HERBERT, Henry (c.1617-56), of Coldbrook, Abergavenny, Mon., and Newington Green, Mdx.

The Herberts of Coldbrook, the pre-eminent estate in Abergavenny, were descendants of Sir Richard Herbert, a brother of the first Herbert earl of Pembroke who in 1469 shared his fate of execution. This Member was seventh in line from him, and his family had represented Monmouthshire in numerous parliaments from the mid-Tudor period. Herbert’s father was a knight of the shire in 1626, a long-standing member of the commission of the peace and sheriff from October 1637.28DWB; Bradney, Hist. Mon. i. 189; HP Commons 1558-1603, ‘Matthew Herbert I’; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘William Herbert II’. Like many in the extended family, he held numerous leases from the earls of Pembroke.29PROB11/217/143 (William Herbert)

Briefly entered at Magdalen College, Oxford, Herbert embarked in June 1634 on legal studies at the Middle Temple.30Al. Ox.; MT Admiss. i. 129. Although never called to the bar, he was an apparently active member of his inn – where there was an older namesake and thus he was designated ‘junior’ – for at least four years and possibly well into the next decade.31MTR ii. 824, 828, 952; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 603. In June 1637 he married Mary, daughter of London merchant James Rudyerd and niece of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd*, cementing existing alliances between the Herbert and Rudyerd families; most notably, Mary’s sister Elizabeth was the wife of the future MP’s uncle, Matthew Herbert, another City merchant.32St Mary, Islington, Mdx., par. reg; Bradney, Hist. Mon. i. 189; Vis. Hants 1530, 1575, 1622 and 1634 (Harl. Soc. lxiv), 141-2. The following year Henry Herbert’s father, then sheriff, employed him to pay in Monmouthshire Ship Money.33CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 603.

Long Parliament, Mar.-Aug. 1642

When in March 1642 there was a by-election in Monmouthshire following the death of Sir Charles Williams*, Herbert was elected to the seat once held by his father, having probably stood as a candidate known to be sympathetic to the drift of policy at Westminster and in opposition to the future royalist Sir Nicholas Kemeys†.34Diary of Walter Powell, ed. J.A. Bradney (1907), 26. Over the ensuing decade and more he was to prove the most thoroughly committed of all the Herberts to the parliamentary cause, although initially he may have been driven by the subsidiary motive of challenging the predominant position in local affairs allowed by Charles I to the recusant Somersets of Raglan Castle. When he first joined the House his kinsman and fellow Member for Monmouthshire, William Herbert II*, son of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, was carrying the baton in that particular conflict, but by 25 June and possibly earlier William had joined the king at Oxford.35CJ ii. 527a; PJ ii. 236. By August, if not before, William Herbert I* and Richard Herbert*, had also defected, leaving Henry as the sole Mr Herbert in the chamber for the next four years.

It was probably the novice Henry – rather than his altogether less enthusiastic kinsman the earl of Pembroke’s heir, Philip Herbert*, Lord Herbert of Cardiff – who, according to an incomplete entry in the Journal, was on 28 May nominated in company with some parliamentary heavyweights to investigate ‘great misdemeanours’ committed by troops in Anglesey.36CJ ii. 591a. On 10 June he promised a horse for the defence.37PJ iii. 473. When on 26 July Lord Herbert, as lord lieutenant of Monmouthshire, was to be chivvied into implementing the militia commission, it was Henry Herbert who was designated as the agent, and plausibly he who had alerted the Commons to dilatoriness in the first place.38CJ ii. 690b. Three days later fellow Members voted that he should be a deputy lieutenant.39CJ ii. 696a. It was approved by the Lords on the 30th at the same time as – having received information, again probably via Herbert, that Henry Somerset, 5th earl of Worcester, was executing the royalist commission of array – they replaced Lord Herbert in his office by Pembroke.40LJ v. 248b; CJ ii. 696b. On 8 August Herbert laid before the House a letter (dated 31 July) from his own father, also a deputy lieutenant, who had declined to implement the commission of array and complained of a purge by Worcester of ‘many’ from the commission of the peace. This prompted the House to despatch Herbert to oversee in person the execution of its militia ordinance, but not before he had been named a manager of a conference with the Lords relating to a proposal to give all deputy lieutenants power to disarm recusants.41CJ ii. 708b, 710a; PJ iii. 287. Further orders issued on the 10th invested Herbert with effectively a pre-eminent authority to raise Monmouthshire in Parliament’s name.42LJ v. 279b, 280b, 285.

