ss which was first
disclosed to the public in 1832, and won for a time almost universal
acceptance. {406} Thorpe's form of address was held to justify the
mistaken inference that, whoever 'Mr. W. H.' may have been, he and no
other was the hero of the alleged story of the poems; and the cornerstone
of the Pembroke theory was the assumption that the letters 'Mr. W. H.' in
the dedication did duty for the words 'Mr. William Herbert,' by which
name the (third) Earl of Pembroke was represented as having been known in
youth. The originators of the theory claimed to discover in the Earl of
Pembroke the only young man of rank and wealth to whom the initials 'W.
H' applied at the needful dates. In thus interpreting the initials, the
Pembroke theorists made a blunder that proves on examination to be fatal
to their whole contention.

The Earl of Pembroke known only as Lord Herbert in youth.

The nobleman under consideration succeeded to the earldom of Pembroke on
his father's death on January 19, 1601 (N. S.), when he was twenty years
and nine months old, and from that date it is unquestioned that he was
always known by his lawful title. But it has been overlooked that the
designation 'Mr. William Herbert,' for which the initials 'Mr. W. H.'
have been long held to stand, could never in the mind of Thomas Thorpe or
any other contemporary have denominated the Earl at any moment of his
career. When he came into the world on April 9, 1580, his father had
been (the second) Earl of Pembroke for ten years, and he, as the eldest
son, was from the hour of his birth known in all relations of life--even
in the baptismal entry in the parish register--by the title of Lord
Herbert, and by no other. During the lifetime of his father and his own
minority several references were made to him in the extant correspondence
of friends of varying degrees of intimacy. He is called by them, without
exception, 'my Lord Herbert,' 'the Lord Herbert,' or 'Lord Herbert.'
{407} It is true that as the eldest son of an earl he held the title by
courtesy, but for all practical purposes it was as well recognised in
common speech as if he had been a peer in his own right. No one nowadays
would address in current parlance, or even entertain the conception of,
Viscount Cranborne, the heir of the present Prime Minister, as 'Mr. J.
C.' or 'Mr. James Cecil.' It is no more legitimate to assert that it
would have occurred to an Elizabethan--least of all to a p