HERBERT, Philip, 4th earl of Pembroke and 1st earl of Montgomery (1584-1650), of Wilton House, Wilts. and the Cockpit, Westminster.

In March or April 1649 the subject of this article was elected to serve as a knight of the shire for Berkshire, a county where his profile had increased a few months earlier with his acquisition of the constableship of Windsor castle.1CSP Dom. Add. 1625-49, p. 717. It was nearly 45 years since the previous, and only, occasion he had sat in the Commons; as Sir Philip Herbert, he had represented Glamorgan, in his family’s ancestral heartland. Further service in the Commons was precluded when in May 1605 he was created Baron Herbert and earl of Montgomery. His re-entry decades later stemmed from the abolition of the House of Lords, of which he had been a leading Member.

In the interim, the peer had garnered offices in London and across Wales and the south of England. Continuing to climb the ladder at court, in July 1626 he became lord chamberlain.2CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 396. On succeeding his elder brother William Herbert as 4th earl of Pembroke in 1630, he added to his already considerable reserves of patronage and potential income.3CP; CSP Dom. Add. 1625-49, p. 382. Possibilities for profit attendant on stewardships, patents and engagement in commercial ventures were amplified by new positions, notably as warden of the stanneries in Cornwall (controlling the tin mines) and as governor of the Mineral and Battery Company.4C115/105/8072; BL Loan 16 pt. 2, f. 49. However, while his influence was widely deployed, he was a no better steward of his considerable income than his brother had been. A passion for hunting and other field sports, ‘great hospitality’, ostentatious building and decoration at his main seat of Wilton, near Salisbury, and ‘other ways and means’ dissipated his income. Spending was easily pardonable in a great man, but Pembroke was also reputed to be quarrelsome, irreligious, foul-mouthed and a womaniser; notwithstanding his patronage of literature and the arts, as one of his secretaries put it, ‘he could scarce read or write’.5J. Nicholson and R. Burn, The Hist. and Antiquities of Westmorland and Cumberland (1777), i. 596-7; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 539; cf. R Herrick, Hespirades (1648), 167.

Sitting in the Lords at the beginning of the Long Parliament, Pembroke could rely on solid support in the Commons, both through his wide electoral patronage and through particular associates like his trustees Sir Benjamin Rudyerd* and Sir Robert Pye I*, and his former secretary Michael Oldisworth*. Already identified among courtiers critical of the king’s chief ministers, he duly supported the impeachments of Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford, and Archbishop William Laud.6Clarendon, Hist. i. 345; CSP Dom.: 1645-7, pp. 565-6; Add. 1625-49, p. 659; A thakns-giving [sic] for the recovery of Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, (1649), 7 (E.556.23). This action, compounded by a violent quarrel with Lord Mowbray, son of Thomas Howard, 21st earl of Arundel, led Charles I in July 1641 to send Pembroke briefly to the Tower and to deprive him of the lord chamberlainship. The office was given to Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, in an attempt to appease the king’s more dangerous aristocratic opponents.7Clarendon, Hist. i. 345. Although this raised temporary jealousies, the choice of Essex as commander-in-chief of the parliamentary armies in 1642 did not prevent Pembroke opting to remain at Westminster and to accept appointments to advance the cause in Wiltshire and south Wales.8CJ ii. 702b, 814a, 815b; A. and O.

None the less, over the next six years the earl was thought at best a lukewarm parliamentarian. Chosen repeatedly as a commissioner for treaty negotiations with the king, he was depicted as a coward who hankered too easily after peace. Although in 1645, following the victory at Naseby, he became convinced of the case for the New Model army, two years later he had changed his mind again.9‘Philip Herbert (1584-1650)’, Oxford DNB; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 494-5. In an inflammatory speech in the City of London on 5 May 1647 he claimed that the army and the king were conspiring together against Parliament.10Clarke Pprs. i. 24, 26, 28. At this point he identified with the Presbyterians in the House, remaining at Westminster during their coup of the summer. A series of facetious pamphlet speeches which commenced around this time – their trademark repetitious swearing and blasphemy, together with a claim to have been taken down verbatim by Oldisworth – cast Pembroke as an ungrateful servant of the king, ignorant and insouciant until prompted by his former secretary to adopt the latter’s more pious and radical religious and political agenda.11CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 465-6; Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 11 (23-30 Nov. 1647), sig. L2 (E.417.20). The series was continued when, as chancellor of the university, the ‘tongue-tied’ earl formally initiated the visitation of Oxford in April 1648; when he – allegedly half-heartedly – negotiated with the king that summer as a parliamentary commissioner for the treaty of Newport; and on his return to London when the talks collapsed.12Reg. Visitors Univ. Oxford, 12; The Earl of Pembroke’s Speech (1648, E.441.27); Newes from Pembroke and Mongomery or Oxford Manchesterd (1648, E.437.7); Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 4 (18-25 Apr. 1648), sig. D2 (E.437.4); My Lord of Pembrokes speech to His Maiesty (1648, E.464.14).

