was the son of
William
Herbert
of
S. Julians, Mon.
, and great-grandson in the male line of
Sir
William
Herbert
(d.
1469
) (q.v.)
1st earl of Pembroke
. His mother was
Jane
, daughter of
Edward
Griffith
of
Penrhyn, Caerns.
(see article on that family), from whom he inherited lands in
Anglesey
and
Caernarvonshire
to add to his
Monmouthshire
estates. Although apparently not a university man, he was a great student, especially of divinity, and of
alchemy
and
astrology
(on which he corresponded with
John
Dee
(q.v.)
), and was well versed in the classics. He m.
Florentia
, daughter of
William
Morgan
of
Llantarnam
(d.
1582
)
(see the article on the family), his father's colleague in the representation of the shire and father of his own colleague. He leased
Newport castle
(
26 Oct. 1578
) and
Elizabeth
made him
deputy constable
of
Conway castle
(
8 July 1579
) and in
1583
steward
of
Rhymney
and other
South Wales
manors forfeit to the
Crown
since
Buckingham
's attainder (
1521
).
Knighted
in
1578 (21 Dec.)
, he took an active and sometimes turbulent part in local politics, serving as
sheriff of Glamorgan
in
1578
and of
Monmouthshire
in
1580
. He was equally active as
M.P.
for
Monmouthshire
in the
Parliament
of
1584
, where he interested himself in legislation of a puritanical character, and that of
1586
, where his speech against
Mary
,
Queen of Scots
— the first speech on record by a
Welsh
member — resulted in his membership of a deputation to
Elizabeth
about her. Next year he took up as ‘
undertaker
’ over 13,000 acres of forfeited
Fitzgerald
lands in
Munster
, paying a Crown rental of c. £200 a year and living (
1586-7
) at
Castle Island
,
co. Kerry.
He is conspicuous among the
Munster
planters
for
educational and evangelistic zeal
and for sympathy with the
Irish
tenants, whose rents he tried to keep down, for whom he had parts of the Anglican service translated into
Irish
, and for whom also he projected a college, till the lands earmarked for it were successfully claimed by another
planter
. He denounced the tyranny of the
English
garrison (which he wished to replace by
Monmouthshire
men) and the rapacity of his fellow-
planters
, who flouted his authority as acting
vice-president of Munster
and impugned his ‘Welsh humour,’ ‘fat conceit,’ and pro-Irish tendencies; but the responsible officials of the
plantation, clerical and lay, defended him. He went home in
1589
, was admitted to the
Middle Temple
(
20 June 1589
), and was again busy with the affairs of his county, both locally and in the
1593
Parliament
, while keeping in touch with
Irish
affairs through his kinsman
Charles
Herbert
(probably of
Aston
,
see under
Herbert
of
Montgomery
), who had a 6,000 acre allotment in
Kerry
and also lived at
Castle Island
. His nomination for the
Council of Ludlow
(
1591
) by the
2nd earl of Pembroke
(q.v.)
does not seem to have taken effect.
Of the three ambitions he confided to
Walsingham
in
1588
— a book, a colony, and a college — the first took shape ephemerally in controversial works of
Protestant
theology (one of them directed against the
Jesuit
Campion
) and more solidly in his unpublished reports on
Munster
; the second in the plantation itself, disappointed as he was in his hope of making it an example of ‘piety, justice, inhabitation, and civility’; the third embraced a
Welsh
as well as the abortive
Irish
project, for to remedy the local ‘backwardness in religion’ which he had long deplored he planned to inaugurate in
1593
and to complete by
1600
a college housed in his mansion at
Tintern
and endowed with lands at
Bassaleg, Mon.
, and
Llanidan
,
Anglesey
, estimated to bring in about £400 a year. The scheme is set out in
Cal. S.P. Ireland
,
1586-8
, 473; but
Herbert
d. (
4 March 1593
) before a start had been made, and during the six years that passed before the estates devolved on the future
1st lord Herbert of Cherbury
(q.v.)
, through his marriage with
Sir
William
's daughter
Mary
, the project passed into oblivion.
Sir
William
was also a
patron of the poetaster
Thomas
Churchyard
, who eulogizes him in his
Worthines of Wales
,
1587
.
Emeritus Professor Arthur Herbert Dodd, M.A., (1891-1975), Bangor
