&c., of Pembroke—those of Montgomery, of Clare, of Marshall, of De
Valence, and of Hastings—as they, although the predecessors of the
Herberts in the title, were not so in regard to the estates. It has
been well said by Sir Bernard Burke that “the name of Pembroke, like
the scutcheons and monuments in some time-honoured cathedral, cannot
fail to awaken a thousand glorious recollections in the bosoms of all
who are but tolerably read in English chronicles. Sound it, and no
trumpet of ancient or modern chivalry would peal a higher war-note. It
is almost superfluous to repeat that this is the family of which it has
been so finely said, that ‘all the men were brave, and all the women
chaste;’ and what nobler record was ever engraved upon the tomb of
departed greatness?”
We commence our notes with William ap Thomas, whose ancestors traced
back to Henry Fitz-Herbert, chamberlain to King Henry I. This Sir
William ap Thomas (who was the son of Thomas ap Gwillim ap Jenkin, by
his wife Maud, daughter and heiress of Sir John Morley, Knight, Lord
of Raglan Castle) married Gladys, daughter of Sir Richard Gam, and
widow of Sir Roger Vaughan, by whom he had three sons and a daughter.
The eldest of these sons was “created Lord of Raglan, Chepstow, and
Gower, and commanded to assume the surname of Herbert, in honour of
his ancestor,” the chamberlain to King Henry I., and afterwards Earl
of Pembroke. “He was succeeded by his son, who renounced the earldom
of Pembroke for that of Huntingdon, at the request of King Edward
IV., that monarch being anxious to dignify his son, Prince Edward,
with the title of Earl of Pembroke.
[Illustration: _The Principal Front._]
The honour, however, reverted to the Herberts in the reign of Edward
VI., who conferred it upon Sir William Herbert.” This William Herbert,
who had married Anne, sister of Queen Catherine Parr, was knighted
by Henry VIII., and was appointed executor, or “conservator,” of the
King’s will; and shared with Sir Anthony Denny the honour of riding
to Windsor in the chariot with the royal corpse, when Henry’s ashes
were committed to their final resting-place. By Edward VI. Sir William
was elevated to the peerage by the titles of Baron Herbert of Cardiff
and Earl of Pembroke. In 1551 his wife, the Countess of Pembroke,
“died at Baynard’s Castle, and was carried into St. Paul’s in this
order: first, there went an hundred poor men and women in mantle-freez
gowns; next followed the heralds, and then the corse, about which were
eight bannerels of armes, then came the mourners, lordes, knights,
and gentlemen; after them the ladies and gentlewomen mourners, to the
number of 200 in all; next came in coats 200 of her own and other
servants. She was interred by the tomb of the Duke of Lancaster; and
after, her banners were set up over her, and her armes set on divers
pillars.” The Earl died March 17th, 1569-70, and was succeeded by
his son Henry as Earl of Pembroke. This nobleman was thrice married;
first, to Catherine, daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, from
whom he was afterwards divorced; secondly, to Catherine, daughter of
George, Earl of Shrewsbury; and, thirdly, to Mary Sidney, daughter to
Sir Henry Sidney, Knight of the Garter, by his wife, the Lady Mary,
daughter of John, Duke of Northumberland. This lady, the third wife of
the Earl of Pembroke, was sister to one of the greatest of all great
Englishmen—Sir Philip Sidney; and it was for her special delight that
he, while visiting her at Wilton, wrote his inimitable “Arcadia.” By
this lady the Earl of Pembroke had two sons, William and Philip, both
of whom in turn succeeded to the earldom. The Countess, “Sidney’s
sister, Pembroke’s mother,” “a principal ornament to the family of the
Sidneys,” and of whom Spenser wrote that she was
“The gentlest shepherdess that liv’d that day,
And most resembling, both in shape and spirit,
Her brother dear,”
survived her husband some time, and at her death, which took place in
1621, that beautiful epitaph so often quoted, and as often erroneously
ascribed to Ben Jonson, was penned by William Browne, and will bear
again quoting here:—
“Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse;
_Sidney’s_ sister! _Pembroke’s_ mother!
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair, and learn’d, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee!
Marble piles let no man raise
To her name for after days;
Some kind woman, born as she,
Reading this, like Niobe
Shall turn marble, and become
Both her mourner and her tomb.”
William, third Earl of Pembroke under the new creation, eldest son of
the Earl and of “Sidney’s sister,” succeeded to the title and estates
on the death of his father in 1600-1. Of him Aubrey says, “He was of
a most noble person, and the glory of the court in the reigne of King
James and King Charles. He was handsome and of an admirable presence.
