144 St. Nicholas’ Hospital, Salisbury. 
successor in 1547. Under this Act the hospital was examined in 
1549: but “it is certified,” says Mr. Bigge, ‘‘ that in that year 
there was neither priest nor master, but only twelve poor people 
relieved and maintained.” Dr. Crayford then (if he survived till 
then) resigned his mastership to save the life of the hospital. 
In 1550 we find the first of the powerful family who mainly 
protected the hospital through those troublous times, and who are 
still worthily represented in the neighbourhood, recorded as master 
—“Mr. Henry Herbert, gentleman.”’ In 1544 his father, Sir 
William Herbert (brother-in-law of Queen Katharine Parr, who 
married Henry VIII. in 1543) had received the grant from the 
King of the lands of the rich abbey of Wilton, In 1551 he was 
created Baron Herbert of Cardiff, and the next day Earl of Pembroke, 
so that his second title passed to his eldest son, Henry, the master 
of St. Nicholas’. Lord Herbert acted apparently as master till 
1577, long after he had succeeded his father as Earl of Pembroke, 
and by his powerful court influence protected the hospital from harm. 
One ill turn, however, there was which he did us. He is said to 
have removed many of the ancient deeds and evidences of the 
hospital to Wilton. Certain it is that Mr. Bigge had access to a 
few of them, which he copied out, in the Evidence House at Wilton: 
but Mr. Hickman says that “ upon new building the house there 
they were misplaced, and do remain confusedly all together in a 
chamber among his own evidences unsorted, and cannot be found 
till they are new placed.” And a letter of Mr. Bigge’s tells us of 
a rumour of “ great abuse made by Henry Herbert custos,” which 
“J think is untrue, for I do not hear that any tenant wanted 
reasonable satisfaction for the fault in the leases, and I have seen 
writings under many seals touching the great want of reparations 
in the hospital to the value of three or four hundred pounds, beside 
the danger of the statutes when he came to be master. And if he 
1 He was married in 1553 to the Lady Katherine Grey, sister of Lady Jane 
Grey: and would probably have come to the same end as his sister-in-law and 
her husband had not his father, on finding that the popular voice declared in 
favour of Mary, promptly made him repudiate her. She is buried with her 
husband, Lord Hertford, in Salisbury Cathedral. 
