Catherine Herbert, Countess of Pembroke


Catherine Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, was a Russian noblewoman who later married the Earl of Pembroke.
She was born in Saint Petersburg, the daughter of Count Semyon Vorontsov, the Russian ambassador in Britain from 1785, and the only sister of Prince Mikhail Vorontsov, Viceroy of New Russia and Caucasus. She was also a niece of 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.
In 1808, she married Gen. George Herbert, 11th Earl of Pembroke as his second wife and became Countess of Pembroke, the châtelaine of Wilton House, Wiltshire. The Wilton Estate, Salisbury, held an exhibition on her life titled Through Russian Eyes in August 2008. Her letters show her to have been a shrewd observer of European politics.

Issue