‘Gratior et pulchro veniens a corpore virtus.’
He was the greatest Mecænas to learned men of any peer of his time—or
since. He was very generous and open-handed. He gave a noble collection
of choice bookes and manuscripts to the Bodleian Library at Oxford,
which remain there as an honourable monument of his munificence. ‘Twas
thought, had he not been suddenly snatcht away by death, to the grief
of all learned and good men, that he would have been a great benefactor
to Pembroke College, in Oxford; whereas, there remains only from him
a great piece of plate that he gave there. He was a good scholar, and
delighted in poetrie; and did sometimes, for his diversion, write some
sonnets and epigrammes which deserve commendation. Some of them are
in print in a little book in 8vo., intituled ‘Poems writt by William,
Earle of Pembroke, and Sir Benjamin Ruddyer, Knight, 1660.’”
His lordship married Mary, eldest daughter and co-heiress of
Gilbert, seventh Earl of Shrewsbury, by his countess, Mary, daughter
of Sir William Cavendish, of Chatsworth, and his wife, Elizabeth
Hardwick—“Bess of Hardwick”—afterwards Countess of Shrewsbury. By
this marriage the Earl of Pembroke had two sons, who died in their
infancy. Dying without surviving issue, he was succeeded in the title
and estates by his brother, Philip Herbert, who thus became fourth Earl
of Pembroke, and was shortly afterwards created Earl of Montgomery, and
appointed Lord Chamberlain, Gentleman of the King’s Bed-chamber, and
Lord Warden of the Stannaries. He was twice married: first, to Lady
Susan Vere, daughter to the Earl of Oxford, by whom he had a numerous
family; and, secondly, to Anne, daughter and heiress of George, Earl of
Cumberland, and widow of Richard, Earl of Dorset.
Dying in 1649-51, the Earl was succeeded by his fourth but eldest
surviving son, Philip, as Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. This
nobleman married, first, Penelope, daughter and heiress of Sir Robert
Naunton; and, secondly, Catherine, daughter of Sir William Villiers,
and, dying in 1669-70, was in his turn succeeded by the eldest son
of his first marriage, William, who, dying unmarried, was succeeded
by his half-brother, Philip (the son of his father by his second
wife), who thus became seventh Earl of Pembroke, and fourth Earl of
Montgomery. This nobleman married Henrietta de Querouaille, sister to
the Duchess of Portsmouth, but dying without male issue, the title
and estates devolved on his younger brother, Thomas, eighth Earl of
Pembroke, who held distinguished offices under William III., Queen
Anne, and George I., and was the founder of the noble collection of
sculptures, &c., at Wilton. His lordship married three times, and was
succeeded by his eldest son, Henry, as ninth earl, of whose taste Lord
Orford says, “Besides his works at Wilton, the new lodge in Windsor
Park, the Countess of Suffolk’s house at Marble Hill, Twickenham, the
water house in Lord Orford’s park at Houghton, are incontestable proofs
of his taste: it was more than taste, it was passion for the utility
and honour of his country, that engaged his lordship to promote and
assiduously overlook the construction of Westminster Bridge by the
ingenious Monsieur Labeyle.”
He was succeeded in the title and estates by his son, Henry, as tenth
Earl of Pembroke and Earl of Montgomery, who, marrying Elizabeth,
second daughter of Charles Spencer, Duke of Marlborough, had issue one
son and one daughter, and, dying in 1794, was succeeded by his son,
George Augustus Herbert, as eleventh Earl of Pembroke, &c.
That nobleman married, first, in 1784, Elizabeth, daughter of Topham
Beauclerk, Esq., son of Lord Sidney Beauclerk, and by her, who died
in 1793, had issue the Lady Diana, married to the Earl of Normanton,
and one son, Robert Henry, who succeeded him; and, secondly, in 1808,
Catherine, daughter of Count Woronzow, the Russian ambassador, by whom
he had issue one son, the Hon. Sidney Herbert, M.P., and Secretary
for War, created, in 1861, Lord Herbert of Lea (which title has now
merged into the earldom of Pembroke), and five daughters—viz. the
Lady Elizabeth, married to the Earl of Clanwilliam; the Lady Mary
Caroline; the Lady Catherine; the Lady Georgiana; and the Lady Emma.
