Family and Education

b. by 1537, 1st s. of William Herbert III of Coldbrook by 1st w. Denise, da. and coh. of John Agmondesham of Leatherhead, Surr. educ. ?G. Inn, adm. 1543. m. Anne, da. of Matthew Herbert of Cogan Pill, Glam., gd.-da. of (Sir) George Herbert of Swansea, Glam., 3s. 4da. suc. fa. 1579 or later.1

Offices Held

J.p. Mon. 1575-83, q. 1584-d.; receiver, duchy of Lancaster, Monmouth by 1580-d.; sheriff, Mon. 1583-4, 1594-5; dep. lt. Oct. 1595.2

Biography

The Matthew Herbert who had been receiver for South Wales in the court of augmentations and a member of the council in the marches was dead by June 1557, and the namesake elected in December of that year to the last Parliament of Mary’s reign was a distant relative who married one of his daughters. Matthew Herbert presumably owed his Membership for Monmouth Boroughs to his family’s standing in the county: when he was made one of the knights for Monmouthshire five years later his father was sheriff. Nothing has come to light about Herbert’s part in the House. He may have been the student admitted to Gray’s Inn in 1543, but he is not known to have practised as a laywer. From his mother he inherited property in Surrey which he sold early in Elizabeth’s reign. It was not until he succeeded to the headship of his family and to the positions held by his father on the bench and in the duchy of Lancaster that he cut a figure in Monmouthshire. Repeated accusations of high-handedness during the last 23 years of his life did not harm Herbert, who died in 1603.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: P. S. Edwards

Notes

• 1. Presumed to be of age at election. Bradney, Mon. i(2), 189; Vis. London (Harl. Soc. xv), 376; Vis. Surr. (Harl. Soc. xliii), 54.
• 2. Somerville, Duchy, i. 651.
• 3. Harl. 806, ff. 40-41; LP Hen. VIII, xviii-xxi; W. C. Richardson, Ct. Augmentations, 281; Rep. R. Comm. of 1552 (Archs. of Brit. Hist. and Culture iii), 61; Strype, Eccles. Memorials ii(2), 161; CPR, 1547-8, p. 87; 1553, pp. 339, 347, 360, 364; 1555-7, p. 240; 1558-60, p. 259; 1566-9, p. 133; VCH Surr. iii. 296; St.Ch.5/P3/14, P49/27, P55/9; APC, xii. 155; CSP Dom. 1581-90, p. 250; Bradney, i(2), 189; Somerville, i. 651.