Welsh Journals

particularly interesting as he was apparently the first of the Herberts to exercise signifi- cant influence there.4 ANCESTRY AND EARLY YEARS Lord Herbert's comments on his great-grandfather are valuable in reflecting family traditions, but modern historians must regret that he did not discuss some other aspects of Sir Richard Herbert's career which are more difficult to illuminate. Most private documents relating to his great-grandfather which still remained in the possession of his descendants in Lord Herbert's lifetime-have since been lost or destroyed, and although sources in the Public Record Office provide much information about his role as an office- holder they throw little light on his family and personal affairs. The most serious consequence of this imbalance in source material is that very little can be said about his childhood and early adult career, and it is only in royal records relating to the last years of Henry VII's reign, when he was in his late thirties and early forties, that references to him regularly begin to occur. Given the scarcity of early references, it is fortunate that there is no doubt about his parentage and kinship with the two most important Welsh families of the late fifteenth century, the Herberts of Raglan and the house of Dinefwr, most notably represented by Sir Rhys ap Thomas (d. 1525). Sir Richard Herbert of Montgomery was the younger son of Sir Richard Herbert of Coldbrook near Abergavenny, who with his elder brother William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, was executed after the battle of Edgecote in July 1469.5 In a deposition taken on 13 February 1534 Sir Richard Herbert of Montgomery gave his age as sixty-six years, which if correct indicates that he was born in 1467 or 1468. His mother was Margaret, one of the daughters of Thomas ap Gruffydd of Dinefwr and a sister of Sir Rhys ap Thomas. In 1471 the widowed Margaret was granted custody of her late husband's lands during the minority of their elder son and heir, William, and although the wardship and 4Anne (d. 1506), one of the daughters of William Herbert (d. 1469), earl of Pembroke, married John Grey (d. 1494), Lord Powis, but it is doubtful whether she resided at Powis Castle after her husband's death. She spent her later years in the household of Lady Margaret Beaufort at Collyweston (M.K. Jones & M.G. Underwood, The King's Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, (Cambridge, 1992), 112, 162). Richard Herbert's elder brother, Sir William Herbert of Coldbrook, was granted a lease of the demesne lands of the lordship of Builth by Prince Arthur in 1499 (British Library, Sloane Charters xxxiii, 76). 5For the career of Sir Richard Herbert of Coldbrook see R.A. Griffiths, The Principality of Wales in the Later Middle Ages: The Structure and Personnel of Government, I, South Wales, 1277-1536, (Cardiff, 1972), 156, and for a general account of the Herbert family in the fifteenth century see D.H. Thomas, The Herberts of Raglan as supporters of the House of York in the second half of the fifteenth century, (University of Wales MA thesis, 1967), largely reproduced (but with reduced footnotes) in D.H. Thomas, The Herberts of Raglan and the Battle of Edgecote 1469, (Freezywater Publications, Enfield, 1994). Sir Richard Herbert of Montgomery was probably born at Coldbrook. The complaint of Thomas (d. 1554), Lord La Warre about his claim to Pencelli, probably submitted in the latter part of 1526, stated that Sir Richard 'ys a very great man and ys borne in those partyes [i.e. the lordship of Brecon] or nye to hit' (PRO, STAC2/25/234). There is a brief account of Sir Richard Herbert of Montgomery in the article by A.H. Dodd in The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940, (London, 1959), 347-8, but the Richard there mentioned as holding minor offices at Court under Henry VII was of Ewias and died in 1510, and the only receivership which Richard Herbert of Montgomery held was that of Montgomery, Ceri and Cedewain. 6 Letters and Papers, vol. 7, no. 178.