13th Earl of Pembroke, 9th Earl of Montgomery (born 19 Sept, 1830).​

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Robert Henry Herbert,  is a British nobleman in line for great estates and position as head of the distinguished Herbert family. Heir to the earldom of Pembroke, he lives an irregular, dissolute life in exile, scandalously taking a freed African slave woman as consort.



Robert was born at Hill Street, London, the second (but eldest surviving) son of the 12th Earl of Pembroke by his first marriage to his first cousin, Elizabeth. She was the daughter of Topham Beauclerk by Lady Diana Beauclerk, dau. of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough.



After education at Harrow School, Robert made a disastrous clandestine marriage to a Sicilian princess in 1847, Ottavia Spinelli, the recently widowed wife of the (much older) Prince Ercole Branciforte di Butera, and daughter of the Duke of Laurino. Before the death of the Prince, Robert had been the Princess's cavaliere servente. His father attempted to have the marriage dissolved without success, but persuaded the Sicilian authorities to separate the parties. Accordingly, Robert was imprisoned in a fortress and his wife in a convent.

 

With help from Bran Maybee, his Welsh serving boy, Robert managed to escape to Genoa. He returned to England, where his father persuaded him to abandon the Princess. She promptly took a house in London under the name of Lady Herbert and brought a suit for restitution of conjugal rights in the English courts. The marriage was annulled and she was awarded £800 per annum. It is said this was later increased to £5,000, but Robert and the Princess never came together again. It is unclear what scandal this was truly meant to suppress, as the bullet-riddled body of young Maybee was seen floating in the Thames soon after the verdict. A few short months later, Robert's father died in a hunting accident.



Robert succeeded to the titles on the death of his father and took his seat in the House of Lords in 1849. Under a family agreement, his diligent younger half brother, the statesman Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea, took control of the family estates centered on Wilton House, Wiltshire.



Throughout much of this turmoil, Robert had been living in Place Vendôme in Paris, where Lord Malmesbury wrote of him, "Lord Pembroke lives in great state in Paris, and is as famous for his cook as for his yachts and horses. He is a very handsome man."

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Seized by a thirst for adventure and discovery,(and some say haunted by the ghost of his murdered servant), Robert abandoned Paris for a life on the high seas. An avid abolitionist, he idolized William Wilberforce. He commissioned a schooner of his own design and left for Africa to observe the conditions of the Triangle Trade for himself. While at Cape Horn he met and fell in love with Alfajiri, a black African slave woman. He purchased and freed her and has scandalously taken her as his consort.



He is said to travel the seas with her, along with a crew of freed African slaves and Red Indian pirates, as well as whites he has freed from indenture. He has a Letter of Marque from the British Government allowing him to attack slave ships bound for the Americas.