Westminster and the war in the west, 1642-5

He reported back on 13 September, ‘showing that there were many in the county well-affected to Parliament but that they wanted some assistance to help them against the other party’, whose efforts were sustained by the earl of Worcester and his son.43PJ iii. 353-4. The matter was referred to the committee for the defence of the kingdom, whom he was to brief at greater length.44CJ ii. 763b. His words evidently commanded attention: a fortnight later, on his motion, Sir Nicholas Kemeys and others were sent for as delinquents.45Harl. 163, f. 385v. However, while Herbert’s apparent confidence and optimism obviously made an impact at Westminster, the situation back home was rather different. In reality, he represented a beleaguered minority up against powerful aristocratic landlords able to muster their tenantry in support of the king; for many months to come, and perhaps for much of his parliamentary career, he needed to keep a careful eye on his constituency.46S.K. Roberts, ‘How the West was Won’, WHR xxi.4, pp. 646-74.

On 22 October Herbert was among MPs added to the committee liaising with the common council of London, but his intermittent appearances in the Journal suggest that he returned to Monmouthshire later in the year and fairly regularly thereafter.47CJ ii. 819b. The next mention of him in the record was on 26 January 1643, when he was named to the committee preparing an order for the supplying the army with horses and investigating complaints of over-zealous requisitioning.48CJ ii. 943a. He then surfaced on only two occasions before taking the Covenant on 6 June, but once again the business concerned was not insignificant. On 2 March he was a messenger to the Lords and then a manager with leading Members John Pym* and Denzil Holles* of a conference regarding the proclamation declaring the association of Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire.49CJ ii. 986a-b; LJ v. 629b. Then on 6 March he was appointed to the committee considering a petition from soldiers in the Middlesex cavalry.50CJ ii. 990b.

He emerged again in the late summer, being added on 18 August to the committee for the excise ordinance.51CJ iii. 211a. A few days later he joined Sir Benjamin Rudyerd among those named to consider what should be done with Members who had taken the Covenant but subsequently violated it (23 Aug.), before obtaining leave to go into the country ‘for four or five days’ – insufficient to accomplish anything in Wales.52CJ iii. 221a. He had presumably returned by 13 September, when he was placed on a small committee to examine the cases of destitute foreigners who, presenting certificates from the Dutch and French churches of London, might be given Speaker’s warrants to emigrate, and of planters who wished to travel to their overseas plantations.53CJ iii. 238b. He took the Solemn League and Covenant on 9 October, while on the 23rd he was among those nominated to review propositions proffered by the Committee for the Affairs of Ireland.54CJ iii. 268b, 286a.

While invisible in November and December, from January 1644 Herbert had a higher profile in the Journal. The main focus of his activity was Wales and the west of England, and in particular the prosecution of war. Added on 30 January to the committee working on the ordinance for reducing north Wales to obedience by means of forces under Sir Thomas Myddelton*, six months later he was among a small group of MPs ordered to organise the provision of Welsh-speaking preachers to minister to his troops (20 July).55CJ iii. 565b. Having been on committees raising money and devising strategies for military campaigns in Gloucestershire, Shropshire and south Wales (23 Mar., 10 Apr., 6 May) and been despatched to thank Colonel Thomas Mytton* for his defence of Wem (18 Apr.), he was invited to participate in the appointment of a governor at Monmouth (30 Sept.) and added to the committee for Gloucester and its associated Marcher and Welsh counties (12 and 14 Oct.).56CJ iii. 435a, 455b, 465a, 482a, 644a, 661a; LJ v. 23-5.

Meanwhile, during 1644 he was also involved in a small selection of other activities for which his experience qualified him or into which his Herbert connections encouraged him. With Sir Robert Pye I*, he was added to a committee resolving a dispute between Colonels William Strode II* and Horner over the conduct of campaigning in the Herberts’ other heartland of Wiltshire and Somerset (1 Jan.); with Pye, William Wheler* and Thomas Hodges I* he was among those named to investigate complaints from Wiltshire about sequestrations (15 Mar.).57CJ iii. 355b, 429a. On 1 February he promoted wider family interests when he took to the Lords the ordinance confirming to the earl of Pembroke the nomination to the office of custos brevium in the court of common pleas, and the reversion of profits to the latter’s son John Herbert*.58CJ iii. 384b; LJ vi. 405a. Once again he was appointed to a committee reviewing the taking of the Covenant (22 Feb.) and his experience in Glamorgan made him an obvious nominee to prepare the ordinance for sustaining the prosecution of papists and delinquents in county courts (3 July).59CJ iii. 404b, 550b. Later in the year, following his western appointments, he appears to have taken an interest in other areas of conflict, being named to committees relating to Farnham Castle in Surrey (18 Oct.) and to reorganising administration in Kent (6 Nov.).60CJ iii. 669b, 688a.

