CHAPTER VI.

EDWARD, LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY.

Autobiography of This Nobleman - He Is Sent Ambassador to Paris Created Lord Herbert His Marriage - His First Appearance before Queen Elizabeth - He Is Invested with the Order of the Bath-Spirit of Knight-errantry in the Days of James: Anecdotes - Quarrel between Lord Herbert and the Constable de Luines Herbert's Personal Appearance

— His Poetry — Contradictions in His Character — Extraordinary Instance of Vanity and Inconsistency - His Last Illness and Serene Death - Horace Walpole's Estimate of His Character.

THE life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, written by himself, is one of the most curious works of the kind that has ever issued from the press. Who can read without delight a narrative, and such a narrative, too, of the private foibles and most secret thoughts of the soldier, the statesman, the wit, and the philosopher? That he was truth itself is undoubted; and if his vanity sometimes occasions a smile, we must bear in mind the peculiar features of the period in which he lived. We must remember that chivalry was not then extinct, and that the smiles of beauty and the honours of

battle were considered as indispensable in conferring not only reputation, but respect. Gifted by nature with wit, beauty, and talent, and possessing courage almost amounting to a fault, can we wonder that, in a martial and romantic age, Lord Herbert should have engaged the hearts of women, almost as universally as he won for himself the respect of men? If he speaks somewhat ostentatiously of his own merits, at least with equal candour he lays open to us his faults. His literary reputation is so well established that comment would be tiresome, and praise superfluous.

Lord Herbert was born in 1581. According to Anthony Wood, his birthplace was "a most pleasant and romantic spot in Wales, called Montgomery Castle, the seat of his father, Richard Herbert." I At the age of fourteen he was entered at University College, Oxford, from whence he proceeded on his travels. On the 28th of February, 1598, when only seventeen, he was married to a daughter of Sir William Herbert, of St. Gillian's. The match seems to have been one of convenience, the lady, among other circumstances, being six years older than himself. At the coronation of James the First, he was made a Knight of the Bath, and in 1616 was sent ambassador to Paris, principally for the purpose of inter

This is a mistake. Lord Herbert himself informs us that he was born at Eyton, in Shropshire, the residence of his mother's family, the Newports.- Life of Himself.

ceding for the French Protestants. He held this important post for five years, when his famous quarrel with the Constable Luines led to his recall. In 1625 he was created by James I. Baron Herbert, of Castle Island, in Ireland; and in 1629, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in Shropshire, by Charles the First.

Lord Herbert made his first appearance in London in his nineteenth year. Curiosity," he says, "rather than ambition, brought me to court, and as it was the manner of those times for all men to kneel down before the great Queen Elizabeth, who then reigned, I was likewise upon my knees in the presence-chamber, when she passed by to the chapel at Whitehall. As soon as she saw me, she stopped, and, swearing her usual oath, demanded, Who is this?' Everybody

there present looked upon me, but no man knew me, till Sir James Croft, a pensioner, finding the queen stayed, returned back and told who I was, and that I had married Sir William Herbert of St. Gillian's daughter. The queen hereupon looked attentively upon me, and, swearing again her ordinary oath, said, 'It is pity he was married so young;' and thereupon gave her hand to kiss twice, both times gently clapping me on the cheek."

Lord Herbert's account of his being invested with the Order of the Bath throws a curious light on the manners of the time. The placing the spur

upon the right heel was then an important part of the ceremony. His esquire, he informs us, was standing near him, prepared to perform the office, when the Earl of Shrewsbury himself kindly approached him. "Cousin," he said, "I believe you will be a good knight, and therefore I will put on your spur; whereupon, after my most humble thanks for so great a favour, I held up my leg against the wall, and he put on my spur."

He then proceeds to describe the nature of the oath which he was called upon to take: "Never," he says, "to sit in a place where injustice shall be done without righting it to the utmost of my power, and particularly ladies and gentlemen that shall be wronged in their honour, if they demand assistance, and many other points not unlike the romances of Knight-Errant."

"The second day to wear robes of crimson taffeta, and so ride from St. James's to Whitehall with our esquires, upon the left sleeve whereon is fastened certain strings before us, and the third day to wear a gown of purple satin weaved of white silk and gold tied in a knot and tassels of the same,' which all the knights are

This custom of fastening a knot or riband of white silk to the left shoulder of the knight is as old as the time of Henry IV., the supposed founder of the order. Froissart says that, at his coronation, that monarch created forty-six knights, to whom he gave "long green coats, the sleeves whereof were cut straight and furred with minever, and with great hoods or chaperons furred in the same manner, and after the fashion used by prel

obliged to wear until they have done something famous in arms, or till some lady of honour take it off and fasten it on her sleeve, saying, 'I will answer he shall prove a good knight.' I had not long worn this string, but a principal lady of the court, and certainly in most men's opinions the handsomest, took mine off, and said she would pledge her honour for mine. I do not name this lady, because some passages happened afterward which oblige me to silence, though nothing could be justly said to her prejudice or wrong."

It is curious to discover to how late a period of our history the spirit of knight-errantry descended. A Knight of the Bath at the present day may have achieved the insignia of his order at Waterloo or Trafalgar; he has won them, perhaps, by good and brave deeds, but little more is required for the future than the merit of preserving them unstained. But, even as late as the days of James, there still existed that quixotic enthusiasm, and that high standard of honour, which, however we may be disposed to regard them as fantastic, were once practised by the wisest and the best, and threw an undefinable interest over the social relations of former times. Let us see by what obligations a philosopher and historian, such as was ates; and every one of these knights on his left shoulder had a double cordon, or string of white silk, to which white tassels were pendent." The appendix to Anstis's "Observations on the Knighthood of the Bath" affords a curious picture of the ceremonies of investment in the reign of James I.