page_title: Jerome Corbet
section_title: The Council in the Marches
hierarchical_section_title: Jerome Corbet / Legal and political career / The Council in the Marches
caption_attribution_description: English: Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (1534?-1601), Courtier and statesman
context_page_description: Jerome Corbet was an Elizabethan politician and lawyer of Shropshire landed gentry background. A brother of Sir Andrew Corbet and, like him, a supporter of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, he became an MP for Bridgnorth and a member of the Council in the Marches of Wales.
context_section_description: In 1575 Corbet was appointed to the Council in the Marches of Wales, which oversaw the government of much of Wales as well as the border counties of England, including his native Shropshire.  A letter of that year to Francis Walsingham, the Principal Secretary said he was "so slow of despatch as not meet for" the position. At this time the Council was under the leadership of its vice-president, his brother Sir Andrew Corbet, in the absence of the president, Sir Henry Sidney, who had similar responsibilities in Ireland. Despite the criticism, Jerome attended regularly and was used to arbitrate issues concerning the court.
  By this time Corbet had married Dorothy Poyner, a twice widowed heiress who brought him a home and landed estate at Beslow, near Wroxeter, when her father died in 1578. He was now clearly committed too and actively involved in the administration of his own and neighbouring counties, and it is likely that Corbet gave up his London base, moving from private practice to work mainly or entirely as a government lawyer. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in Shropshire in 1575 and from 1580 was J.P. of the quorum not only in Shropshire but also in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and counties in Wales. As this gave him a key position in decisions by the benches of those counties, it seems he had proved his worth. When Sir Andrew died in 1578 he continued in office on the Council in the Marches, and he was not removed in 1586, when Sidney himself died. Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, who was appointed in Sidney's place, was a partisan of the moderate puritan and royal favourite Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, Sidney's brother-in-law, and he brought essentially similar attitudes and energy to the post.
caption: Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, President of the Council in the Marches of Wales, 1586–1601.
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