Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke, 5th Earl of Montgomery, KG, PC, FRS (c. 1656 – 22 January 1733) was a British politician during the reigns of William III and Anne.
He was the third son of Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke and his wife Catharine Villiers. Both of his brothers having died without a male heir, he succeeded to the earldoms in 1683.
In 1684, he married Margaret, only daughter of Sir Robert Sawyer of Highclere Castle and Margaret Suckeley, by whom he had seven sons and five daughters:
From 1690 to 1692 he was First Lord of the Admiralty; then he served as Lord Privy Seal until 1699, being in 1697 the first plenipotentiary of Great Britain at the congress of Ryswick.
His second wife was Barbara (d. 1 August 1721), daughter of Sir Thomas Slingsby, 2nd Baronet, by whom he had one daughter:
By his third wife, Mary Howe (d. 1749), sister of Scroop Howe, 1st Viscount Howe, he had no children. She subsequently married John Mordaunt.
On two occasions he was Lord High Admiral for a short period; he was also Lord President of the Council and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, while he acted as one of the Lords Justices seven times; and he was President of the Royal Society in 1689–1690. He is the dedicatee of John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Thomas Greenhill's The Art of Embalming".
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