Although this MP was, apart from Pembroke’s titled heir, still at this juncture the only Herbert in the Commons, he was not the only Herbert actively engaged in the war effort. On the one hand there was Colonel William Herbert from mid Wales who served under Sir John Meyrick* and Robert Devereux, 3d earl of Essex, and then in the New Model until 1647.61Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. 385-6; A. and O. On the other, there was Yorkshire-born Thomas Herbert, client of Pembroke and former esquire of the body to Charles I, who from March 1644 was a commissioner to those two armies and whose letter (with others) ‘relating the good success’ at the battle of Newbury was read to the House on 29 October.62Add. 31116, p. 339; ‘Sir Thomas Herbert’, Oxford DNB. Both were potentially confused with the MP in records of parliamentary proceedings and collaborators with the MP outside the chamber. It is difficult to discern, for example, in what capacity ‘H Herbert’ – who if this was really Henry probably cannot have been far from Westminster – signed with Philip Skippon*, Meyrick and Sir Philip Stapilton* the letter from officers in Essex’s army explaining what induced them to move west and leave Sir William Waller* to pursue the king, read in the Lords on 5 July – although it is not difficult to suggest what local motive he might have had for doing so.63LJ vi. 617a.

Herbert the MP was absent from the Journal between 6 November 1644 and 24 March 1645, and although he had no formal leave it is possible that he spent short periods away from London on business connected with the military association in the marches of Wales. When he reappeared in March, against the backdrop of efforts to launch the New Model, it was to be nominated with Pembroke client John Glynne* and five others to raise money on the credit of excise.64CJ iv. 88b. He was to be placed on the committee for excise on 6 June.65A. and O. Meanwhile, on 5 May he was among several in the Pembroke circle to be nominated to refine the ordinance for paying soldiers and others connected with the military but Thomas was probably the Mr Herbert whose letter from the army of Sir Thomas Fairfax* at Taunton whose letter was read in the Commons on the 14th.66CJ iv. 132a, 142b. Later that month it was Colonel William who petitioned Parliament for arrears and was made governor of Montgomery Castle, the captured seat of yet another Herbert – Edward, 1st Baron Herbert of Chirbury.67CJ iv. 147b, 151b, 156a.

Having been one of the Members awarded on 3 June the weekly attendance allowance of £4, six days later Herbert was given leave of absence, but he cannot have been away for long.68CJ iv. 161a, 169a. On 5 July he was among a clutch of Welsh and Marches MPs to whom was referred a petition from Pembrokeshire, while three days later he was added to the county committees in the same region.69CJ iv. 197a, 200b. The following month he was appointed with Thomas Hodges I, Nathaniel Stephens* and Edward Stephens* – all connected in some way to the earl of Pembroke – as an additional parliamentary commissioner to the Scottish army then around Hereford; Herbert personally was granted £100 towards his expenses (6, 12, 13 Aug.).70CJ iv. 234a, 237b, 239a. Before he left he was deputed with Pembroke’s right-hand man, Michael Oldisworth*, and two others to draft propaganda to be relayed to the counties of south Wales, through which the king and his forces were progressing to gather support, taking particular care to communicate the damaging contents of Charles’s captured correspondence (15 Aug.).71CJ iv. 242b. That Herbert had a direct stake in the matter was underlined when, on 11 September, the king detained at Abergavenny ‘Mr Herbert of Colebrook’, presumably the MP’s father, and others who were ‘chief hinderers of the counties of Monmouth and Glamorgan to relieve Hereford’.72Symonds Diary, 238.

