124 



Some Notice of William Herbert, 



He was engaged to the last in the political complications of that 

 feverish period. Camden, speaking of his death, says, " presaging 

 some disaster to himself he departed this life in his climacterical 

 year. An excellent man, who was in a manner the Raiser of his 

 his own Fortunes. Under Queen Elizabeth he was made Great Master 

 of the Household ; whose Favour he lost, for a time, for that (though 

 with no ill Meaning nor bad Intent) he was a great fartherer of 

 Norfolk's Marriage with the Queen of Scots : and he missed but 

 little of having been proscribed after he was dead, by means of 

 certain matters then brought to light, and some strong Presumptions 

 against him." 1 



In a gossipping letter from Sir F. Englefield to the Duchess of 

 Feria, dated from Louvain, April, 1570, he says, " Lord Pembroke 

 is dead in Court ; a great loss to many, and a gain to some ; all of 

 the faction of Lord Hertford's children triumph at his death. The 

 Queen of Scots, Duke of Norfolk, and Earl of Leicester have lost 

 much thereby." 



Aubrey 'a statement that " he could neither read nor write but had 

 a stamp for his name," could hardly have been correct. It was not 

 uncommon at that period for letters to be written by secretaries, 

 and the documents signed only by the sender ; the correspondence 

 carried on by Pembroke must have been very considerable, it will 

 be seen that two secretaries attended his funeral. That " he was of 

 good naturall parts, but very colorique," is probably true enough. 

 The long examination of Sir William Herbert, on the articles 

 touching Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, during his many visits 

 to that prelate in the Tower, shows that his power of argument and 

 aptitude for business were of no mean order. 



Pembroke did not escape in his own day the charge of being a 

 temporiser. Ponet, Bishop of Winchester, in his treatise of Politic 

 Power, probably alludes to him and some others as being notable 

 examples. That he was in some matters unscrupulous, and that he 

 benefited largely by the opportunities offered of the constant con- 

 fiscations of both ecclesiastical and civil property, is well known ; 

 but in this he did little more than his contemporaries ; he must be 

 1 Camden's History of Elizabeth, ii book. 