Pembroke’s decision to acquiesce in Pride’s Purge was suspected soon after 6 December and apparently verified on the 19th, when Oldisworth took to the Lords an ordinance confirming him as constable of Windsor.13The Earl of Pembrokes Farewell to the King (1648, E.476.22); CJ v. 100a, 101a. Pembroke was among only a handful of peers who sat that day, before adjourning to consult with General Sir Thomas Fairfax*; it is possible that he was party to the plan to intercede for the king’s life, probably detectable in this action, although the press was still depicting him as helpless without his former secretary.14Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 39 (19-26 Dec. 1648), sig. Ecc2 (E.477.30); LJ x. 641; C.H. Firth, The House of Lords during the Civil War (1910), 206. On 6 January 1649, among other appointments, Oldisworth was placed on the Derby House Committee, which Pembroke had joined the previous summer.15CJ v. 579a; vi. 112a, 112b, 113b; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 90 and passim. Both avoided direct involvement in the king’s trial: the earl was among peers said to ‘shrink their heads out of the collar’.16Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 41 (9-16 Jan. 1649), sig. Ggg2 (E.538.18). But after the regicide and the abolition of the Lords, when the DHC was replaced by an elected council of state, Pembroke was among those chosen. On 19 February the council heard that Pembroke, his friend William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, and other peers had declined to subscribe the engagement required to sit because they perceived it as negating retrospectively what they had done in the Lords, but that they were willing to serve Parliament.17CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 9. Since the inclusion of important peers lent added legitimacy to the Rump, Pembroke and Salisbury doubtless received encouragement to seek a seat from both moderate conformists and enthusiasts for the republic.

Yet another satirical pamphlet appeared to mark Pembroke’s arrival in the Commons. In a putative speech assigned to 16 April, the author had the earl – protesting, as ever, his unworthiness – declaring his duty ‘to lay down the vanity of my titles at the feet of this supreme authority’, his hatred of both reason and the Scots, and his ‘free consent’ to an act for levying money.18The speech, of Phillip Herbert, late Earl of Pembroke. At his admittance (1649), 3, 7 (E.551.6). A warrant to arrest the originators and disseminators of this and other publications was issued on the 26th.19CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 530. But when soon afterwards the by now elderly earl was struck down by illness, the satirist was prompted to further creativity. Pembroke was portrayed as a man without scruple, a ‘foresworn traitor’: it was ‘no time for a Parliament man to have conscience: [God’s] blood I swore away mine above 40 years ago’. He was made to complain that he was ‘the ancientest earl in Parliament, and should be their head’, even though ‘Parliament is become common’ and its proceedings leaked to public derision; a Member could not ‘let a fart in the House, but presently he finds it wrapped up in two sheets of a Diurnal’. The ‘learning’ of the ‘rogue Oldisworth’ was the ‘cause of my sickness, for had he not learned me to make speeches, to speak witty sentences and the like, I had not been so jeered, that I am ashamed to take my coach’.20A thakns-giving [sic] for the recovery of Philip, Earl of Pembroke (’29 May’ 1649) (E.566.23).

By the time the satire appeared, the spendthrift and allegedly irreligious Pembroke had had two committee nominations, to investigate a supposed creditor’s claim on the state purse (30 April) and to settle money for preaching ministers and other charitable uses (26 Apr.).21CJ vi. 196a, 198a. Contrary to his pamphlet persona, it is evident that he had some credibility (with or without Oldisworth at his elbow) as a supporter of the pulpit. Since 1643 the earl had been a much-appreciated patron of the French church meeting at Durham House in Westminster, which drew a number of peers and MPs to its services.22J. d’Espagne (Despagne), Abrege au sermon funebre (1650), esp. 13-14 (E.3253); L’Usage de l’Oraison Dominicale (1646), dedication (E.1204.2); New Observations upon the Creed (1647), sig. A4 (E3263); ‘Jean Despagne’, Oxford DNB; V. Larminie, ‘The Herbert connection, the French church and Westminster politics’, Huguenot Networks, 1560-1780 ed. Larminie (2017), 41-59.

Illness or other causes then kept Pembroke out of the Journal for six months. An initial period of physical absence was noticed and pounced upon. He was supposed to have entertained Cromwell at Wilton on 12 July as the general made his way on campaign to Ireland and to have reassured him that he hoped to ‘be able to visit the House of Commons before Michaelmas, where I make no doubt, but I shall give consent to the making of such Laws as shall make this Nation glorious.’.23The Earl of Pembrookes speech to Nol-Cromwell (1649), 6-7 (E.566.9). It may be that at other times he was a silent presence. Another pamphlet which appeared in August had him claim that he could sit in the House ‘a whole day together and not speak a word, except it be cry Ay or No, when Master [John] Weaver* winks upon me’.24The speech of Phillip Herbert, late Earle of Pembrook and Montgomery upon passing an act for a day of thanks-giving (1649, E.571.25) Meanwhile, he was not a regular attender at the council of state; a letter of 31 August from the council informing him of security measures taken around St James’s has the air of addressing a collaborator who needed to be humoured.25CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 296.

Pembroke and his affinity could not be ignored in the process of settling the nation. He was thus included in the late autumn on three Commons committees dealing with past and prospective engagements to the state (24 Oct.; 9, 27 Nov.).26CJ vi. 313a, 321b, 326b. During this time he also appeared at the council of state and was added to its committee for providing accommodation at Whitehall and suppressing thieves and robbers.27CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 365, 383. An intention to participate more fully in government may have been signalled by an order of 5 December that alternative quarters be found for soldiers currently at Durham House, so that Pembroke could make use of it.28CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 426. However, a nomination on 30 November to the committee tasked with an act for establishing two Protestant colleges in Ireland proved to be his last appearance in the Journal.29CJ vi. 327b.

After ailing for some time, Pembroke died on 23 January 1650.30CP. He was mocked, as ever, by pamphleteers, for his political changeability (‘the crab-fish earl’) and for his dependence on Oldisworth and other advisers, but eulogised by the likes of Jean Despagne.31T. Hoyle, The rebells warning-piece (1650, E.593.13); The Last Will and Testament of the Earl of Pembroke (1650); Despagne, Abrégé du Sermon Funèbre. He was succeeded as 5th earl by his eldest surviving son, and namesake, who was already sitting in the Commons. Of his seven executors, three (the earl of Salisbury, Oldisworth and Thomas Pury I) were also sitting MPs; Sir Robert Pye I had been excluded in 1648, while Matthew Hale* sat first in 1654.32PROB11/211/579.