By the time the parliamentary commissioners – consisting, in practice, of Herbert, William Purefoy I* and Humphrey Salwey* – arrived in the west towards the end of August, a royalist army was approaching the area. Writing to Speaker William Lenthall* from near Gloucester on 3 September, the commissioners relayed the dismaying news that, hearing of that army’s imminent arrival, the Scots had decided to avoid a confrontation they thought they might lose and to depart north in furtherance of their own interests. The MPs acknowledged that ‘this being solely a military point’ they ‘thought it not fit to contest with men of that experience in martial affairs’ in case advice to stay and fight proved disastrous, but they were all too conscious of ‘the sad and most miserable condition of these parts’; it grieved them ‘to see our friends ... now ruined and all lost to the fury of a merciless enemy’.73HMC Portland i. 263. Two days later, still ignorant of the Scots’ destination, they found themselves helpless and wondered if ‘our employment be not at an end’.74HMC Portland i. 265. Their letters were read in the Commons on the 8th and 9th, and by the 27th Herbert was back at Westminster, making his contribution to their report – the sad tale of how the Scots’ resolve had been undermined by news of a defeat of Covenanter forces in Scotland by James Graham, 1st marquess of Montrose.75Harl. 166, ff. 192, 226v-227; CJ iv. 291a.

He remained engaged by regional affairs. On 17 October he was ordered with Thomas Pury I*, Member for Gloucester, to procure £100 for Colonel Morgan, governor of that city.76CJ iv. 313a. The following week the importance of the earl of Pembroke’s clientage in the area was further demonstrated when Glynne, Meyricke and Herbert, together with north Wales activist Simon Thelwall*, were instructed to prepare a letter thanking Major-general Rowland Laugharne† for his efforts in rallying the gentry of Carmarthenshire. They were also to write with instructions to Oldisworth and Pembroke’s man-of-business Colonel Thomas Carne, ‘and the rest of the gentlemen employed by Parliament’ in reasserting control in Glamorgan.77CJ iv. 321a; ‘Thomas Carne’, Oxford DNB. When on 31 October Herbert was granted leave to go into the country, it may have been for the purposes of liaison with these men, although in September he had also been made an assessment commissioner for his native county.78CJ iv. 327b; A. and O. He soon returned, but only temporarily, and with such business in his sights. While his inclusion among those authorised on 10 November to receive an engagement from Prince Rupert, who had surrendered Bristol, and Prince Maurice to depart peaceably overseas may have occurred in his absence, he was in the House on the 13th and 14th to carry an ordinance for raising money for forces in Monmouth to the Lords and secure their assent.79LJ vii. 668a; CJ iv. 340b, 341b.

Herbert seems to have spent the winter in Monmouthshire, where the parliamentarian resurgence was experiencing a setback. Colonel Thomas Herbert, who had been despatched there by General Fairfax to collect assessments for Ireland reported to Speaker Lenthall on 6 December that he arrived ‘hoping to find the affections of that county forward in a work so charitable and necessitous, but am exceeding short of my hopes’. A foray from Morgan and a contingent from Gloucester had achieved nothing; since their departure, ‘the enemy has raged more than ever’ and ‘Monmouth and Chepstow – the two keys and most considerable garrisons of south Wales’ were ‘likely to fall suddenly into the enemy’s power’. Local commanders were aware of the danger, ‘but know not well how to remedy it themselves’ – a circumstance ‘my cousin Herbert, the knight of the shire, is sufficiently convinced of, and will represent, I doubt not, and that in season’.80HMC Portland i. 320-1. The MP was evidently the man to galvanise the situation. By 24 December the Committee of Both Kingdoms had received a ‘relation’ from ‘Mr Herbert a Member of the House of Commons’ of ‘the sad and doubtful condition of county Monmouth, and what danger there is of a defection again from Parliament’. They forwarded it via a ‘Mr John Herbert’ (perhaps, but not necessarily, Pembroke’s son John Herbert*) to the governors of Gloucester and Hereford who, relieved of pressure in their immediate areas, were requested to give assistance.81SP21/22, f. 145.

South Wales and Westminster faction, 1646-8

By the time Henry Herbert re-appeared in the Commons Journal in late February 1646, the worst had happened and had passed. As royalists from Raglan launched an offensive, a supposedly neutral force under Thomas Carne’s nephew Edward Carne had unexpectedly turned against parliamentarian troops, only to be defeated by Laugharne (19 Feb.) and for control to be re-asserted in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire.82‘Edward Carne’, Oxford DNB. Herbert perhaps returned to Westminster to effect the appointment of his father William Herbert of Coldbrook and others to the committee of the association for Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and south-east Wales (23, 24 Feb.), as well as to conduct other local business.83CJ iv. 452a; LJ viii. 184a. On the 26th, apparently as the MP representing that region, Henry was again placed on a committee reviewing claims from soldiers’ widows.84CJ iv. 455a. When on 3 March the Commons referred to the CBK orders regarding the settlement of south Wales, Herbert was sent with Oldisworth and Salwey to put the case.85CJ iv. 461a. Permission granted on 13 April to Herbert and James Temple* to go to the Tower to visit Colonel Sir Thomas Lunsford, the erstwhile royalist governor of Monmouth who had been captured at Hereford, evidently arose from local considerations.86CJ iv. 507b; ‘Sir Thomas Lunsford’, Oxford DNB. Having presumably been in the House on 25 April, when his father was approved as sheriff of Monmouthshire and recommended to have a troop of horse at his command, on 1 May Herbert sought and obtained (2 May) a reward for them both in the form of £3,000 to be raised from the sale of woods belonging to the earl of Worcester.87CJ iv. 522a, 529a, 529b, 530a.

