But if Lord Herbert had little political influence in his own times, his name had less in the years that immediately followed his death. And the march of events deprived his sons and executors of all opportunity of carrying out his will; no monument was set up in Montgomery Church, as he had directed, nor was his landed property there distributed as he desired. Montgomery Castle had not passed through the late civil conflict without blemish; like all fortresses in private hands, it had been an object of suspicion to the new rulers of the country, and when it passed into the possession of an avowed Royalist like Lord Herbert's heir, it was doomed to immediate destruction. Its end came peacefully. Richard Herbert, who succeeded his father in his titles, was allowed to compound for his estates, but under a Parliamentary order dated 16th June 1649 was forced to consent to the demolition of Montgomery Castle.1 In the following months the ancient structure was levelled to the ground, and the owner was granted the barren privilege of employing his own wreckers, and of selling the scattered stones for his own profit. He gained, it is said, not a penny by the tantalising transaction. He apparently retired to London, and there he died on 13th May 1655, while his enemies were still in power. But his friends were able to secure 1 Commons' Journal, vi. 228. burial for him with his ancestors in Montgomery church. The old Lord Herbert's favourite grandchild, Edward, became the third Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and he lived to witness the restoration of the monarchy, in behalf of which he had loyally fought with his father throughout the civil war. He appears to have reciprocated his grandfather's affection. To him his grand-uncle, Sir Henry, dedicated the first Lord Herbert's poems when he printed them for the first time in 1665. Though twice married-first to a daughter of the very Sir Thomas Middleton who had caused his grandfather so much distress of mind and estate, and secondly to a granddaughter of his grandfather's early friend, Lord Chandos-he had no children, and on his death on 9th December 1678 the title passed to his brother Henry. With the death (without issue) of Henry, the fourth Lord, on 21st April 1691, the united baronies of Herbert of Cherbury and of Castle-Island of Kerry became extinct.1 1 Burke's "Extinct Peerages," s. v. "Herbert of Cherbury." Three years later (28th April 1694) the single barony of Herbert of Cherbury was revived in favour of another Henry Herbert, the only son of Sir Henry Herbert, who survived his eldest brother five and twenty years. But this was a transient revival. The first Lord Herbert of Cherbury of this new creation died in 1709, and his only son, the second lord, left no issue on his death in 1738 to inherit the barony. When the earldom of Powis was created in 1748, and restored in 1804, the barony of Herbert of Cherbury gave its name to one of the minor titles. APPENDIX. I. The early History of the Herbert Family. The Herbert family has a well-ascertained genealogy, but Lord Herbert has not exhausted the subject, nor is his account at all points to be relied on.1 Dugdale, as I have noted above,2 received assistance in his treatment of the history of the Herberts in his "Baronage" from Lord Herbert himself, and, like Lord Herbert, makes no real endeavour to trace the pedigree beyond the William Herbert who was created Earl of Pembroke in 1468. In his corrections of the "Baronage" (printed in Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, i. 219 et seq.), Dugdale threw out the conjecture that "the common ancestor" of the family was chamberlain to King Stephen. But reference to the Domesday Survey (p. 48b.) really gives far more precise information. There we find that Herbertus Camerarius-one of the Conqueror's companions-held from the King two Hampshire manors, and that the Camerarius 1 The subject has long formed an attractive field of labour for Welsh antiquaries, and they have derived no little satisfaction from the fact that they have been able to supplement and correct the usually accurate results of Dugdale. 2 See p. 3. U |