His lordship, dying in 1827, was succeeded by the son of his first
marriage, Robert Henry Herbert, as twelfth Earl of Pembroke, &c. This
nobleman was born in 1791, and married, in 1814, the Princess Octavia
Spinelli, daughter of the Duke of Lorraine, and widow of the Sicilian
Prince Buttera de Rubari, by whom he had no issue. He died in 1862, and
(his half-brother, Sidney Herbert, Baron Herbert of Lea, the heir to
the title, having died a few months before him) was succeeded by his
nephew (the son of that honoured statesman), George Robert Charles
Herbert, the present peer—the thirteenth earl—then a minor.
The Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, who was born in 1810, married, in
1846, Elizabeth, only daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles Ashe
A’Court, who survives him, and is the present Baroness Herbert of
Lea. By her he had issue four sons and three daughters—viz. George
Robert Charles Herbert, now Earl of Pembroke; Sidney, Lord Herbert,
who is heir-presumptive to his brother, and was born in 1853; William
Reginald Herbert, born in 1854; Michael Henry Herbert, born in 1857;
Mary Catherine Herbert, born in 1849; Elizabeth Maude Herbert, born in
1851; and Constance Gwladys, born in 1859. Lord Herbert of Lea died in
1861, and was succeeded in that title by his eldest son, George Robert
Charles Herbert, then eleven years of age, and who, eight months later,
succeeded to the full family estates and earldom.
The present peer, the Right Hon. George Robert Charles, thirteenth
Earl of Pembroke, Earl of Montgomery, Baron Herbert of Cardiff, Baron
Herbert of Shurland, and Baron Herbert of Lea, Hereditary Visitor of
Jesus College, Oxford, and High Steward of Wilton, was born July 6th,
1850, and succeeded his father as second Baron Herbert of Lea, in 1861,
and his uncle as Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, &c., in 1862. His
lordship, in 1874, married the Lady Gertrude Frances Talbot, daughter
of the eighteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, and sister of the present earl.
The arms of the Earl of Pembroke are—party per pale, _azure_ and
_gules_, three lions rampant, _argent_. The crest is a wyvern, _vert_,
holding in its mouth a sinister hand couped at the wrist, _gules_.
The supporters are—dexter, a panther guardant, _argent_, incensed,
spotted, _or_, _vert_, _sable_, _azure_, and _gules_ alternately,
ducally collared, _azure_; sinister, a lion, _argent_, ducally
collared, _or_. Motto—“Ung je serviray.” The Earl is patron of twelve
livings, ten of which are in Wiltshire, one in Dorsetshire, and one in
Shropshire.
His lordship’s brothers and sisters, children of Lord Herbert of Lea,
were, on his succeeding to the earldom, raised to the rank of earls’
children by royal warrant in 1862.
Wilton, a town of “great antiquity,” is situated at the conflux of the
rivers Nadder and Willey, from the latter of which it is said to derive
its name—“Willytown” or “Wilton:” “in Latin it is called Ellandunum.”
The ancient Britons had one of their chief seats here; it was a capital
of the West Saxons, and was undoubtedly famous long before the Norman
Conquest. Afterwards it obtained renown from the number and importance
of its monastic establishments. Leland informs us that it had over
twelve parish churches. Of its abbey there are no remains. It was
dissolved in the thirty-fifth year of King Henry VIII., and the site
and buildings given to Sir William Herbert, afterwards created Earl of
Pembroke; while from its relics Wilton House was principally built.[47]
[Illustration: _Wilton, from the River._]
Wilton House—one of the grandest and most beautiful in the kingdom,
and the entrance to which adjoins the town—stands on the site of a
monastery of Saxon foundation, which, on the dissolution, was levelled
with the ground. As we have just intimated, no portion whatever of the
monastic buildings remains, but there can be no doubt they were of
considerable extent and importance. The mansion was built partly from
the designs, it is said, of Hans Holbein, to whom is ascribed the
porch, which, however, in the early part of the present century was
much altered. “The garden front was built by M. Solomon de Caus in the
reign of Charles I., and, having been destroyed by fire in 1648, was
re-erected by Webb from plans which are presumed to have been furnished
by Inigo Jones. In the commencement of the present century the house
was considerably enlarged and remodelled by James Wyatt, R.A., one
of the principal additions being the cloisters for the display and
preservation of the magnificent collection of sculptures. The general
plan of the house is a hollow square, the glazed cloister occupying the
central space.”
