Herbert family, Earls of Pembroke

Richard Herbert of Ewyas, Gentleman Usher to King Henry VII and natural son of the 2nd Earl of Pembroke of the 1468 creation, married Margaret, daughter and heiress of Sir Matthew Cradock of Swansea (Glamorganshire). His son, William Herbert (c.1506-70), a distinguished soldier and statesman, was created Earl of Pembroke in 1551. He was granted most of the estates of the dissolved abbey of Wilton (Wiltshire) and Baynard's Castle (London). On the death of the 7th Earl in 1683 the Wilton and other English estates (including land in Somerset and elsewhere which was later sold) passed to his brother as 8th Earl, but the South Wales estates passed to his daughter Charlotte, who married first the 2nd Baron Jeffreys and secondly, in 1703, the 1st Viscount Windsor.

The 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam (d. 1816) left the bulk of his estates in Ireland and England (mainly property in Dublin and Co. Dublin) to his cousin Sidney Herbert (d. 1861), 1st Baron Herbert of Lea, second son of the 11th Earl of Pembroke. The 2nd Baron Herbert of Lea succeeded his uncle as 13th Earl of Pembroke in 1862.

Estates in 1883: 42,244 acres in Wiltshire; 2,301 acres in Co. Dublin; 230 acres in Co. Wicklow; worth a total of £77,663 a year.