Philip Herbert, 7th Earl of Pembroke, 4th Earl of Montgomery KB (1652/53 – 29 August 1683) was an English nobleman, politician and serial killer who succeeded to the titles and estates of two earldoms on 8 July 1674 on the death of his brother William Herbert, 6th Earl of Pembroke.
Pembroke was prone to violent behaviour and was a convicted murderer, who has been called "the infamous Earl of Pembroke." Although the murder of the magistrate Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, which sparked the Popish Plot, has never been solved, a strong body of evidence points to Pembroke as the killer.
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Early life
Baptised on 5 January 1652/53 and brought up in Wiltshire at Wilton House, Pembroke was the son of Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke, being the eldest son of his father's second marriage to Katherine Villiers, a daughter of Sir William Villiers and his wife Rebecca Roper. His paternal grandmother was the 4th Earl's first wife, Susan de Vere; his step-grandmother was Anne Clifford, daughter of George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, and widow of Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset. He was created a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of King Charles II.