Home / Topics / The Herbert Brothers -- William Herbert and Philip Herbert

The Herbert Brothers -- William Herbert and Philip Herbert

Mixed Ready evidence packet

Topic: The Herbert Brothers -- William Herbert and Philip Herbert

Source-Fact Audit — 7 August 2026

The First Folio dedication is the controlling witness for the brothers' place in that book. It addresses:

TO THE MOST NOBLE AND INCOMPARABLE PAIRE OF BRETHREN

WILLIAM Earle of Pembroke

AND PHILIP Earle of Montgomery

and says that they had prosequuted both them, and their Authour liuing. This supports the limited fact that Heminge and Condell publicly represented both brothers as prior favorers of the plays and their living author. It does not name the nature, date, or mechanism of that favor.

The wardship evidence is a different documentary lane. The 3 November 1629 calendar entry says:

Grant to William Earl of Pembroke, Lord Steward, of the benefit of the

wardship of Rich. Neville, son and heir of Sir Henry Neville, deceased.

It names William, not Philip. The packet must therefore keep the Folio dedication, William's office chronology, Philip's separate office chronology, Virginia Company records, and the 1629 wardship as distinct facts rather than a single inferred transmission story. Original wardship instrument SP 39/28 remains to be inspected.

Overview

William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, and Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery (later 4th Earl of Pembroke), were the dedicatees of the Shakespeare First Folio in 1623. They are important to the Neville project because they sit at the intersection of First Folio patronage, Sidney-Herbert kinship, Virginia Company leads, and the later wardship of Sir Henry Neville III's son.

This packet is now a mixed evidence packet. The First Folio dedication is directly controlled at EarlyPrint/TCP transcription level and, as of 2026-06-20, by 1623 page images from the Archive/Boston Public Library Barton copy. The wardship lane is controlled only through the History of Parliament transcription preserved in the Henry Neville III packet until primary Court of Wards or related records are checked. The Virginia Company lane now has direct charter and A14521 support for company overlap, but not for any hidden authorship mechanism or specific manuscript-transfer route.

Fresh family research adds a separate Pembroke administrative route. History of Parliament identifies Sir John Thorowgood as William Herbert's secretary about 1621–1630 and says that in 1623 he sought through Pembroke a reversion to the Revels office later held by Sir Henry Herbert. Thorowgood subsequently married Henry Neville III's widow, while Hull U DDBA/4/98 concerns his control of Richard Neville's wardship and marriage. This does not prove First Folio production or manuscript custody; it directly documents that the next Billingbear household was headed by Pembroke's secretary, a would-be Revels officer.

Individual Biographies And The 1623 Office Chronology

The official History of Parliament Lords dataset materially improves this packet because it distinguishes the brothers as historical actors instead of treating them as a single Folio dedication label. The dataset is available through the full Lords XML export and the XML downloads page. Individual biography routes exist for William Herbert and Philip Herbert; command-line access to the individual pages returned 403 during the 2026-07-09 audit, so the openly accessible official XML supplied the checked text.

William Herbert, Third Earl Of Pembroke

Philip Herbert, Earl Of Montgomery And Later Fourth Earl Of Pembroke

Why The Distinction Matters

The dedication's phrase incomparable paire of brethren makes the brothers a rhetorical pair, but research should not collapse their careers. At the Folio date:

Brother1623 position most relevant hereWhat may safely be inferred
William / PembrokeLord Chamberlain; Privy Councillor; Oxford chancellor; established literary patronImportant institutional and patronage context alongside the direct dedication
Philip / MontgomeryCourtier and former/current bedchamber figure; separate Earl of MontgomeryHigh court access and direct status as the second dedicatee

Neither office profile supplies the missing mechanism between general favour and the production of the Folio. The direct dedication remains the evidence for prior favour toward the works and their living author.

Source-Control Position

Quoted Source Passages

Source-Control Position

Source-Control Check

Photos/Lippincott Source-Control Check

1. Checked Source Lanes

A0. Pembroke in the Overbury/Rochester Code Layer

A. First Folio Dedication

"TO THE MOST NOBLE AND INCOMPARABLE PAIRE OF BRETHREN"

"WILLIAM Earle of Pembroke"

"AND PHILIP Earle of Montgomery"

"prosequuted both them, and their Authour liuing"

"We haue but collected them"

"to procure his Orphanes, Guardians"

B. Virginia Company Overlap

C. Wardship of Neville's Grandson

“Grant to William Earl of Pembroke, Lord Steward, of the benefit of the wardship of Rich. Neville, son and heir of Sir Henry Neville, deceased.”

Repository-wide correction pass, 19 July 2026

A repository-wide search found the obsolete Philip-Herbert attribution in old book drafts, an illustrated-book source, PDF-building scripts, a temporary print source, Twitter-derived notes, and an older website backup. Those positive assertions have been corrected to William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke.

The preserved Twitter files remain historical quotation records, so their quoted wording was not silently rewritten. Each false quotation now carries an immediate editorial correction naming William Herbert and the 3 November 1629 grant.

The affected generated book PDFs were rebuilt and text-extracted after correction. The post-build sweep found no remaining generated book PDF that positively assigns the wardship to Philip Herbert. Warnings in source-control topics that explicitly identify the Philip attribution as false have been retained because they prevent recurrence.

