Everything about Philip Herbert 4th Earl Of Pembroke totally explained
Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, 1st Earl of Montgomery KG (
October 16,
1584 –
January 23,
1649) was an English
courtier and politician active during the reigns of
James I and
Charles I. Philip Herbert and his older brother
William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke were the 'incomparable pair of brethren' to whom the
First Folio of
Shakespeare's collected works was dedicated in 1623.
Early life, 1584-1603
Born at
Wilton House, he was the son of
Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke and his second wife,
Mary Sidney, sister of Sir
Philip Sidney the poet, after whom he was named.
In 1593, at age 9, Philip was sent to study at
New College, Oxford, but left after a few months.
Favourite of James I, 1603-25
In 1600, the 16-year-old Philip made his first appearance at James I's
court, and soon caught the king's eye. Many historians believe that James I was a
homosexual, and he certainly
lavished both power and wealth on a series of
favourites. According to both
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon and
John Aubrey, Philip's major interests at this time were
hunting and
hawking and it was in this capacity that he first attracted the king's attention. In May 1603, James made Philip a gentleman of the
privy chamber; and made him a
Knight of the Bath in July of that year.
In 1604, at James I's enthusiastic urging (he played a prominent role in the ceremony and provided generous financial gifts for the bride), Philip married
Susan de Vere, daughter of
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.
James continued bestowing favours throughout 1605, first making Philip a
gentleman of the bedchamber and then creating him
Baron Herbert of Shurland and
Earl of Montgomery. In addition, James had Montgomery created
MA during a visit of
Oxford. In addition to hunting and hawking, during this period Montgomery regularly participated in
tournaments and
court masques. He also took an interest in
gambling and amassed considerable debts which James paid off for him in 1606-7. In 1608, James made him a
Knight of the Garter; and had him appointed
high steward of Oxford in 1615.
When Montgomery had a prominent quarrel with
Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton following a game of
tennis between the two in 1610, James stepped in to effect a reconciliation. Montgomery had a second violent quarrel, this time with
Lord Howard de Walden, in 1617.
Montgomery took a keen interest in English colonial ventures, which were just taking off at this time, and was involved with several
joint stock companies: he became a member of the council of the
Virginia Company in 1612; was one of the original incorporators of the Northwest Passage Company in 1612; and became a member of the
Honourable East India Company in 1614.
Honours continued throughout the remainder of James' reign, with Montgomery being made keeper of the
Palace of Westminster and
St James's Park in 1617;
Lord Lieutenant of Kent in 1624; and finally, in December 1624, a member of the
privy council.
Continued favour under Charles I, 1625-40
Following Charles I's accession to the throne in 1625, Montgomery continued to receive royal favour. He was appointed to the embassy which accompanied
Henrietta Maria from
Paris to England and went on to hold the
spurs at Charles'
coronation in 1626, before succeeding his older brother as
Lord Chamberlain. He was made
Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire in 1628. (Montgomery was a friend of
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, serving as
godfather of Buckingham's son Lord Charles Herbert, and in 1626 agreeing to a betrothal between his 4-year-old daughter and Lord Charles Herbert.)
Montgomery continued to be interested in colonial ventures under Charles I. He was an incorporator of the Guiana Company in 1626. In 1628, he received a grant of the islands of
Trinidad,
Tobago, and
Barbados.
Montgomery's first wife died in early 1629, and in 1630 he re-married, to
Lady Anne Clifford, daughter of
George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland and widow of
Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset.
Montgomery's older brother died in 1630, and he succeeded to the title of
Earl of Pembroke, as well as several of his brother's other titles, including
Lord Lieutenant of Somerset and
Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall. He was quickly appointed to his brother's former positions of high steward of the
Duchy of Cornwall and
Lord Warden of the Stannaries.
Pembroke maintained a large of household of 80 at his home in
London, and an even larger staff of over 150 at
Wilton House, his family's ancestral seat in
Wiltshire. Throughout the 1630s, Pembroke entertained Charles I at Wilton House for a hunting expedition every year. Charles encouraged Pembroke to rebuild Wilton House in the
Palladian style, recommending
Inigo Jones for the job (
Salomon de Caus performed the work when Jones proved to be unavailable, while his brother,
Isaac de Caus, designed a variety of formal and informal gardens for the property).
