preaching in the region, in partnership with Charles Price* of Radnorshire ‘showed that Mr Cradock had preached strange doctrines, one of which was that Christ died like a slave’.22Procs LP v. 363. He may have been the Mr Herbert given leave to go into the country on 30 June and again, or alternatively, on 16 July.23CJ ii. 194a, 214a; Procs LP v. 420, 427. If so, his absence may have been permanent: unlike his namesake, there is no certain reference to him thereafter in the Journal or in diaries. If he had military links, the timing of this – in the midst of revelations about the ‘army plot’ – may have been significant, although this applies even more to Richard Herbert.24Procs LP v. 145. One, at least, of the William Herberts was reported absent from the House on 19 July 1642.25CJ ii. 626a.

William Herbert ‘of Swansea’, yet another member of the clan, was named to the commission of array for Glamorgan on 3 August 1642.26Northants. RO, FH133; PC2/40, f. 251. Perhaps distinctions were unimportant here: locally ‘William Herbert’ always supported the king. One newspaper reported under 3 October that Cardiff Castle had been ‘very treacherously yielded up’ to royalist forces ‘by one Master Herbert the keeper thereof, an ungrateful kinsman to the earl of Pembroke’. It went on to identify this man as ‘a Member of the House of Commons, but now voted against for ever sitting in the House during this Parliament’.27A Continuation of Certaine Speciall Passages, no. 12 (3–5 Oct. 1642), 5 (E.121.9). This was a mistake, the MP’s cousin of Grey Friars being the keeper, but it was understandable. There is no record of Herbert’s disablement from the House at this juncture, although Charles Price was excluded on the 4th.28CJ ii. 793a; HLQ ii. 487.

This Herbert must have responded promptly to the commission of array. At the battle of Edgehill on 23 October he was a lieutenant-colonel in the regiment of leading Glamorgan gentleman Sir Edward Stradling*. The Welsh recruits were ill-equipped and under-prepared; while Stradling was captured, Herbert was killed.29Newman, Royalist Officers, 188; Glam. Co. Hist. iv. 259; Add. 18777, f. 43v.

Herbert’s will was proved at Oxford nearly a year later.30Year Bks of Probate, iii. 222. The wardship of his heir from his first marriage, another William Herbert, was granted to William Herbert of Grey Friars, but was complicated when the MP’s second wife, Jane, lodged a request for maintenance for herself and her son (also named in pedigrees as William). A hearing of this business drew the Grey Friars man to the Oxford court of wards in January and February 1644, when the Oxford Parliament was sitting.31SP16/500, ff. 93-5, 99, 111. This occurrence apparently gave rise to the issue on 30 March of a pardon to ‘William Herbert of Cardiff Friars’ as an MP, when it was the earl of Pembroke’s son who had attended the Oxford Parliament.32Black, Docquets, 180-1. Later that year Jane Herbert married another royalist officer, Sir Nicholas Kemeys†, but was soon widowed again.33‘Sir Nicholas Kemeys’, HP Commons 1604-1629; CCC 1276. Neither her step-son (who in 1645 also inherited the Friars estate) nor her son sat in Parliament.34Thompson, Cardiff, appendix 2; Cardiff Recs. v. 490; Clark, Limbus Patrum, 286-7.