HERBERT, John (1625-59), of Dorchester House, The Strand, Westminster.

John Herbert was the fourth and last of the sons of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, to enter the Commons, being recruited for Monmouthshire following the issue on 11 November 1646 of a writ for an election to replace his deceased brother William Herbert II (previously disabled for his desertion to the king).1CJ iii. 389b; iv. 667b; C231/6, p. 69. John joined his elder brothers Philip Herbert*, Lord Herbert, and James Herbert* (recruited six months earlier), as well as his kinsman Henry Herbert*. The fact that the Journal does not invariably distinguish these Members has led to some confusion and in the case of John this is compounded by the existence outside the House of an active Glamorgan and south Wales office-holder, John Herbert of Roath (d. 1658), sometimes found in commission and in co-operation with Henry Herbert.2CJ iii. 661a; vi. 324b; A. and O; SP21/22, f. 145; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 266.

John Herbert had taken his seat by 30 December 1646, when he took the Covenant in the House.3CJ v. 33b. He had probably made no visible contribution to Commons business before 25 February 1647, when with his elder brothers he was given leave to visit his ailing father at Holdenby Hall.4CJ v. 97b. On 18 June he was married – or rather betrothed – at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, to his sister-in-law Lady Herbert’s eight-year-old daughter, a match allegedly planned when the bride was an infant in order to ensure that her father’s fortune went entirely to the Herbert family, and perhaps precipitated by Lady Herbert’s illness and death.5St Martin-in-the-Fields, par. reg.; SP16/415, f. 182v If, as seems plausible, James was consistently the Mr Herbert who appeared from time to time in the Commons as an associate of the Presbyterian leaders, then during the summer’s coup John Herbert probably owed his nomination to their ‘committee of safety’ principally to his father and siblings – although he was listed before James (3 Aug.).6CJ v. 266a. Following the subsequent political reversal, both brothers were listed as absent at a call of the House (9 Oct.).7CJ v. 330b. Indeed, there is no certain sighting of John before Pride’s Purge, although since his brother returned, the likelihood is that he did also. It was possibly John who was nominated on 14 December 1647 to a committee determining punishment for soap monopolist Sir Henry Compton: it was he whose rights to profits of the office of custos brevium had been strengthened by a previous ruling against Compton in 1644.8CJ iii. 385a; v. 383a. He was secluded at the purge on 6 December.9W. Prynne, A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members [1648].

Herbert appears to have spent much of the next few years living quietly in London. The will of his father, who died in January 1650, specified a portion of £5,000 and the residue of profits accruing to the earl from the patent grant of custos brevium. It also anticipated the formalisation of his marriage to Penelope Bayning.10CJ iii. 385a; LJ v. 406ab; PROB11/211/579. The latter took place on 6 June 1651, by which time the bride was twelve and a half, but the fourth earl’s debts delayed the payment of legacies, the income from the custos brevium may have been difficult to collect, and there was at least one lawsuit over property.11St Mary Rotherhithe, par. reg.; Sheffield Archives, EM1358; C5/338/69. In September 1654 it was reported that Herbert had been ordered to vacate the house in The Strand belonging to his late mother-in-law and sister-in-law in order to ‘give way’ to Sir Edward Herbert*, the former attorney-general who was to be allowed to resume legal practice.12Nicholas Pprs. ii. 91. This gave him a potential grievance against the protectorate government and the following year double agent Henry Manning assured exiled royalists that he was not alone in being ‘well assured of ... John’s good affections’.13Nicholas Pprs. iii. 150.

Like a number of covert royalists, Herbert was returned to the third protectorate Parliament, this time for his brother the 5th earl’s pocket borough of Wilton. On 5 March 1659 his brother James, who was also back in the House, presented a petition on his behalf, the reading of which was several times adjourned; its content does not appear, but it may have related to his custos brevium claims.14CJ vii. 610b, 611b, 612a. In the midst of this, he made his first definite contribution to Commons proceedings when on 8 March he was a teller with Presbyterian-leaning Arthur Annesley* for the large minority who opposed complicating the question of whether or not to transact with the Other House by adding a statement regarding the eligibility to sit there of hereditary peers who had supported Parliament.15CJ vii. 612a. He was again a teller on 28 March, this time with proto-royalist leader Henry Cary*, 4th viscount Falkland, in an unsuccessful attempt to postpone debate so that Members temporarily absent in the Speaker’s chamber could return to vote on further divisions relating to the Other House.16CJ vii. 621b.

Following the fall of the protectorate and return of the Rump, Herbert and his brother James were among the MPs forced out in December 1648 who tried on 7 May 1659 to assert their right to resume their seats in the Commons.17W. Prynne, Loyalty Banished (1659), 3 (E.986.20). In this they failed, but in July Herbert was added with his brother Pembroke to the Monmouthshire militia commissioners.18CJ vii. 725a; A. and O. He was in London on 10 November with some friends with whom he was engaged in a lawsuit. Having ‘dined very well’ and been ‘merry’, he was persuaded to take an unaccustomed pipe of tobacco, but then ‘finding himself unwell’, he returned home in his own coach to Dorchester House. On arrival, a servant opened the coach door to find ‘his master dead and almost cold’.19Diurnal of Thomas Rugg, 11. He was buried nearly two weeks later in Westminster Abbey, where his wife had already been interred.20Westminster Abbey Regs. 149, 152. They had no surviving children. Shortly before his death he had sent £200 to the royalist court in exile.21CCSP iv. 545. His two elder brothers, who administered his estate, sat in Parliament before and beyond the Restoration.22Westminster Abbey Regs. 152n.