With his mission successfully accomplished, on 4 May Herbert received leave to return home, presumably with encouragement to re-immerse himself in reconstruction now that the war finally seemed won.88CJ iv. 532b. His letter from Bristol of 19 May, addressed to Pury and to Robert Scawen*, chairman of the Committee for the Army, and detailing an examination taken at Chepstow regarding what had passed at Hereford the previous year, was read in the Commons on 8 June.89HMC Portland i. 362; CJ iv. 569a. The extent of his personal responsibility was revealed three days later when Parliament voted that £1,000 be paid to him and to his uncle, Matthew Herbert of London, for troops in Monmouthshire.90LJ viii. 371a. (It was, meanwhile, Thomas Herbert who was a parliamentary commissioner at the surrender of Oxford that June and who with John Mylles* brought the great seal and the others seals used by the royalist administration to the House on 3 July.)91Add. 31116, p. 551; CJ iv. 599b, 600a, 601b. Henry Herbert surfaced in the Journal on 22 July, when he was asked to thank Henry Wilkinson, rector of St Dunstan in the West and Westminster Assembly member, for his sermon of 6 July at the thanksgiving for the fall of Oxford.92CJ iv. 621b; ‘Henry Wilkinson (1610-1675)’, Oxford DNB. On 28 August he took various orders to the Lords, including – no doubt with considerable satisfaction – one for the arrest of the earl of Worcester for his delinquency.93CJ iv. 656b, 657a. Then on 17 September he obtained leave to go into the country again.94CJ iv. 671b.

By the time he returned – conceivably several months later – he was one of three not always differentiated Mr Herberts in a House where factional divisions had intensified. The Herbert who was a teller on 24 September regarding funds for disbanding troops in Wiltshire was most likely Pembroke’s son James Herbert*, a county Member there since May; he presented a petition on 3 October.95CJ iv. 675a; Add. 31116, p. 568; Harington’s Diary, 41. Soon afterwards, Pembroke’s youngest son John Herbert* was elected to replace his disabled and deceased brother William alongside Henry in Montgomery; this man was in the Commons to take the Covenant on 30 December.96CJ v. 33b; ‘Rowland Laugharne’, Oxford DNB. In view of his much longer service, it might seem more logical to assume that Henry was the Herbert who on 21 December and on 6 April 1647 was named to committees discussing measures to enfranchise County Durham and Newcastle, but such was the significance of both for the Scottish alliance of the Westminster Presbyterians that the latter may have promoted the inclusion of one of Pembroke’s sons.97CJ v. 21b, 134a.

In the meantime, it was probably that December (1646) that Lord Herbert of Chirbury, in the process of compounding at Goldsmiths’ Hall, contemplated which members of the Herbert connection, MPs and others, might be called on to assist his case. He or a close advisor – having apparently dismissed the possibility of appealing to such men as Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Sir William Lewis* and John Selden* – selected Henry Herbert to present his petition and ‘make Mr St Johns etc’ – presumably an aspiration that this Herbert would influence Oliver St John*, the solicitor-general.98Herbert Corresp. 124. There is no means of knowing how far these notes were acted on, or whether they represented a realistic assessment of likely support, but they do suggest that Henry had a solid reputation in the House and perhaps a powerful position among Welsh sequestrators.

By the spring of 1647 Pembroke, a well-known political wobbler, had taken against the New Model, conceived a real hope of peace with the king and allied himself with Presbyterians, whereas it seems clear Henry did not share these views. All the same, it is not easy to resolve conclusively the question of which Herbert was a teller in divisions of 8 April and 1 May. In the former case it was more probably Henry who with Sir John Danvers* led the minority against Presbyterians Sir Philip Stapilton* and Sir William Lewis when they successfully prolonged the command of Rowland Laugharne in south Wales: Laugharne had been identified as sympathetic to the Presbyterian cause while Henry, closer to the ground, may have appreciated that Laugharne’s power in Wales was ebbing.99CJ v. 137b. In the latter case, it is more likely to have been James who joined Sir John Clotworthy* in an unsuccessful attempt to endorse the Lords’ decision to advance the entire revenue of the Committee for Compounding as security for a loan from the City of London.100CJ v. 159b.

