The 7th Earl of Carnarvon,1924-2001
Louis Epstein
: THE Earl of Carnarvon, Racing Manager to the Queen since 1969, and one
: of Her Majesty's closest friends, died of a heart attack, on 11
: September, 2001, aged 77.
: Henry George Reginald Molyneux Herbert, the 7th Earl, was born in
: January, 1924, only son of the 6th Earl of Carnarvon and his first
: wife, Catherine, daughter of the late Jacob Wendell, of New York.
: His ancestor, Henry Herbert, was ennobled ostensibly for his part in
: putting down the Gordon Riots in London in 1780. But his was also one
: of the many new peerages created by King George III's ministers at
: that time in an attempt to swamp a Whig majority in the Lords that was
: restless about the Crown's disastrous handling of the American
: colonies.
: The 1st Earl was a grandson of the 8th Earl of Pembroke, and married a
: daughter of the Earl of Egremont; Henry, the 2nd Earl, married a Dyke
: Acland; the 3rd Earl married a Howard niece of the 12th Duke of
: Norfolk; the 4th Earl married the only daughter of the 6th Earl of
: Chesterfield; the 5th Earl, [the Egyptologist who entered the tomb of
: King Tutankhamun] married a Wombwell [baronetcy]; and his father, the
: 6th peer, was the only one of the earls not to marry from the
: aristocracy.
: The then Lord Porchester was educated at Eton, and served in the Royal
: Horse Guards, and was appointed Racing Manager to Her Majesty in 1969.
: He was a renowned owner in his own right, with such stars as the
: flying filly Lyric Fantasy, who won the 1992 Nunthorpe Stakes at York
: as a two-year-old.
: Lord Carnarvon [who succeeded to the peerages in 1987] was managing
: director of Highclere Stud Ltd, based near his Newbury, Berkshire,
: home.
: He married in 1956, Jean Margaret, daughter of the Hon Malcolm Wallop,
: and granddaughter of the 8th Earl of Portsmouth.
United States Senator Malcolm Wallop is her brother.
The 6th Earl of Carnarvon and 9th Earl of Portsmouth
(Jean Wallop's uncle) were both born in 1898,and their
sons(in-laws by this marriage) were born in 1924 and 1923.
While the new Earl of Carnarvon was conceived in wedlock,
the present Earl of Portsmouth was not...born in July 1954,
to a couple married that May,the father having begun the
year married to someone else.I think this is why Viscount
Lymington(courtesy peer,son of the 9th and father of the
10th Earl of Portsmouth) did not list an heir in Who's
Who...and his death months before his father meant that
his son directly succeeded his father in 1984.
: Lady Carnarvon was brought up in Big Horn, Wyoming, and was 13 before
: she saw a town or crossed a road and 19 when she met her future
: husband at a London lunch party. She was already engaged to someone
: else, but after the lunch Lord Porchester set out to cross the
: Atlantic to inform her fiance that he would be marrying her instead.
: The Carnarvons had two sons, George, Lord Porchester [now 8th Earl],
: b.10 November, 1956;
Parents married that January.
: and the Hon Henry Herbert, b. 1959; and one
: daughter, Lady Carolyn Penelope, b. 1962, and once an escort of the
: Duke of York.
The Carnarvon Herberts are the only surviving cadets of the
Earls of Pembroke & Montgomery,whose senior line,the Herberts
of Lea,consist solely of the present Earl and Lord Herbert,
his 23-year-old only son.The new Earl of Carnarvon,his son
(born 1992),his brother,and their cousin Alan Herbert(born 1971,
descended from the 4th Earl of Carnarvon) are in remainder to
all the Pembroke titles but the Barony of Herbert of Lea,but they
represent the end of the line unless more heirs are born.
It appears that there are no other living patrilineal descendants
of Sir William Thomas,the Blue Knight of Gwent,progenitor of
the noble Herberts of various lines.(His sons took the name
Herbert...whether his four elder brothers left sons,and what
names they might have descendants known by today,Burke's
saith not).
Michael Rhodes
I hadn't noticed until just now that the Earl of Carnarvon and his
wife were in fact very closely related. She has a shot of Herbert
blood, in that her great-grandmother, the 5th Earl of Portsmouth's
wife, was Lady Eveline Herbert, sister of the 4th Earl of Carnarvon.
The 6th, 7th and 8th Earls of Portsmouth were brothers, and the
recently widowed Lady Carnarvon is the daughter of the 8th Earl's 2nd
son, Oliver.
...Michael Rhodes.