[Illustration: _The Cedars._]
In this Cloister, and in the Hall that leads to it, are the famous
“marbles” which form so prominent a feature in the attractions of
Wilton—statues, busts, bassi-relievi, urns, vases, fragments of
various kinds—a wonderful assemblage of remains of Greece and
Rome.[48] The collection was formed towards the close of the last
century by Thomas, Earl of Pembroke, who purchased such of the Earl
of Arundel’s collection as had been placed in the house, which were
principally busts; to these he added many purchased at the dispersion
of the Giustiniani collection of marbles, and also at the dispersion of
the Mazarin collection, and from various other sources.
The Hall contains several statues; but its interest is derived from the
many suits of armour by which it is adorned: they are chiefly trophies
and memorials of the battle of St. Quentin, fought in 1557, in which
the Earl of Pembroke commanded the forces of England. One of the suits
was worn by the Earl, and two of them were, it is said, worn by the
Constable Montmorency and the Duc de Montpensier, both taken prisoners
at that eventful fight. A passage from the Hall leads to the Cloisters,
from which, on either side, are entrances to the various apartments:
these are furnished with judgment and taste, but their attractions are
the pictures that adorn the walls.
The renowned “family picture” by Vandyke is beyond question the great
painter’s masterpiece: it is 17 feet in length, by 11 feet in height,
and fills one end of the drawing-room. It contains ten whole-length
figures, the two principal of which are Philip, Earl of Pembroke, and
his lady, Susan, daughter of Edward, Earl of Oxford. On the right stand
their three sons, on the left their daughter and her husband, Robert,
Earl of Carnarvon. Before them is Lady Mary, the wife of Charles, Lord
Herbert, and above them, in the clouds, are two sons and a daughter who
died young. It is a most grand and glorious work, the value of which is
not to be estimated by money.
The room, which is called also the Cube Room, contains some thirteen
other pictures, the productions of Vandyke.
Other of the great old masters are well represented in the several
apartments of the mansion: many of them are, indeed, of great beauty
and value.
We might occupy much space by printing a list of these pictures:
they comprise a large number of the great Italian artists. They are,
however, such as one usually meets in these palatial residences, and
are thrown into comparative obscurity by the glorious assemblage of
Vandykes.
In Lady Pembroke’s Summer Dressing-room there is a Gothic window by
Price, “to whom Parliament granted £5,000 for having discovered the
ancient method of staining glass.”
[Illustration: _The Hall._]
The house is made thoroughly comfortable as a home; it has never been
abandoned by the family, but has been their continual residence.
Everywhere, consequently, there is an aspect of thorough comfort.
Grace, elegance, and indeed splendour, are sufficiently apparent, but
the obvious study has long been to render the dwelling in all respects
the abode of an English nobleman who loved to live among his own
people. None will wonder at this who knew the late Lord Herbert of
Lea, who so long and so continuously lived in that delightful home.
To the Gardens and Grounds of Wilton House we desire to direct
the reader’s especial attention; they have been by no means left
solely to the guardianship of Nature. Art has done much to give
aid to the beauties of hill and dell, and river and wooded slopes
and pasture-land. Immediately around the mansion the skill of the
gardener is manifest: trim walks, and pastures, and summer-houses, and
conservatories add to the natural grace and beauty of the scene. One
garden especially, into which there is a passage from the Drawing-room,
is very beautifully laid out, overlooked by a graceful arcade, in which
are vases and busts, and to which, no doubt, the family and their
guests often retreat to enjoy the bounties of free air and light among
the adornments that are here so lavish.
[Illustration: _The Drawing-room._]
A most picturesque and singularly beautiful bridge joins the park
to the grounds, crossing the Nadder. It was built from a design by
Palladio, and has an open Ionic colonnade. The park slopes up from the
river; and in the grounds are some of the finest cedars to be seen in
England.
Here, it is said, Sir Philip Sidney wrote the “Arcadia;” and the
memorable book bears conclusive evidence that he drew much of his
inspiration from these gardens and grounds. The book may be, as Milton
styles it, “a vain amatorious poem;” but it is full of beautiful
descriptions of Nature, and shows how dearly the chivalric writer
really loved the natural and the true; and it demands no strong stretch
of fancy to imagine Philip Sidney, accompanied by William Shakspere,
Edmund Spenser, and Philip Massinger (he was born in the place, and
probably in the house), walking among these now aged trees, along these
embowered walks, and by the banks of the fair river that runs to enrich
them as it did centuries ago:—
“And all without were walkes and alleys dight
With divers trees enrang’d in even rankes;
And here and there were pleasant arbors pight,
And shadie seates and sundry flowring bankes,
To sit and rest the walker’s wearie shankes.”