As tensions grew in London, on 4 May Henry was again granted leave to go into the country.101CJ v. 160b. The next day he was the Herbert nominated to prepare the ordinance settling land confiscated from the earl of Worcester on Oliver Cromwell*, but although likely to have been sympathetic to the move, he probably did not linger long.102CJ v. 162b. There is no surviving sign of him at Westminster over the summer, when James and John Herbert were closely involved in the Presbyterian coup. On the other hand, once the coup had decisively failed, Henry may have returned reasonably promptly. He was probably the Herbert nominated to the committee stating the accounts of wounded soldiers on 28 September: eleven days later both James and John were absent at a call of the House.103CJ v. 320a, 330b.

In the shifting political currents around the end of the year, all three Herberts seem to have been present in the Commons. It may have been John, who had a direct personal interest in the estate of Sir Henry Compton, who sat on the committee preparing his prosecution as a monopolist (14 Dec.).104CJ v. 383a. Both Henry and James were on 23 December 1647 appointed assessment commissioners to repair forthwith to their respective counties, but Henry was excused the next day from going to south Wales, presumably because he or the Independent leadership thought he would be useful at Westminster as voting on whether to treat with the king was imminent.105CJ v. 400b, 402b. In the context of the Vote of No Addresses, it was likely to have been he who was on the committee of grievances on 4 January 1648 and added two days later with Sir John Danvers and some of the more radical Members to the committee for hospitals.106CJ v. 417a, 421a. By extension it was probably he who joined Pye, Oldisworth, the Stephenses and others on the committee to receive petition relating to the repair of buildings damaged during the war (10 Jan.).107CJ v. 425a.

Herbert then disappears from the record again, although James was a teller on 21 April.108CJ v. 539b. Henry may well have been distracted by the outbreak in March of the second civil war in Wales, which saw Laugharne defy Colonel Thomas Horton, the commander sent by Parliament to quell the rising, only to be defeated at St Fagans on 8 May. There seems no doubt that Henry was the Herbert nominated on 11 May to the committee tasked with stripping Laugharne of the land grant previously awarded to him by Parliament and bestowing the proceeds on Horton and his brigade. ‘Mr Herbert’ was delegated to draft a letter of thanks to the victors.109CJ v. 557a. The next day Henry Herbert was instructed to manage and expedite the setting up of a commission of oyer and terminer to try the rebels and on the 20th he was sent into the country.110CJ v. 557b, 566b. The fighting was by no means over and the mopping-up operation detained him all summer. His report of 5 June to the Derby House Committee was referred on to the House (8 June).111SP21/9, f. 139. On 17 June the clerk of the Commons appears to have confused him with Thomas Herbert when he recorded that ‘Colonel Henry Herbert’ and Colonel Vincent Potter were to be continued as army commissioners and that Herbert was to appoint a deputy while he attended the king on the Isle of Wight.112CJ v. 604b. But it was an understandable error. The epithet ‘Colonel’ was rightly or wrongly applied to the real Henry Herbert on a letter of his from Abergavenny to the Speaker on 28 July. In it he assured Lenthall that, since being ‘sent by the House into Wales’, he had served them there ‘to my best ability in all faithfulness, having spent a great part of my time with Lieutenant-general Cromwell’. He had recently ‘parted from him not far from Gloucester’ and was now back in Monmouth, awaiting a meeting of ‘Colonel Horton and the gentry ... to put Wales into the best posture we can for the service of Parliament’. This would take time – ‘truly I shall not want work’ – and therefore he presented his excuses for non-appearance at the call of the House scheduled for 7 August.113HMC Portland i. 492.