Patron of culture
Pembroke was a great fan of a painting: he amassed a large art collection and was patron of
Anthony Van Dyck. This love of painting was shared with Charles I: in 1637, when
Pope Urban VIII sent Charles a large shipment of paintings, Pembroke was one of a select group invited by Charles to join him in opening the cases (the group also included Henrietta Maria, Inigo Jones, and
Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland).
Pembroke was also an active patron of literature, receiving the dedication of over forty books during his lifetime, beginning with the dedication of the English edition of
Amadis de Gaula in 1619. His most famous dedication was that of Shakespeare's first folio, which was dedicated to Pembroke and his elder brother, whom Shakespeare referred to as an "incomparable pair of brethren." Pembroke was also notably the patron of
Philip Massinger and of Pembroke's relative
George Herbert (in 1630 he intervened with Charles to have George Herbert appointed to a
rectory in Wiltshire).
Break with Charles I, 1639-42
Although Pembroke and Charles bonded over their shared interest in art and architecture, they didn't see eye to eye on the question of religion. Pembroke was inclined to favour "godly Protestantism" and was sympathetic to
Puritanism. This led him into conflicts with Charles' queen,
Henrietta Maria, who was a
Roman Catholic. Pembroke was also opposed to the ascent of
William Laud, who was narrowly elected to Pembroke's older brother's old office of
Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1630, and who became
Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633.
Given this religious inclination, Pembroke was sympathetic to the
Covenanters during the
Bishops' Wars and strongly favoured peace. Pembroke served as Charles' commissioner during the negotiations with the Scots at
Berwick and
Ripon, where several of the Scots, notably the
Earl of Rothes, believed that Pembroke was secretly in favour of the Scottish position. Pembroke, however, continued to profess his loyalty to Charles, though, along with
Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland and
William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Salisbury, he urged the king to accept the Scots' terms. The king, however, ordered Pembroke to return to London to begin raising funds for further war with the Scots.
Pembroke's extensive land holdings enabled him to exercise considerable influence during the elections to the
Short and
Long Parliaments, with approximately a dozen
members of the
House of Commons owing their elections to his patronage. These men didn't seem to constitute a Pembroke faction in the Commons, though there's some indication that he patronized men known to be opponents of Charles' policy of
Thorough.
In 1641, Pembroke voted in favour of the
bill of attainder against
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford. During this period, Charles became especially angry when Pembroke gave encouraging words to an anti-Strafford crowd. Upon the queen's urging, Charles determined to remove Pembroke from his post as Lord Chamberlain. The pretext came when Pembroke had yet another of his violent altercations, this time striking
Henry Howard, Lord Maltravers with a cane during a committee meeting of the
House of Lords. Charles demanded Pembroke's resignation, replacing him with
Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex. This marked Pembroke's final break with Charles.
Role in the English Civil War, 1642-48
With the coming of the
First English Civil War, Pembroke sided with the
parliamentarians. However, Pembroke was always one of the most moderate parliamentarians.
Parliament regularly employed Pembroke and the
Earl of Holland during its negotiations with Charles. Initially, Pembroke maintained contacts with
Edward Hyde and professed continued loyalty to Charles. However, he became one of five peers to sit on the
English Committee of Safety, established in July 1642, and in August 1642 accepted the office of
Governor of the Isle of Wight from Parliament. In 1645, Parliament named Pembroke
Lord Lieutenant of Somerset and voted to raise him to the status of
duke.
Pembroke represented Parliament during the negotiations with the king at
Oxford in January 1643, and was present during the signing of the Treaty of
Uxbridge in 1645.
As a supporter of the godly cause, Pembroke was appointed to the
Westminster Assembly in 1643 as a lay assessor. Pembroke supported the moderate
episcopalian faction in the Assembly (most associated with
James Ussher,
Archbishop of Armagh), and remained fiercely opposed to the
presbyterian and
Independent parties in the Assembly. (
George Morley, future
Bishop of Winchester served as Pembroke's domestic
chaplain, and Pembroke was a member of
St Martin-in-the-Fields, where he worshipped regularly.) As such, in the House of Lords, Pembroke voted in favour of the bill of attainder against Archbishop Laud in 1645, but in 1646 voted to reject a petition in favour of presbyterianism submitted by the
City of London.
