Edward Herbert

Edward Herbert in United Kingdom

Sir Edward Herbert (c. 1591-1657), was a member of parliament under James I. and Charles I. Having become attorney-general he was instructed by Charles to take proceedings against some members of parliament who had been concerned in the passing of the Grand Remonstrance; the only result, however, was Herbert’s own impeachment by the House of Commons and his imprisonment.

Later in life he was with the exiled royal family in Holland and in France, becoming lord keeper of the great seal to Charles II., an office which he had refused in 1645. He died in Paris in December 1657. One of Herbert’s son was Arthur Herbert, earl of Torrington, and another was Sir Edward Herbert (c. 1648-1698), titular earl of Portland, who was made chief justice of the king’s bench in 1685 in succession to Lord Jeffreys.

It was Sir Edward who declared for the royal prerogative in the case of Godden v. Hales, asserting that the kings of England, being sovereign princes, could dispense with particular laws in particular cases. After the escape of James II. to France this king made Herbert his lord chancellor and created him earl of Portland, although he was a Protestant and had exhibited a certain amount of independence during 1687.

Sir Edward Herbert was a cousin of the Baron Edward Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648), English soldier, diplomatist, historian and religious philosopher, eldest son of Richard Herbert of Montgomery Castle (a member of a collateral branch of the family of the earls of Pembroke) and of Magdalen, daughter of Sir Richard Newport, was born at Eyton-on-Severn near Wroxeter on the 3rd of March 1583. After careful private tuition he matriculated at University College, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner, in May 1596. On the 28th of February 1599 he married his cousin Mary, daughter and heiress of Sir William Herbert (d. 1593). He returned to Oxford with his wife and mother, continued his studies, and obtained proficiency in modern languages as well as in music, riding and fencing. On the accession of James I. he presented himself at court and was created a knight of the Bath on the 24th of July 1603.

In 1608 Edward Herbert of Cherbury went to Paris, enjoying the friendship and hospitality of the old constable de Montmorency, and being entertained by Henry IV. On his return, as he says himself with naïve vanity, he was “in great esteem both in court and city, many of the greatest desiring my company.” In 1610 he served as a volunteer in the Low Countries under the prince of Orange, whose intimate friend he became, and distinguished himself at the capture of Juliers from the emperor. He offered to decide the war by engaging in single combat with a champion chosen from among the enemy, but his challenge was declined. During an interval in the fighting he paid a visit to Spinola, in the Spanish camp near Wezel, and afterwards to the elector palatine at Heidelberg, subsequently travelling in Italy. At the instance of the duke of Savoy he led an expedition of 4000 Huguenots from Languedoc into Piedmont to help the Savoyards against Spain, but after nearly losing his life in the journey to Lyons he was imprisoned on his arrival there, and the enterprise came to nothing. Thence he returned to the Netherlands and the prince of Orange, arriving in England in 1617. In 1619 he was made by Buckingham ambassador at Paris, but a quarrel with de Luynes and a challenge sent by him to the latter occasioned his recall in 1621.

After the death of de Luynes, Herbert Edward Herbert of Cherbury resumed his post in February 1622. He was very popular at the French court and showed considerable diplomatic ability, his chief objects being to accomplish the union between Charles and Henrietta Maria and secure the assistance of Louis XIII. for the unfortunate elector palatine. This latter advantage he could not obtain, and he was dismissed in April 1624. He returned home greatly in debt and received little reward for his services beyond the Irish peerage of Castle island in 1624 and the English barony of Cherbury, or Chirbury, on the 7th of May 1629. In 1632 he was appointed a member of the council of war. He attended the king at York in 1639, and in May 1642 was imprisoned by the parliament for urging the addition of the words “without cause” to the resolution that the king violated his oath by making war on parliament. Edward Herbert of Cherbury determined after this to take no further part in the struggle, retired to Montgomery Castle, and declined the king’s summons. On the 5th of September 1644 he surrendered the castle to the parliamentary forces, returned to London, submitted, and was granted a pension of £20 a week. In 1647 he paid a visit to Gassendi at Paris, and died in London on the 20th of August, 1648, being buried in the church of St Giles’s in the Fields.

For him, Law is based on certain common notions; so is religion.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica (1911)

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See Also

Further Reading

Lord Herbert de Cherbury, by Charles de Rémusat (1874);
Eduard, Lord Herbert von Cherbury, by C. Güttler (a criticism of his philosophy; 1897);


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