Herbert may have returned by 23 September, when he and Pury were ordered to expedite the collection of Monmouthshire assessments.114CJ vi. 30b. Around this time a satirist listing the beneficiaries of sequestrations remembered, perhaps alluding at least partly to the award to him and his father in May 1646, that Herbert had received ‘£3,000 and the plunder of Raglan Castle’.115The Second Centurie (‘28 Sept.’ 1648, 669.f.13.22). For opposing reasons, any of the Herberts might have been the MP included on 4 November on the deputation to confer with the common council and committee of militia over the militia-men threatening Parliament.116CJ vi. 69b. However, it was probably not Henry who on 10 November was a teller for the majorities who blocked the banishment of Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham, a Presbyterian who had advocated imposing very easy terms on the king, but who then meted out that punishment to Major-general Laugharne: Henry might have preferred a tougher fate for the latter.117CJ vi. 73a. He was apparently in the House towards the end of the month when he was ordered with Sir William Lewis to relay to the Monmouthshire orders to disband supernumerary forces not belonging to the New Model (22 Nov.) and advised to write urging collection of assessments (25 Nov.).118CJ vi. 83b, 88a.

The Rump and after, 1648-56

It is likely to have been one of Pembroke’s younger sons who on 4 November told for the majority seeking to prolong peace negotiations with the king – one of the votes which precipitated the purge of the Commons by the army on the 6th and saw their departure from the House.119CJ vi. 93b. All the same, however, while Henry Herbert survived to sit on with Lord Herbert and Pembroke himself, and may indeed have been broadly supportive of the expulsion of less committed Members, he was at first only as intermittently visible in the House as previously. In an incomplete listing, it may have been Lord Herbert, who had more experience in such matters, rather than he, who was nominated on 23 December to consider a letter from Charles Louis, elector palatine.120CJ vi. 102b. Henry Herbert was not named to the high court of justice which tried the king and delayed taking the dissent to the vote of 5 November 1648 until after the regicide (1 Feb.).121PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, p. 625; [W. Prynne], A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members (1660), 23 (E.1013.22). In the first days of the republic he was nominated to two significant committees – those to work on the act repealing certain former acts (30 Jan.) and to reconstruct commissions of the peace in the light of the changed political circumstances (8 Feb.).122CJ vi. 126a, 134a. There was indeed some suspicion, or at least jealousy, of the loyalties of the Herberts of Coldbrook. On 14 February articles were laid against the MP’s father at the Committee for Advance of Money alleging that he had been a very active commissioner of array, that he had supported Laugharne and Sir Nicholas Kemeys in the 1648 rising, and that he had received as much as £40,000 or £50,000 from the earl of Worcester’s estate.123CCAM 1022. But nothing more is heard of the accusations, which were probably dismissed as being patently untrue, and perhaps also as the result of confusing William Herbert, nominated a commissioner of array only to be later struck off, with his younger son and namesake, who had been a royalist officer.124Northants. RO, FH133; Bradney, Hist. Mon. i. 189.

Named first to a small committee charged with refining the act for sequestrations of delinquents in south Wales (23 Feb.), Herbert reported amendments which were agreed that day.125CJ vi. 149b, 150a. He himself was among the commissioners, alongside his father, Col. Horton, Oldisworth and Bussy Mansell* of Glamorgan, and the next day was granted leave to go into the country.126A. and O.; CJ vi. 150a. He appeared in the Journal only three more times in 1649: on 15 June, when he was ordered to make a report on a petition from Captain Ralph Grundy, a fellow sequestration commissioner, who had done service to Parliament in north Wales; on 16 November, when he and Colonel Thomas Harrison I* were entrusted with effecting the payment of arrears due to the estate of the now deceased Horton; and on 22 November, when he was placed on a committee to investigate a petition from Northampton.127CJ v. 431a, 470a; vi. 234a, 309b, 323b, 324b.

Herbert was even less in evidence in 1650. His absence from the record may have masked a good deal of activity behind the scenes at Westminster, as well as in Monmouthshire, but it is noteworthy that, like Colonel Philip Jones* of Swansea, leading light in Glamorgan, he did not ‘play any discernible part in the shaping of the bill’ for the propagation of the gospel in Wales.128S.K. Roberts, ‘Propagating the Gospel’, Trans. of the Hon. Soc. of Cymmrodorion (new ser. x), 73. In February both men were late additions as commissioners under the all-important act.129CJ v. 365b; A. and O. The presentation rights already owned by his father gave them some immediate influence; although there is no direct evidence of Henry’s personal beliefs, it is plausible that he shared the relatively broad-minded Calvinism of those around him.130PROB11/217/143 (William Herbert). Meanwhile, his only other appearance in the Journal that year was on 6 April, when he was nominated to the committee discussing the bill for the sale of delinquents’ estates.131CJ vi. 393b. That he was an active participant is suggested by the fact that on 25 July Matthew Herbert was named among the contractors for the sale.132CJ vi. 446b.

