Literary Coteries of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke and William Herbert, Third Earl of Pembroke

Abstract

Coteries, as well as circles and networks, are formative to the act of writing. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a Penshurst to write an Arcadia. One of the most known of these literary societies in the late sixteenth century was gathered around Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, and was described thus by John Aubrey: 'In her time Wilton House was like a college, there were so many learned and ingenious persons. She was the greatest patroness of wit and learning of any lady in her time'.¹ Her major activity as a patron began after the death of her brother Philip in 1586 and ended at her husband’s death in 1601. At that time her son William Herbert, as the third Earl of Pembroke, became master of Wilton House. Aubrey describes his patronage in similarly hyperbolic terms: 'He was the greatest Maecenas to learned men of any peer of his time or since. He was very generous and open handed'.² This essay takes as its topic the literary societies surrounding the Countess of Pembroke and then her son, the third Earl of Pembroke, to consider their structure and purposes, the social dynamics that led to the production of texts within them, and the extent to which the term “coterie” may usefully apply.