During the politics of the 1640s, Pembroke was initially associated with the group of lords headed by
William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele and
Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland, which supported the
Self-denying Ordinance and the creation of the
New Model Army in 1645. By mid-1646, however, Pembroke was distancing himself from this group and became one of the most outspoken opponents of the New Model Army, favouring its immediate disbandment. Following anti-New Model Army riots in London in July 1647, Pembroke refused to join the Saye-Northumberland group, who left the capital and joined the army at this time. Pembroke quickly changed his tune in August, however, when the New Model Army marched into London: he claimed that he'd previously been acting under duress and that he'd always been a supporter of the New Model Army.
Following Laud's arrest in 1641, the University of Oxford elected Pembroke to replace him as chancellor. (Pembroke, who was at the time allied with Saye, nominated Saye to replace him as high steward when he left the post to take up the chancellorship.) When royalist forces took Oxford, they removed Pembroke, installing
the marquess of Hertford in his place, but, after Parliament took Oxford, it had Pembroke re-installed as chancellor in 1647 and ordered him to reform the university. The
visitors of the university began this work under the direction of a committee of both houses chaired by Pembroke. They ordered all university officers to take the
Solemn League and Covenant, and when the heads of
houses complained, Pembroke summoned them to the committee and berated them. In February 1648, he installed a new vice-chancellor and replaced many of the heads of houses, and then, in March, Parliament ordered him to take up his office in person, so he travelled to Oxford and presided over the
Convocation, thus putting an end to resistance to the reforms. However, Pembroke, although a patron of literature, was far from a
man of letters himself and thus became the subject of bitter
satires written by
royalists during this period.
Role in the crisis of 1648-49
Pembroke believed that the king was crucial to any settlement of hostilities between king and Parliament, and he was thus vehemently opposed to the
Vote of No Addresses in 1647-48, refusing to leave Wilton House (where he was attending to rebuilding in the wake of a 1647 fire) to attend the debate in the House of Lords. In July 1648, Pembroke voted that
James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton should be declared a
traitor for leading Scottish forces into England and also sought to have royalists who aided Hamilton declared traitors. In July 1648, Pembroke again attended negotiations with the king, this time pursuant to the Treaty of
Newport.
These negotations came to an abrupt halt with
Pride's Purge of December 1648. In the wake of the purge, Pembroke and several of the other parliamentary commissioners negotiating at Newport sent a deputation to
Thomas Fairfax, assuring him that they continued to support the army. However, they continued to seek a deal with the king. Thus, in late December 1648, Pembroke joined a deputation led by
Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh asking the
Army Council to accept a deal whereby Charles would lose his
negative voice and agree to not attempt to restore episcopal lands which had been alienated by Parliament.
The Army Council rejected this proposal but wished to continue to have good relations with Pembroke and the Army Council soon agreed to let the
Rump Parliament name Pembroke
constable of Windsor Castle (the House of Lords had been trying to appoint Pembroke to the position since July but hadn't yet received the support of the House of Commons), making him essentially the king's jailer. Pembroke appointed
Bulstrode Whitelocke as his deputy.
In January 1649, Pembroke was appointed to the
High Court of Justice established by the Rump Parliament to try Charles I on charges of
high treason. Pembroke refused to participate, however, though he agreed not to speak out against executing the king.
In February, following the
execution of the king, in February, the Rump appointed Pembroke to the
English Council of State. Since the House of Lords had been abolished in the wake of Charles' execution, Pembroke had to stand for election to Parliament: he was returned as member for
Berkshire in April 1649.
Death
In May 1649, Pembroke fell ill and spent the rest of 1649 bedridden. He died in his chambers in
Westminster on January 23, 1650.
Pembroke's body was embalmed and transported to
Salisbury to be buried in
Salisbury Cathedral. The English Council of State ordered all members of Barebone's Parliament to accompany his cortège for 2 or 3 miles on its journey out of London.
Issue
He married first
Susan de Vere, daughter of the
17th earl of Oxford. They had three children:
Philip Herbert married secondly
Anne Clifford, de jure Baroness de Clifford, daughter of
George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, and widow of
Sackville, earl of Dorset, on
1 June 1630.
Styles from birth to death
Philip Herbert (October 1548 - July 1603)
Sir Philip Herbert (July 1603 - May 1605)
The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Montgomery (May 1605 - April 1608)
The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Montgomery, KG (April 1608 - December 1624)
The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Montgomery, KG, PC (December 1624 - August 1630)
The Rt. Hon The Earl of Pembroke, KG, PC (August 1630 - January 1650)
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