Herbert, Robert Henry, 12th Earl of Pembroke (1791N/A
Robert Henry Herbert was the second but eldest surviving son of the 11th Earl of Pembroke, by his first marriage to his first cousin, Elizabeth (d. 1793) the daughter of Topham Beauclerk and Lady Diana Beauclerk, daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough. After education at Harrow School, Herbert secretly married a Sicilian princess, Ottavia Spinelli (1779–1857), in Palermo in 1814. Herbert’s father unsuccessfully attempted to have the marriage dissolved, but did succeed in persuading the Sicilian authorities to separate the parties. Accordingly Lord Herbert was imprisoned in a fortress and his wife in a convent. Herbert managed to escape to Genoa and returned to England, where his father persuaded him to abandon the Princess. In 1827 Robert succeeded to the titles on the death of his father and took his seat in the House of Lords in 1833. Under a family agreement, his younger half brother, the statesman Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea, took control of the family estates at Wilton House, Wiltshire. By 1837 Herbert was living in Paris in the Place Vendôme, where he sired some seven illegitimate children, most of whom adopted the surname “Montgomery”. He died and was buried in Paris in 1862. His house was stripped of all the valuable furniture, plate and jewels that he had taken from Wilton more than thirty years previously. He was succeeded by his half nephew, George Robert Charles Herbert, 13th Earl of Pembroke