HERBERT, Hon. Henry (c.1643-91), of Lymore, Mont. and Holborn, London.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Oct. 1665 - 9 Dec. 1678

Family and Education

b. c.1643, 4th but 2nd surv. s. of Richard Herbert, 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury (d.1655), by Lady Mary Egerton, da. of John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgwater. m. lic. 14 Dec. 1681, aged 38, Lady Katherine Newport, da. of Francis Newport, 1st Earl of Bradford, s.p. suc. bro. as 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury 9 Dec. 1678.1

Offices Held

Ensign, King’s Ft. Gds. [I] 1662; lt. of ft. Ludlow garrison 1665; capt. Admiralty Regt. 1667-80; col. own regt. (later 23 Ft.) Mar.-Apr. 1689.2

Commr. for assessment, Mont. 1673-80, j.p. 1677-80, custos rot. 1679-80, 1689-d.

Cofferer of the Household 1689-d.

Biography

Herbert was descended from the younger brother of the 1st Herbert Earl of Pembroke, executed as a Yorkist in 1469. His ancestors were seated at Montgomery Castle from the reign of Henry VIII till its destruction in 1649, and first sat for Montgomery Boroughs in 1542. Herbert’s father was returned to the Long Parliament for this constituency, but was disabled, and fought in the Civil War as a royalist colonel. His delinquency fine was remitted in consideration of his losses sustained by the slighting of the castle. Herbert’s elder brother, the 3rd Baron, was charged with complicity in Booth’s rising, in which Herbert himself is also said to have been implicated. Herbert was returned at the first by-election after his coming of age. His record cannot always be distinguished from those of William Harbord and the Hon. James Herbert, but he was not active in the Cavalier Parliament. His duties as an army officer may have sometimes kept him from the House; he was appointed to no more than 18 committees, and never spoke. As ‘Mr Henry Herbert’ he served on the committee for the bill to regulate the Brecon frieze and cotton manufactures (3 Dec. 1669). After fighting a duel with John Churchill II he was seconded to the French army in Lorraine in 1672. As ‘Captain Herbert’, he was named to the committee of elections and privileges on 7 Feb. 1673. Although personally anxious for peace with the Dutch, he served aboard the fleet in the summer under Sir Edward Spragge and took part in the battle of the Schonveld. When Parliament reassembled he wrote: ‘May God direct the King that ... he may give his people some ease of mind that we shall not be overwhelmed with Popery’. The news of Shaftesbury’s dismissal momentarily raised his spirits, but on 15 Nov. he lamented: ‘ ’41, to our great trouble and grief, appears again in every action and circumstance almost’. In 1674 ‘Captain Herbert’ was appointed to the committees to examine bills depending and to inquire into the state of Ireland.

He was marked ‘bad’ on the government list of ‘officials’ in the House in 1675; and ‘worthy’ on Shaftesbury’s list in 1677. Either he or his cousin and namesake was appointed to the committee of 7 May 1678 to prepare an address for the removal of counsellors. He deplored his cousin’s absence from the autumn session, ‘when all lieth at stake, religion, King and government; a greater necessity can be never’.3

Herbert succeeded to the peerage in the closing weeks of the Cavalier Parliament, and became one of the most reliable country peers. As a petitioner he lost both his army commission and his local offices early in 1680. He voted for exclusion and for the condemnation of Lord Stafford, and signed the protestation over Fitzharris. At the Revolution he occupied Ludlow in the Protestant cause, and was made cofferer of the Household. He died on 21 Apr. 1691, leaving his property to his sister’s son, Francis Herbert; but his peerage was revived in 1694 for the benefit of Henry Herbert.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Leonard Naylor

Notes

  • 1. Herbert Corresp. (Univ. of Wales, Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xxi), 189; PRO 30/53/7/110; SP23/206/175.
  • 2. Epistolary Curiosities of Herbert Fam. ed. Rebecca Warner (1818), i. 66-67; Bodl. Carte 31, f. 600; HMC Ormonde, i. 240; ii. 186.
  • 3. Keeler, Long Parl. 212-13; Cal. Comm. Comp. 1682; Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxii), 66, 73; PRO 30/53/7/104, 108, 111, 112; Epistolary Curiosities, i. 147.
  • 4. Sidney Diary, i. 253; HMC Hastings, iv. 303; HMC Ormonde, n.s. iv. 574; vi. 12; Clarke, Jas. II, ii. 233.