Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/201

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Herbert
195
Herbert

many in 1760, but on arrival was made adjutant-general to Lord Granby, which post he vacated on his promotion to the rank of major-general the year after, and appears to have had no share in the brilliant achievements in the field of the 15th, or, as it was called when the newly raised regiments of light horse were numbered separately, the 1st light dragoons. He commanded the cavalry brigade under Lord Granby in 1760-1761. He resumed his court duties, and in 1762 published his ‘Method of Breaking Horses,’ a very sensibly written treatise on the handling and treatment of horses as first practised in Eliott's light horse, on which is based the system since generally adopted in the British cavalry. The work went through three editions.

In 1762 he caused great scandal by throwing up his place at court and eloping (in a packet-boat) with Miss Hunter, daughter of Charles Orby Hunter, then one of the lords of the admiralty (H. Walpole, Letters, iii. 486, 490, 496, 500). He afterwards returned to his wife, and the young lady, who had a child by him, is said to have married the future field-marshal, Sir Alured Clarke [q. v.] (ib. iv. 59). He was restored to favour at court, was appointed colonel 1st royal dragoons in 1764, reappointed a lord of the bedchamber in 1769, and became a lieutenant-general in 1770. He was made colonel of the Wiltshire militia in 1778. In January 1779 he entertained George III and Queen Charlotte with great splendour at Wilton House (Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. (ii.) 380-1), but in February 1780 was deprived of the lieutenancy of Wiltshire for voting in favour of a motion of Lord Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, for an independent parliamentary inquiry into public expenditure and particularly the method of granting contracts (ib. p. 383; also Parl. Hist. vols. xx. xxi.) He was restored to the lieutenancy of Wiltshire, was appointed governor of Portsmouth, and attained the rank of general in 1782. He died 26 Jan. 1794. His portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds and has been engraved.

Pembroke married, in 1755, Elizabeth, second daughter of Charles Spencer, second duke of Marlborough, by whom he had a family. His heir, George Augustus, eleventh earl, is separately noticed.

[Doyle's Official Baronage; Foster's Peerage; Collins's Peerage, 1812 ed., iii. 142-5; H. Walpole's Letters, passim; Cannon's Hist. Records 1st Royal Dragoons and 15th King's Hussars; Lord Pembroke's Art of Breaking Horses, preface to 3rd ed., 1778; 6th and 9th Reps. Hist. MSS. Comm.]

H. M. C.

HERBERT, HENRY HOWARD MOLYNEUX, fourth Earl of Carnarvon (1831–1890), statesman, born on 24 June 1831, was eldest son of Henry John George Herbert, third earl [q. v.], by his wife Henrietta Anne, eldest daughter of Lord Henry Molyneux Howard, a brother of Bernard Edward Howard, twelfth duke of Norfolk. Herbert, at first known by the courtesy title of Viscount Porchester, owed much of his liberal culture to the training of his father. When only seven he spoke at a large public meeting of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, over which his father presided. At the age of eight he went to Turkey, saw the coronation of Abdul Medjid in 1839, and contracted an illness the evil effects of which never wholly left him. He was educated at Eton, where Edward Coleridge was his tutor. On 17 Oct. 1849 he matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, and on 9 Dec. following succeeded on his father's death to the earldom of Carnarvon. He read assiduously at Oxford, came much under the influence of H. L. (afterwards Dean) Mansel, and obtained a first class in literis humanioribus in 1852. Upon taking his degree early in the following year he made a tour with his friend Lord Sandon (now Earl of Harrowby) through Syria and Asia Minor. The little community of the Druses of Mount Lebanon, which he visited on the journey, arrested his attention, and he published in 1860 an interesting volume of recollections, with notes on the Druses' religion. As soon as he returned to England he devoted his attention to politics, and on 31 Jan. 1854, on the eve of the Crimean war, made his maiden speech in the House of Lords, when he moved the address in reply to the queen's speech, and was complimented by Lord Derby.

From the first Carnarvon's political views were conservative, but he was never a narrow partisan. As a youth he watched with deepest interest the colonial extension of the empire, and his political career was chiefly; identified with endeavours to unite the colonies with the mother-country in permanent bonds that should be mutually advantageous. In one of his earliest speeches in parliament (1 March 1855) he suggested, that the government should move a vote of thanks to those colonies which had evinced practical sympathy with England during the Crimean war. At the close of the war he visited the Crimea, and was conducted by Admiral Lord Lyons over the battle-fields. When in February 1858 Lord Derby became prime minister Carnarvon entered official life as under-secretary for the colonies. He held office till June 1859, and on quitting

o2