Elizabeth Herbert, Baroness Herbert of Lea

Infobox Person
name =The Lady Herbert of Lea


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birth_date =21 July, 1822
birth_place =Richmond, Surrey
death_date =30 October, 1911
death_place =Herbert House, Belgrave Square, London
education =private
occupation =philanthropist, author and translator
spouse =Sidney Herbert
parents =Lt.-Gen. Charles Ashe à Court-Repington
children =seven children

Elizabeth Herbert, née Mary Elizabeth Ashe à Court-Repington, Baroness Herbert of Lea (b. in Richmond, Surrey, 21 July 1822; d. at Herbert House, Belgrave Square, London, 30 October1911) was a philanthropist, author and translator, and an influential social figure.

Life

In August 1846, at the age of 24, she married an ambitious young politician, Sidney Herbert, the second son of the 11th Earl of Pembroke. She became a Peelite; and, when Sidney Herbert was later made Secretary of War during the Crimean War, she became an ally of Florence Nightingale.

In 1861 Sidney Herbert died, shortly after being created Baron Herbert of Lea, leaving her a widow with four sons and three daughters. Lady Herbert of Lea became a Roman Catholic convert at Palermo in 1866, practising as an "ardent Ultramontane", under the influence of her intimate friend, Cardinal Manning. Following her reception into the Catholic Church, as part of a determined effort to ensure the Protestant succession of the Herberts, she was forbidden by Parliament to bring her children to Mass, and her children were taken as wards in Chancery and brought up in the Church of England. Only her eldest daughter, Mary, followed her into the Catholic faith.

She disliked 'of Lea' as an addition to her title, and never used it, becoming known as "Lady Lightening" for her efficiency and ardour working for Catholic charities and interests. She worked in partnership with Cardinal Vaughan for St Joseph's Foreign Missionary College, Mill Hill Park, London, which was opened in 1869. The missionary students at Mill Hill became the focus of her life and work. When she died in London in 1911, she was buried along with Vaughan at Mill Hill, where her tomb bore the simple epitaph, ‘The Mother of the Mill’.

Social figure

Lady Herbert of Lea was the intimate friend and correspondent of many eminent Victorians, including politicians, such as Benjamin Disraeli, Palmerston and Gladstone; reformers, such as Florence Nightingale; and leaders in the Roman Catholic revival, such as Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Vaughan and Cardinal Manning. She figures as Lady Chiselhurst in W.H. Mallock's novel, "The Old Order Changes" (1886), and as Lady St Jerome in Disraeli's roman à clef, "Lothair" (1870). Disraeli describes her:

"She was the daughter of a Protestant house, but, during a residence at Rome after her marriage, she had reverted to the ancient faith, which she professed with the enthusiastic convictions of a convert. Her whole life was dedicated to the triumph of the Catholic cause; and, being a woman of considerable intelligence and of an ardent mind, she had become a recognized power in the great confederacy which has so much influenced the human race, and which has yet to play perhaps a mighty part in the fortunes of the world."

Writings

* "Impressions of Spain in 1866" (Richard Bentley, 1867)
* "Cradle Lands" (travels in Egypt and Palestine) (1867)
*"Wives and Mothers of the Olden Time" (1871)
*"A Search after Sunshine, or Algeria in 1871" (Bentley, 1872)
*"Wayside Tales" (1880)
*"Edith" (autobiographical novel)

Besides these she wrote several stories, some of them autobiographical, articles (many contributed to the "Dublin Review"), and a number of biographies and biographical essays, mostly of religious figures, which were translated or paraphrased from French originals. The latter included biographies of St. Monica, St. John Baptist de Rossi, Bishop Félix Dupanloup, St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, Garcia Moreno, Frédéric-François-Xavier Ghislain de Mérode, etc:

*"Three Phases of Christian Love" (St Monica, Mlle Victorine de Galard Terraube, Ven. Mère Devos) (translated, 1866)

*Devin, A., "Abyssinia and its Apostle" (life of Saint Justin de Jacobis) (London: Burns and Oates, 1867)

*Berthe, P. Augustine, "Garcia Moreno, President of Ecuador, 1821-1875", abridged edition translated from the French (London: Burns and Oates, 1889)

*Lagrange, F., "Life of Monseigneur Dupanloup: Bishop of Orleans" (translated)

Family

Lady Herbert of Lea was the only dau. of Lieutenant-General Charles Ashe à Court-Repington, who was a member of Parliament as well as a soldier, and niece of William à Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury, who was British Ambassador at St. Petersburg.

She had seven children by Lord Herbert of Lea:

#George Robert Charles Herbert (1850–1895), who succeeded in the title and later became the 13th Earl of Pembroke, and the barony is now merged in that earldom.
#Sidney Herbert (1853–1913), also a Member of Parliament, who succeeded his brother as the 14th Earl of Pembroke. [ [http://www.thepeerage.com/p1353.htm ThePeerage.com - Person Page 1353 ] at www.thepeerage.com]
#William Reginald Herbert, b. 1854, lost at sea aboard HMS Captain (1869).
#Michael Henry Herbert (The Rt Hon. Sir Michael Herbert) (1857–1904), a diplomat who ended his career as British Ambassador to the USA in Washington DC in succession to Lord Pauncefote, after whom the town of Herbert in Saskatchewan, Canada, is named.
#Mary Catherine (1849–1935), who m. 1873 the great modernist theologian, Baron (Freiherr) Friedrich von Hügel.
#Elizabeth Maud (1851–1933), who m. 1872 the composer, Sir Charles Hubert Parry, 1st Baronet (son of Thomas Gambier Parry), of Highnam Court, near Gloucester.
#(Constance) Gladwys (1859–1917), who m. 1st 1878 St. George Henry Lowther, 4th Earl of Lonsdale (issue, 1 daughter) and m. 2ndly 1885 Frederick Oliver Robinson, the Earl de Grey, later 2nd and last Marquess of Ripon (no issue).

References

*Autobiographical details incidentally included in her writings
*"The Tablet" (4 and 11 November, 1911)
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/16044c.htm "Catholic Encyclopedia" article]
*Herbert Alfred, Cardinal Vaughan, "Letters of Herbert Cardinal Vaughan to Lady Herbert of Lea" (London, Burns & Oates, 1942)
*Sir Tresham Lever, "The Herberts of Wilton" (Murray, 1967)
*"Burke's Peerage", 107th edition