Magdalen Herbert

Magdalen Herbert born Magdalen Newport; Magdalen, Lady Danvers (1561 – buried 1 July 1627) was an English estate manager and patron. She was a patron to John Donne and the mother of poet George Herbert. She is seen as the head of an early English literary family.

Life She was born in 1561, she was the daughter of Sir Richard Newport of High Ercall, Shropshire.

She married Richard Herbert, Lord of Cherbury at her family home in Eyton on Severn near Wroxeter, Shropshire, in 1581. He was the eldest son of Edward Herbert who was a member of a collateral branch of the family of the Earls of Pembroke. By 1593 they had moved to Black Hall, a large, low house in a valley overlooked by Montgomery Castle. Magdalen is seen as the head of an early English literary family. Donne wrote a poem, "Ascension: To the Lady Magdalen Herbert", addressed to her.

In about March 1609 she remarried to the much younger Sir John Danvers (c.1585-1655) of Dauntsey, Wiltshire, and Chelsea, London. They had no children in their marriage.

She managed her own death. Her funeral took place at Chelsea Old Church on 1 July 1627 and John Donne, by then ordained and Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, made the funeral oration.

Danvers, a politician who later became known as one of the signatories of the death warrant of King Charles I, survived Magdalen and, after remarrying and having a family, died in 1655.