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. Cray ford 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." 1 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 tf great abuse made by Henry Herbert custos," which 

 " I 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. 



