He spends a good deal of time with poets. Ben Jonson receives a gift of books from him each Christmas and various more royal gifts by his influence with King James. John Donne, too, is a personal friend. A group of humbler pastoral poets, influenced by Virgil and Edmund Spenser receive smaller gifts from his own time and pocket. They tend to have formed from among the ranks of the various Inns of Court.
The chief of the pastoral poets was Wlliam Browne who dedicated the second book of his Britannia's Pastorals (1625):
To
The Trvly Noble
And Learned William
Earle Of Pembroke, Lord
Chamberlaine To His
Maiestie, &c.
Quietly among the dedicatory poems by the likes of John Davies, Ben Jonson and William Basse, were two by “W. Herbert” without indication of title. The Pastorals had been passed among the members already for years. They all were constantly sharing their poems with each other.
According to Anthony รก Wood, Browne took residence at Pembroke's Wilton House at about the time of this publication.
Pembroke shared the literary tastes of his mother and uncle, Sir Philip Sidney. He wrote verse himself, and was, according to Aubrey, ‘the greatest Maecenas to learned men of any peer of his time or since.’ Donne was an intimate friend. He was always well disposed to his old tutor Daniel and to his kinsman George Herbert [q. v.] William Browne lived with him in Wilton House. He was generous to Massinger the dramatist, son of his father’s steward. ‘Ben Jonson addressed an eulogistic epigram to him in his collection of epigrams,which is itself dedicated to him. Every New-year’s day Pembroke sent Jonson 20l. to buy books (Conversations with Drummond, pp. 22,25). Inigo Jones,who is said to have visited Italy at his expense, was in his service. Chapman inscribed a sonnet to him at the close of his translation of the ‘Iliad,” end Davison’s ‘Poetical Rhapsody’ (1601) is dedicated to him. The numerous books in which a like compliment is paid him, often in conjunction with his brother Philip, amply attest the largeness of his patronage. The two Herberts, William and Philip, are ‘the incomparable pair of brethren’ to whom the first folio of Shakespeare’s works is dedicated (1623); and the editors justify the selection of their patrons on the ground that the Herberts had been pleased to think Shakespeare’s plays something heretofore, and had ‘ prosecuted both them and their author living with so much favour.’ Pembroke and his brother knew Shakespeare in his professional capacity of king’s servant or member of James I’s company of actors. In Pembroke as lord chamberlain the editors of the greatest dramatic publication of the day naturally sought their patron. There is no evidence that Pembroke was Shakespeare’s special or personal patron, or came into any direct personal relations with the poet.
On the accession of James I Pembroke returned to court, and soon secured a high position there. He was wealthy, despite his reckless expenditure, and was popular with all parties. Although James never ‘loved or favoured him,’ he ‘ regarded and esteemed him’ from the first. Asearly as 17 May 1603 Pembroke received the office of keeper of the Forest of Clarendon, and on 25 June 1603 he was installed a knight of the Garter. He entertained the king at Wilton on 29-30 Aug. 1603 (Nichols, Progresses,i.254). On 28 Jan. 1603-4 he was appointed lord warden of the Stannaries and high steward of the duchy of Cornwall, and on 21 May following became lord-lieutenant of Cornwall. He performed in the court masque on St. John’s day, 1604, which celebrated the marriage of his brother Philip.
Pembroke was deeply interested in the explorations in New England. He became a member of the king’s council for the Virginia Company of London 23 May 1609, and was an incorporator of the North-West Passage Company 26 July 1612, and of the Bermudas Company 29 June 1615. On 3 Nov. 1620 he was made a member of the council for New England. His interest in the Bermudas was commemorated by a division of the island being named after him, and in Virginia the Rappahannock river was at one time called the Pembroke river in his honour. In 1620 he patented thirty thousand acres in Virginia, and undertook to send over emigrants and cattle. In January 1622 the council in Virginia promised to choose the land for him out of ‘the most commodious seat that may be.’ On 19 May 1627 he was an incorporator of the Guiana company. It is said that on 25 Feb. 1629 Pembroke obtained a grant of Barbadoes, and that it was revoked on 7 April 1629, owing to the prior claims of the Karl of Carlisle, but Barbadoes was included in a grant to his brother Philip of 2 Feb. 1627-8 (cf. ALEXANDER Brown, Genesis of the United States, 1890, ii. 921), From 1614 Pembroke was a member of the East India Company.
He had opposed the alliance with Spain, which the king favoured, and was one of the councillors who had suggested the summoning of a parliament in the autumn of 1615 (Spedding, Bacon, v. 208). James then desired to conciliate his opponents. Somerset’s fall in December of that year left the office of lord chamberlain vacant, and the appointment of Pembroke as Somerset’s successor seemed to James a graceful concession to his opponents. Pembroke’s amiability at the same time fitted him for the post. Although he never acted with much strength of will, his preferment made no impression on his political views. He distrusted Buckingham, and had difficulties with the favourite as soon as he assumed office concerning the chamberlain’s rights of patronage to minor posts about the court.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Dramatis Personae: the Herbert Brothers, Susan Vere and Ben Jonson. March 20,2023. “The goddesses were portrayed by Anne's Ladies-in-Waiting, including Lady Susan de Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford.”
- A 1572 Oxford Letter and the Player’s Speech in Hamlet. August 11, 2020. “The player’s speech has been a source of consternation among Shakespeare scholars for above 200 years. Why was Aeneas’ tale chosen as the subject?”
- Gutenberg, proto-Hack Writers and Shakespeare. May 26, 2020. “A less well known effect of the Reformation was that many young Catholic men who had taken religious orders in order to receive an education began to lead lives at large from monastic discipline. Like Erasmus and Rabelais they took up the pen.”
- Shakespeare’s Funeral Meats. May 13, 2020. “Famous as this has been since its discovery, it has been willfully misread more often than not. No mainstream scholar had any use for a reference to Hamlet years before it was supposed to have been written.”
- Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
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