Philip and his older brother William were the 'incomparable pair of brethren' to whom the First Folio of Shakespeare's collected works was dedicated in 1623.

According to Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, and John Aubrey, Philip's major interests at the time were hunting and hawking and it was in these fields that he first drew the king's attention.

In May 1603, James made Philip a gentleman of the privy chamber and a Knight of the Bath in July of the same year.

[3][4] Philip Herbert and his brother William, performed in The Masque of Indian and China Knights at Hampton Court on 1 January 1604.

[5] On 27 December 1604, with James I's enthusiastic urging (he played a prominent role in the ceremony and provided generous financial gifts for the bride), Philip married Susan de Vere, the youngest daughter of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

James continued bestowing favours throughout 1605, first making Philip a gentleman of the bedchamber and then creating him Baron Herbert of Shurland and Earl of Montgomery.

In addition to hunting and hawking, Montgomery regularly participated in this period in tournaments and court masques.

When Montgomery had a noted quarrel with Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, after a game of tennis between the two in 1610, James stepped in to effect a reconciliation.

He was appointed to the embassy which accompanied Henrietta Maria from Paris to England and went on to hold the spurs at Charles' coronation in 1626, before succeeding his older brother as Lord Chamberlain.

He was soon appointed to his brother's former positions of high steward of the Duchy of Cornwall and Lord Warden of the Stannaries.

Pembroke maintained a large household of 80 at his home in London, and an even larger staff of over 150 at Wilton House, his family's ancestral seat in Wiltshire.

He encouraged Pembroke to rebuild Wilton House in the Palladian style, recommending Inigo Jones for the job (Salomon de Caus performed the work when Jones proved to be unavailable, while his brother, Isaac de Caus, designed a variety of formal and informal gardens for the property).

Initially, Pembroke maintained contacts with Edward Hyde and professed continued loyalty to Charles.

However, he became one of five peers to sit on the English Committee of Safety, established in July 1642, and in August 1642 accepted the office of Governor of the Isle of Wight from Parliament.

During the politics of the 1640s, Pembroke was initially linked with the group of lords headed by William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele and Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland, which supported the Self-denying Ordinance and the creation of the New Model Army in 1645.

They ordered all university officers to take the Solemn League and Covenant, and when the heads of houses complained, Pembroke summoned them to the committee and berated them.

Yet Pembroke, though a patron of literature, was far from a man of letters himself and became the subject of bitter satires written by royalists during the period.

In late December 1648, Pembroke joined a deputation led by Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh, putting to the Army Council to accept a deal whereby Charles would lose his negative voice and agree to not attempt to restore episcopal lands which had been alienated by Parliament.

Since the House of Lords had been abolished in the wake of Charles' execution, Pembroke had to stand for election to Parliament: he was returned as member for Berkshire in April 1649.

[1] The English Council of State ordered all members of Barebone's Parliament to accompany his cortège for two or three miles on its journey out of London.

[1] His grandson Philip Herbert, 7th Earl of Pembroke, was a homicidal maniac; it has been suggested that his mental instability was inherited from his grandfather, who was also prone to making sudden and violent assaults.