D. Sidney--Neville--Herbert Family Network

The Herbert brothers' place in the Sidney network is real and useful, but the four-generation version must remain source-tiered.

Generation 1 -- Sir Henry Sidney and Sir Henry Neville Sr

Generation 2 -- Robert Sidney, Philip Sidney, Henry Neville Jr, and Henry Savile

Generation 3 -- The Herbert brothers

Generation 4 -- Algernon Sidney and Henry Neville (grandson)

Thomas Smythe of Ostenhanger ── Alice Judde
├── Sir John Smythe of Ostenhanger ── Elizabeth Fineux
│   ├── Elizabeth Smythe ── Sir Henry Neville III
│   │   └── Henry Neville (1620–1694)
│   └── Thomas Smythe, 1st Viscount ── Barbara Sidney
│       └── Philip Smythe, 2nd Viscount ── Isabella Sidney
└── Sir Thomas Smythe ── Sarah Blount
    └── Sir John Smythe ── Isabella Rich
        └── Sir Robert Smythe ── Dorothy Sidney

Robert Sidney, first Earl of Leicester
├── Barbara Sidney ── Thomas Smythe
└── Robert Sidney, second Earl of Leicester
    ├── Dorothy Sidney ── Sir Robert Smythe
    ├── Algernon Sidney (1623–1683)
    └── Isabella Sidney ── Philip Smythe

The clearest answer is therefore not “Henry and Algernon shared a great-grandparent.” They did not, so far as the recovered evidence shows. Rather, Philip Smythe was first cousin to both men, while Henry's second cousin Sir Robert Smythe married Algernon's sister Dorothy.

Generation 4 Genealogy Claim Ledger

EdgeSource controlStatus
Henry Neville (1620–1694) → mother Elizabeth SmytheDNB, Henry NevillePrinted biographical control
Elizabeth Smythe → father Sir John SmytheKent visitation, p. 114Parent-child edge; page image checked
Elizabeth Smythe ↔ brother Thomas Smythe, first Viscount StrangfordKent visitation, p. 114; DNB, Sir Thomas Smythe (c.1558–1625)Sibling edge; printed controls
Thomas Smythe ↔ wife Barbara SidneyKent visitation, p. 114Marriage edge; page image checked
Barbara Sidney → father Robert Sidney, first Earl of LeicesterKent visitation, p. 114Parent-child edge; page image checked
Barbara Sidney ↔ brother Robert Sidney (1595–1677)History of Parliament; DNB, Robert SidneySibling edge; printed controls
Robert Sidney (1595–1677) → same father Robert Sidney, first EarlHistory of ParliamentInstitutional biography
Algernon Sidney → father Robert Sidney (1595–1677)DNB, Algernon SidneyPrinted biographical control
Thomas and Barbara's son Philip Smythe ↔ wife Isabella SidneyFanshawe; Ashgate chronology; DNB, Robert SidneyCompiled printed controls
Isabella Sidney ↔ brother Algernon SidneyDNB, Robert and Algernon SidneyPrinted biographical control
Sir John Smythe of Ostenhanger ↔ brother Sir Thomas Smythe (c.1558–1625)Kent visitation; DNB, Sir Thomas SmythePrinted controls
Sir Thomas Smythe → son Sir John Smythe → son Sir Robert SmytheKent visitation; Kent Archaeological Society biography; Ashgate family-alliance tableCompiled printed controls
Sir Robert Smythe ↔ wife Dorothy SidneyAshgate chronology/family-alliance tableCompiled printed control
Dorothy Sidney ↔ brother Algernon SidneyDNB, Robert and Algernon SidneyPrinted biographical control

2. Ken Feinstein Twitter and Blog Layer

3. Claims Demoted Or Held

4. Summary

The hardened Herbert packet supports five book-facing statements now:

  1. The First Folio was dedicated to William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery; the EarlyPrint/TCP witness confirms the addressees and the dedication's language of prior favour toward the works and their author.
  2. The current wardship control points to William Herbert / Pembroke purchasing the wardship of Neville's son after the death of Sir Henry Neville III in 1629; older Philip-Herbert wording is a project error unless a new source proves otherwise.
  3. The Virginia Company lane now supports documented overlap: Neville and Pembroke share the checked 1609 resident-council list, and Neville, Pembroke, and Montgomery appear in the wider company/adventurer source trail.
  4. The Sidney-Herbert-Neville network continues into a documented fourth generation: Algernon Sidney and Henry Neville (1620–1694) were political colleagues connected by multiple Smythe–Sidney marriages, and Sidney supported Neville's 1649 entry into the House of Commons. Philip Smythe was first cousin to both men, and Henry's second cousin Sir Robert Smythe married Algernon's sister Dorothy; modern scholarship's direct “second cousin” label for Henry and Algernon remains genealogically unverified.
  5. Lippincott's full L'Estrange transcription adds a printed-edition witness for Sir William Herbert in a jest sourced to Mr Wil: Nevill; it is useful network evidence but not direct First Folio production evidence.

The Strachey-access lane remains an important lead. For Algernon Sidney, the open lanes are recovery of direct correspondence, further shared episodes, and any alternative blood descent that could explain the modern “second cousin” wording. The political association and the Smythe–Sidney affinity are documented separately.

5. Citations

6. Notes on Access

Additional Fact-Source Notes