&8 



Some Notice of William Herbert, 



During the interval of the Protector Somerset's fall and his second 

 arrest, he devoted himself a good deal to building ; in a letter from 

 John Knox he is upbraided, in that he preferred the company of his 

 architects and masons to attendance at chapel and sermons. It was 

 about this time that he commenced the foundations of his new 

 mansion at Bedwin Broil, so graphically described by Canon Jackson, 

 in his paper on Wulfhall and the Seymours. 1 In the grant to Lord 

 Pembroke the foundations, conduits, &c, are mentioned. 



Ramsbury Manor House was occupied by the Pembrokes down to 

 the middle of the seventeenth century. Anne, Countess of Dorset, 

 Pembroke, and Montgomery, in her diary, says that she lived here 

 and at Baynard's Castle during the troubled married life of herself 

 and Philip, the fourth earl. About this time it was described by 

 Symonds, in his MS. journal, as " a fine square stone house — a brave 

 seate, tho' not comparable to Wilton." Ramsbury Manor was sold 

 in 1676, by Philip, the seventh earl, to " one Powell," for £30,155. 

 This purchase was probably made on behalf of Sir William Jones, 

 Kt., Attorney- General. The woodlands at the Earldoms, on the 

 borders of the New Forest, remained in possession of the Pembrokes 

 down to the present time, and were only sold in 1877, under powers 

 of the Inclosure Commissioners, for the purpose of exchange. 2 



1 Wiltshire Archceological Magazine, vol. xv. 

 2 Just previous to this grant of the Earldoms, Pembroke had been engaged in 

 settling a dispute between the Bishop of Salisbury and a family of the name of 

 Light, relating to the office of woodward of the Langley Woods, in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the Earldoms. Pembroke's award, dated 16th October, 5th 

 Edward VI., and preserved amongst the muniments of the see of Salisbury, is 

 printed in Hoare's Wilts, Frustfield Hundred, p. 63. In the same volume (p. 

 66) an account is given of the Earldoms, in which these woodlands are considered 

 to represent one of the early grants to the Abbey of Wilton, under the name of 

 Frustfield. This grant seems to have been included with South Newton, near 

 Wilton, and had certain rights of pasturage and wood in the forest of Melchet. 

 There is a Newton situated in the tything of Whelpeley close by Melchet. The 

 description given of the Earldoms in the grant as well as in the Pembroke Terrier 

 is " The Eardoms lye neare the fforest of Milshott in the fields and parish of 

 Whiteparish, Landlord and Plaitford." The Terrier adds, " These Woods did 

 Anciently belong to the Duke of Somerset, before his Attainder, but being then 

 forfeited were granted out from the Crown as above." (Granted in the patent of 

 Ramsbury to William, Earl of Pembroke, and the heirs males of his body, 7th 

 May, 6th Edw. VI.) 



