First Earl of Pembroke of the Present Creation. 85 



and Aim appear to have been most carefully educated by their 

 widowed mother. 1 Katharine afterwards became the sixth wife of 

 Henry VIII. She was of more distinguished ancestry than either 

 Ann Boleyn or Jane Seymour. One of her ancestors was for a 

 time settled in the country of the Herberts. "About 1093 Fitz- 

 Hamon, who was a friend and follower of Rufus, made a conquest 

 of the marches of Glamorganshire. Of the six unquestionable 

 Norman settlers there contemporary with Fitz-Hamon, was St. 

 Quintin, of Llanblethian. This family, however, had left South 

 Wales in 1249. Their heiress was the lady whose blood, mingled 

 w r ith that of Fitz-Hugh and of Marmion, centred in Parr of Kendal, 

 and now flows in the veins of the Herberts of Wilton." 2 



In 1542 and 1544 Herbert received, by favour of Henry VIII., 

 the large grant of the Abbey of Wilton with its extensive estates. 

 The first grants, dated March and April, 3 thirty-third of Henry VIII. 

 include the site of the late monastery, the manor of Washerne ad- 

 joining, also the manors of Chalke : these are given to William 

 Herbert, esquire, and Anne, his wife, for the term of their lives, 

 with certain reserved rents to the King. In the interval the king 

 had married Katharine Parr, sister to Lady Herbert. On the 4th 

 January, 1544 (Patent Roll, 35 Henry VIII., part 17) these estates 

 are re-granted, together with a long list of possessions belonging to 

 the late monastery, to Sir William Herbert, Anne, his wife, and 

 their heirs male. 



This famous monastery for Benedictine nuns, over which many 

 royal ladies had ruled during Anglo-Saxon times, had dwindled 

 down to a bouse of moderate dimensions before the dissolution. 4 



1 In the will of Dame Maude Parr, dated 1529, printed in the Camden Society's 

 vol., No. 83, particulars will be found of jewels, &c, bequeathed to her daughter 

 Ann. 



2 The Land of Morgan, by G. T. Clark, Esq.. Journal of the Archaeological 

 Institute, vol. xxxiv., pp. 30, 31. 



3 The grant of the Manor of Washerne, dated April 8th. is printed by Sir R. C. 

 Hoare, Hundred of Branch and Dole, p. 226. 



4 A valuable document has lately been discovered amongst the records of the 

 Cathedral at Wells which throws some light on the state of the abbey in the 



