Catherine Herbert, Countess of Pembroke


Catherine Herbert, Countess of Pembroke and Montgomery was a Russian noblewoman who married the 11th Earl of Pembroke.

Early life

She was born in Saint Petersburg, the daughter of Ekaterina Alekseevna Seniavina and Count Semyon Vorontsov, the Russian Ambassador in Britain from 1785 to 1806. She was the only sister of Prince Mikhail Vorontsov, Viceroy of New Russia and Caucasus.
She was a niece of Imperial Chancellor Alexander Vorontsov, Elizaveta Vorontsova and Princess Dashkova, a friend of Catherine the Great and a conspirator in the coup d'état that deposed Tsar Peter III and put his wife on the throne.

Personal life

In 1808, she married lieutenant general George Herbert, 11th Earl of Pembroke as his second wife and became Countess of Pembroke, the châtelaine of Wilton House, Wiltshire. From 1807 until his death in 1827, he served as Governor of Guernsey. Together, they were the parents of:
Lady Pembroke died on 27 March 1856. Upon her husband's death, the earldoms were inherited by his son from his first marriage, Robert Herbert. The current Earl of Pembroke, however, descends from Catherine's son Sidney his second son who inherited the title in 1895.