After a notable absence, Henry Herbert reappeared in the Journal on 13 February 1651, when he was appointed to a committee conducting an important review of the Admiralty.133CJ vi. 534a. He next surfaced on 10 April, to be added to the committee for the removal of obstructions to sales of confiscated land, and embarked on an uncharacteristic burst of activity around the House.134CJ vi. 558a. Protecting his personal interest in sequestrations may have been the motivating issue. Herbert was named on 23 April to a committee investigating the claims of delinquent Henry Somerset*, Lord Herbert of Raglan, who had now succeeded his father as earl of Worcester.135CJ vi. 565b. On 16 May he was chosen to count ballot papers in the election of officers required under the act for the sale of delinquents’ estates, while five days later he was among those added to the committee for Whitehall for the purposes of establishing what progress had been made with the sale of royal property.136CJ vi. 575a, 576b. Against the backdrop of mounting concerns about the military situation in the north, he was also added to the Committee for the Army (18 Apr.), although his activity in the 1640s, and in particular his letter to Scawen in 1646, indicate possible longstanding links with it.137CJ vi. 563b. On 2 May he received a nomination to what must have been the familiar business of providing for soldiers’ dependents.138CJ vi. 569b.

Once again, however, Herbert’s attendance at the House appears to have been curtailed by a local crisis. After a further committee appointment on 29 May, he once again disappeared from the Journal for several months. Insurrection in south Wales saw him appointed to the high court of justice empowered to pursue the rebels (25 June).139CSP Dom. 1651, p. 266. When he reappeared in Westminster it was probably on the back of his importance there that he was a candidate in elections for the council of state. In the ballot on 25 November he received 43 votes, one more than Philip Herbert, 5th earl of Pembroke, and just sufficient to get him returned.140CJ vii. 42b, 43a. Present at three-quarters of the council meetings in December, he was placed on several of its sub-committees, including those considering the dispersal of soldiers garrisoned at Sion House and of Scottish prisoners in the Tower, and the bill for removing obstructions in the sale of fee farm rents. However, he attended only two council meetings each in January and September 1652, one in April and none in February and from May to August, and his record of absence – totalling 288 out of 330 – was exceeded only by St John and Alexander Popham*.141CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. xxxv-xlvii, 43, 52, 76, 81.

Herbert’s profile in the Commons more or less mirrored this, yet, as often before, a sparse record hardly seems to betoken insignificance. In December, as well as a nomination to consider Leveller petitioning (23 Dec.), he was placed on the committee considering issues arising from the sessions held at Chester in October in the wake of insurrection.142CJ vii. 49b, 55b. On 1 January 1652 he reported to the House from the council of state a list of persons who were potentially to be made victims of exemplary justice, and was named to the committee which was set up to consider how a court might function to effect this.143CJ vii. 62a. An appointment on 27 February to the committee addressing a petition from the East India Company, made seemingly out of the blue, may have arisen from his apparently close links with his merchant uncle Matthew.144CJ vii. 100a. His final nomination of the year, and indeed of the Parliament, on 12 November, concerned the establishment of salaries for judges in the Westminster courts, and might relate to his experience of judicial process in pursuance of delinquents.145CJ vii. 215a.

Still a major figure in Monmouthshire, Herbert continued to be named to commissions in south Wales and the Marches.146A. and O.; C181/6, pp. 52, 92, 105, 120, 142. He was re-elected to sit for his county in the first protectorate Parliament, where his previous record suggests that the absence of visible contribution may not rule out an undetectable role. He was named first in the commission for the security of Monmouthshire issued on 14 March 1655 as unrest again erupted.147CSP Dom 1655, p. 78.

Herbert’s will, drafted the same day, reveals that, like his father, he had consolidated his estates by local purchases. He had yet to complete the distribution of legacies for which he was responsible as executor to his father (d.1651) and his mother-in-law Mary Rudyerd (d.1649), but was apparently in comfortable financial circumstances, designating portions of £1,000 for each of his three daughters and over £100 in other legacies. His five trustees and overseers included Evan Seys*, Thomas Hughes* and Edward Herbert II*, while his executors were his wife Mary and William Herbert, one of his three surviving brothers.148PROB11/257/301. He died in June 1656 and was buried in Abergavenny.149Bradney, Hist. Mon. i. 189. His only son and heir was a minor, but later sat briefly in Parliament as Sir James Herbert†.150HP Commons 1660-1690.