Yes; it is obviously to these grounds and gardens that reference is
made in the “Arcadia:”—
“There were hilles which garnished their proud heights with stately
trees; humble vallies whose base estate seemed comforted with
refreshing of silver rivers; medowes enamel with all sortes of
eypleasing floures; thickets, which, being lined with most pleasant
shade, were witnessed so too, by the cheerfull disposition of many
well-tuned birds; each pasture stored with sheepe feeding with sober
securitie, while the pretie lambes with bleating oratorie craved the
dams’ comfort; here a shepheard’s boy piping as though he should neuer
be old; there a young shepherdesse knitting and withall singing; and
it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to worke, and her hands
kept time to her voice’s musick.”
It is to-day as it was so long ago—when the sweetest of all the
singers and the most heroic of all the cavaliers of old times had
their healthy walks through these woods, and their poetic “talks”
under the branches of these patrician trees—old then, and very old
now. Truly Wilton is “a place for pleasantnesse,” and “not unfit for
solitarinesse.”
“Gloriana”—Queen Elizabeth—did certainly visit this “chosen plot of
fertile land;” partook of “a very fair and pleasant banquet” in this
park; and from Wilton she carried away many rich gifts, including “a
mermaid of gold, having a maid upon her back garnished with sparks of
diamonds.”
From a queen to a man of genius, who was a good man, is not a long
leap. What visitor to Wilton will forget the name of that George
Herbert who was the humble and faithful servant of God—who did His
work in this locality, and who, while he threw a line across the
glistening Nadder (for he was the disciple as well as the friend of
Izaak Walton), here wove those fancies into verse which after ages have
not suffered to die?
And surely we may well close our notes on Wilton by quoting good old
Izaak’s summary of the character of Lord Edward Herbert:—
“He was one of the handsomest men of his day, of a beauty alike
stately, chivalric, and intellectual. His person and features were
cultivated by all the disciplines of a time when courtly graces were
not insignificant, because a monarch-mind informed the court, nor
warlike customs rude or mechanical, for industrial nature had free
play in the field, except as restrained by the laws of courtesy and
honour. The steel glove became his hand, and the spur his heel;
neither can we fancy him out of his place, for any place he would have
made his own.”
There is yet another of the worthies of Wilton to claim and receive
the homage of every visitor—the Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, created
Lord Herbert of Lea before his premature death. He did not outlive his
brother, the Earl, but his son inherited the titles and estates, and is
now, as we have stated, the thirteenth Earl of Pembroke.
There is a statue of Sidney Herbert, by Marochetti, in the Market-place
at Salisbury; and a far better statue of him, by Foley, fronts the War
Office in Pall Mall: it honours him as the Secretary of War, and makes
record of some of his triumphs as the gentle and genial advocate of
peace and Christian charity to all mankind. “Sidney Herbert,” says Mr.
Hall, who was associated with him as one of the Honorary Secretaries
of the Nightingale Fund, “seemed to me a copy, and without an atom
deteriorated, of his renowned relative-predecessor, Lord Herbert
of Cherbury. He lived in another age, and had to discharge very
different duties; but there was the same heroic sentiment, the same
high chivalry, the same generous sympathy with suffering, the same
stern and steady resolve to right the wrong. It is not too much to say
that what we may have imagined of the chivalry of a past age we have
witnessed in our own: a gentleman who gave dignity to the loftiest
rank; who thought it no condescension to be kind and courteous to
the very humblest who approached him. To rare personal advantages he
added those of large intellectual acquirements. He spoke, if not as an
orator, with impressive eloquence; as a man of practical business, few
were his superiors; he had the mind of a statesman, yet gave earnest
and thoughtful care to all the minor details of life. His death was a
public calamity.”
[Illustration: _The New Church at Wilton._]
No one who visits Wilton—either the town or the mansion—will leave
it without seeing and examining “the New Church,” of which we give
an engraving. It was erected in 1844, at the cost of Sidney Herbert,
the architects being F. H. Wyatt and D. Brandon. The style, as will
be perceived, is that of the ordinary Romanesque. It is a singularly
beautiful and very gorgeous structure, built without regard to
expense: perhaps there is nothing more perfect, of its class, in the
kingdom. The following details from a local newspaper give a technical
description of this edifice:—