Sir Thomas Heneage (c.1480-l553), a servant of Cardinal Wolsey and from c. 1527 a servant of Henry VIII, succeeded Henry Norris as groom of the stool in 1536; ‘he was a loyal servant of the crown who skillfully and diligently carried out his humdrum chores. He was of course richly rewarded for his services, and yet his prosperity was not stained by dishonesty or corruption.’ Sir Anthony Denny (d. 1549) served the king in the royal household from the 1530s, especially as keeper of the king’s privy purse c.1536-46. Sir John Gates (1504-53) served in the king’s privy chamber from the mid-1530s and then became an assiduous councillor during the ascendancy of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, in the minority of Edward VI: he paid with his life for his support of Lady Jane Grey. If Heneage, Denny and Gates can be despatched in eleven, eighteen and twenty- one pages respectively, the ‘Welsh swashbuckler’ William Herbert (1507-70), first earl of Pembroke, receives ninety-five pages, first published as a freestanding book in 1988 and then revised in 1992: this is in effect the third edition. A member of Henry VIII’s household from the 1530s, repeatedly rewarded with lands and grants, Herbert became prominent in the minority of Edward VI, helping to defeat the Western Rising in 1549 and emerging as one of the most important councillors under John Dudley, duke of Northumberland: in 1551 he was created earl of Pembroke. Deftly switching loyalties in 1553, he served Mary and Philip, not least in war, and despite ill-health remained prominent in Queen Elizabeth’s first decade. […]

--G.W. Bernard, Southampton