perform the duties of the various honourable offices which he held at home, amongst which may be mentioned that he was president of several diets, a member of the war department, and a councillor of the ministry of war. In 1537 he was rewarded by the dignity of freyherr or baron, which he had asked for in the year 1531, and had been then provisionally granted, but was not solemnly confirmed until the year 1537.
The remainder of the life of Herberstein was spent in similar political labours, among which should be specially mentioned an embassy to the camp of Sultan Suliman II, in 1541, while that monarch was engaged in active defence of his ally, John Zapolski, the rival of Ferdinand.
So late as the year 1560, when he was in his seventy-fourth year, we find his still arduous labours in the cause of the state thus alluded to by Petrus Paganus:—“Cujus opera iam ætate confecti et emeriti Cæsar Ferdinandus adhuc indies in arduis negotiis vtitur, quique annum agens LXXIIII Austriacis prouentibus adhuc Præsidens incumbit, vt non sibi, sed domui Austriæ, cui se ad extremum vitæ articulum deuouit, natus esse videatur.”
He died at Vienna on the 28th of March 1566, being then in his eightieth year. The archduke Charles of Styria caused the following inscription to be placed on his tomb, which we quote on account of the quaint verses with which it concludes:—“Den 28 Martii im 1566 Jahr starb der wohlgebohrne Herr Herr Sigismund Freyherr zu Herberstain, Neyperg
