and especially his taste for hunting, rendered him peculiarly acceptable to that monarch. His influence remained unimpaired till the appearance of Robert Carr at court, an event which quickly turned the current of royal favour. However, as Montgomery neither remonstrated with James, nor showed any bitterness at his altered position, the king, who above all things loved ease and quiet, so far appreciated his forbearance as to regard him ever after as his second favourite, whoever might chance to be the first. On his death-bed James gave the greatest proof of his confidence in the earl. When the suspicion broke on the dying monarch, that Buckingham and his mother were tampering with his life, it was to Montgomery that he is said to have exclaimed, trustingly, "For God's sake, look that I have fair play!"

The earl received his education at New College, Oxford. On the 4th of June, 1605, he was created Earl of Montgomery, and on the 10th of May, 1608, was made a Knight of the Garter. The favours which he obtained from James were not substantial, for during this reign he rose no higher than to be a lord of the bedchamber. In the reign of Charles the First, however, he became lord chamberlain, and, to the discredit of the University, Chancellor of Oxford. He succeeded his brother as Earl of Pembroke, 10th April, 1630.

His first appearance at court had been in the lifetime of Elizabeth, where, though a mere boy

at the time, he appears to have rendered himself conspicuous for that want of modesty which formed so prominent a trait in his character, and which was so offensive to his contemporaries. Rowland White, in a letter dated 26th April, 1600, thus writes to Sir Philip Sidney: "Mr. Philip Herbert is here (at court), and one of the forwardest courtiers that ever I saw in my time; for he had not been here two hours, but he grew as bold as the best. Upon Thursday he goes back again, full sore against his will." He seems to have shared the success of his brother in the tournaments and other sports of the period. We

find

"The Herberts, every Cockpit-day,

Do carry away

The gold and glory of the day."

He was privately contracted, October, 1604, without the knowledge of the friends of either party, to Lady Susan Vere, daughter of Edward, seventeenth earl of Oxford. The family of the young lady exhibited some aversion to the match, but the king interposed and softened their prejudices. On Saint John's Day, 1604, they were married with great magnificence at Whitehall. The bride was led to church by Prince Henry and the Duke of Holstein, and the king himself gave her away. She looked so lovely in her tresses and jewels that the king observed, "Were he unmarried, he would keep her himself." After the ceremony

there was a splendid banquet, succeeded by as gorgeous a mask. The following account of the entertainment throws an amusing light on the manners of the time: "There was no small loss that night of chains and jewels, and many great ladies were made shorter by the skirts, and were very well served that they could keep cut no better. The presents of plate and other things given by the noblemen were valued at 2,500/.; but that which made it a good marriage was a gift of the king's, of 500l. for the bride's jointure. They were lodged in the council-chamber, where the king, in his shirt and nightgown, gave them a réveille matin before they were up. No ceremony was omitted of bride-cakes, points, garters, and gloves, which have been ever since the livery of the court; and at night there was sewing into the sheet, casting off the bride's left hose, and many other pretty sorceries." By Lady Susan the earl had several children, who outlived him.

Lord Clarendon says of Montgomery: "There were very few great persons in authority who were not frequently offended by him by sharp and scandalous discourses and invectives against them, behind their backs; for which they found it best to receive satisfaction by submissions, and professions, and protestations, which was a coin he was plentifully supplied with for the payment of all those debts." The fact is, he was one of the most cowardly and choleric persons about the

court. He appears to have been constantly engaged in some unbecoming quarrel. In 1610, a dispute with the Earl of Southampton proceeded to such lengths that the rackets flew about each other's ears; the king, however, eventually made up the matter without bloodshed. After Montgomery had become lord chamberlain, Anthony Wood observes quaintly that he broke many wiser heads than his own. This remark refers principally to his unjustifiable attack upon May, the translator of Lucan. The poet (who was also a gentleman of some consideration in his time), while a mask was being performed in the Banqueting-house at Whitehall, happening to push accidentally against the chamberlain, the latter instantly lifted his staff, and broke it over May's shoulders. Wood says that, had it not been for the earl's office, and the place they were in, "it might have been a question whether the earl would ever have struck again." An account of the fracas is related by Mr. Garrard in one of his gossiping letters to the Earl of Strafford, dated 27th February, 1633: "Mr. May, of Gray's Inn, a fine poet, he who translated Lucan, came athwart my lord chamberlain in the Banqueting-house, who broke his staff over his shoulders, not knowing who he was, the king present, who knew him, for he calls him his poet, and told the chamberlain of it, who sent for him the next morning, and fairly excused himself to him, and gave him fifty pounds

in pieces; I believe he was thus indulgent for the name's sake." At the time of his well-known quarrel with Lord Mowbray, which took place in the House of Lords, in 1641, he must have been nearly in his sixtieth year. Lord Clarendon says that "from angry and disdainful words, an offer or attempt at blows was made." Probably a blow was really struck, for it is certain that Mowbray threw an inkstand at the thick head of his antagonist. They were both sent to the Tower by order of the lords, and Montgomery was even deprived by the king of his post of chamberlain.

Early in life, Montgomery had himself received a lesson, which should have deterred him from assaulting others. In 1607, he had been publicly horsewhipped, on the race-course at Croydon, by Ramsey, a Scotch gentleman, afterward created Earl of Holderness. This was the same Ramsey from whose hands, some years previously, the young Earl of Gowrie had met with his death. The affray caused so much excitement at the time that the English assembled together, resolving to make it a national quarrel; but Montgomery not offering to strike again, "nothing," says Osborne, "was spilt but the reputation of a gentleman; in lieu of which, if I am not mistaken, the king made him a knight, a baron, a viscount, and an earl in one day." Fortunately, the truth of this story does not rest upon Osborne's statement, for, as the earl was never a viscount, and as he was