At the heart of Cardiff, the castle superimposes twenty centuries of history — Roman walls, Norman keep, Victorian neo-Gothic splendours. But in Tudor and Elizabethan times, it was above all the heart of the power of the Herbert dynasty, the richest and most powerful family in Renaissance Wales.
The rise of the Herberts
The great Tudor figure of Cardiff is William Herbert (c. 1501-1570), a Welsh noble of Henry VIII's circle. His fortune rested in part on an alliance: his first wife, Anne Parr, was the sister of Queen Catherine Parr, Henry VIII's last wife. Showered with favours, he was made Baron Herbert of Cardiff, then 1st Earl of Pembroke (the title being recreated for him in 1551), and received Cardiff, Caerphilly and Castell Coch. Herbert embodied the very type of the great Welshman who, through royal service and good alliances, rose to the summit of the realm's aristocracy.
The lord of Elizabethan Wales
His son, Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (c. 1534-1604), pushed the family power further still. In the 1580s, he enlarged and modernised Cardiff Castle in the Elizabethan taste. Above all, he became in 1586 Lord President of the Council of Wales and the Marches — the Crown's representative for all Wales —, making him the richest and most powerful man in Elizabethan Wales. Cardiff Castle was thus the centre of royal government in Wales, the seat of a dynasty that dominated the region throughout the century. To see: the Norman keep on its motte, the sixteenth-century Herbert lodgings (beneath the later neo-Gothic décor), the Roman walls, the Victorian splendours of Burges (later).
Did you know?
The most famous of the Cardiff Herberts, William, began his career with a killing: as a young man, he is said to have killed a man in a brawl at Bristol and had to flee to France. It was there, it is said, that he learned his trade and made himself a new reputation, before returning to become Henry VIII's favourite and the founder of the greatest Welsh dynasty of the century. From fugitive to Earl of Pembroke: a wholly Renaissance trajectory, where audacity and royal favour could redeem everything.
Notes
Cardiff Castle lies in the centre of Cardiff, Glamorgan; a castle open to the public (the Tudor lodgings beneath Burges's Victorian arrangements). Hours to check.
Quiz
- Which dynasty held Cardiff Castle under the Tudors?
- The Herberts (Earls of Pembroke)
- The Tudors
- The Mansels
- By which alliance did William Herbert rise?
- His wife Anne Parr, sister of Queen Catherine Parr
- A marriage to Elizabeth
- A Spanish alliance
- Which office did Henry Herbert obtain in 1586?
- Lord President of the Council of Wales
- King of Scotland
- Archbishop of Canterbury