HERMAN (HARMAN), Nicholas (c.1586-1668), of Middleton Stoney, Oxon. and Chelsea, Mdx.

Nicholas Herman’s family background is obscure. All that is known of his birth is that he was aged 82 when he died in 1668.16Dunkin, Oxon. ii. 62, 75. A cousin, John Harman, was born at Lewes in Sussex.17PROB11/155/675. When he died in 1629, John left no children and so his lands at Middleton Stoney in Oxfordshire passed to Herman.18PROB11/155/675; Notes IPMs Suss. 116; Coventry Docquets, 590; VCH Oxon. vi. 246. In due course Herman became an Oxfordshire country gentleman, but for the time being the focus of his life was elsewhere.

Herman spent at least two decades in the service of Lionel Cranfield† and he shared in the latter’s extraordinary rise and fall. At the height of Cranfield’s power and afterwards, Herman was his indispensable man of business. The crucial connection between the two men was one of kinship by marriage: Herman’s first wife, Judith Shepherd, whom he married as an ‘esquire’ in January 1621, was a sister of Cranfield’s first wife, Elizabeth.19HMC Sackville, i. 247-8; St Bartholomew the Great par. reg. Lady Cranfield lived only until 1617 but the bond between the brothers-in-law endured. From 1619 until 1624 Cranfield held the hugely lucrative office of master of the court of wards, but he delegated most of the day-to-day administration to Herman, whose corruption in that role became notorious.20M. Prestwich, Cranfield (Oxford, 1966), 238, 264-5, 375, 379, 423, 456. Those abuses figured prominently in the impeachment articles brought against Cranfield, by then earl of Middlesex and lord treasurer, in the 1624 Parliament.21LJ iii. 308b-309a, 331b-332a, 381a-b. Dismissed from all his offices and excluded from court, Middlesex was forced to withdraw from public life.

Herman, however, remained loyal to Middlesex. Early in 1625 he lobbied on the earl’s behalf in court circles.22HMC 4th Rep. 288. Then, when Parliament began impeachment proceedings against the 1st duke of Buckingham in the spring of 1626, he kept Middlesex fully informed, not so much because the earl might relish the difficulties now being faced by his own nemesis but because the pair feared that those investigations might uncover evidence of their own misdemeanours.23HMC 4th Rep. 289. In April 1628 Herman sent Middlesex another detailed report on recent events in Parliament.24HMC 4th Rep. 290. By 1631 Herman was acting as surety for over £4,000 of Middlesex’s debts and in 1632 Middlesex transferred lands in Hertfordshire and Essex to Herman to help pay off some of those liabilities.25Prestwich, Cranfield, 496; Coventry Docquets, 250, 256, 677. Herman had, moreover, been one of the shareholders in Buckingham’s farm of the Irish customs revenues and in 1631 he and Richard Mills took over that farm themselves.26HMC 4th Rep. 307; Prestwich, Cranfield, 504; HMC Var. viii. 193. But in this, Herman was only acting as a front for Middlesex, so when in 1635 Herman found himself threatened with bankruptcy by Buckingham's executors, who claimed arrears owed from those revenues, Middlesex acted promptly to rescue him from embarrassment.27HMC 4th Rep. 307; Prestwich, Cranfield, 504, 523-4.

During the final years of that decade, however, Middlesex further downsized his lifestyle and withdrew to greater obscurity on his estate at Milcote in Warwickshire. Herman wrote to him regularly with news from London, but with less to do, sought employment elsewhere.28HMC 4th Rep. 278, 291, 293. By the spring of 1639 he was working for the earl of Arundel.29CSP Dom. 1639, p. 102. He still kept in touch with Middlesex and later that year passed on to him a request from Arundel and his wife for advice on how to reduce their own living expenses.30HMC 4th Rep. 294-5. Meanwhile, in the spring of 1638, Herman had been added to the Middlesex commission of the peace, probably so that he could assist in the collection of Ship Money at Chelsea.31Coventry Docquets, 74; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 336. Before selling it, Middlesex had had his principal residence there, and Herman had continued to live in the area.

Put forward by Arundel at Castle Rising in March 1640, Herman was returned to the Short Parliament but left no trace on the records of the session. He probably then spent that summer assisting Arundel as commander of the king’s army south of Trent.32CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 34-5. He may have been the unnamed candidate recommended by Arundel to the corporation of King’s Lynn in the autumn but they refused to accept an outsider.33HMC 11th Rep. iii. 178. Another chance to enter Parliament came in November 1641 when, following the death of Henry Garton*, a by-election was held at Arundel. Once the new writ had been moved, the earl was quick to commend Herman to the town, but when word of this reached the Commons, Oliver Cromwell*, among others, procured an order on 10 December that the Speaker was to be informed of any attempts by peers to nominate MPs.34CJ ii. 313a, 333a, 337b; D’Ewes (C), 236, 260. The mayor and burgesses returned John Downes* but Herman was named on a second indenture which was brought to the attention of the Commons on 28 December.35CJ ii. 359a, 380b. Although Herman petitioned on 24 January 1642, Downes was allowed to take the seat pending the committee's decision, but the matter was still not resolved as late as the following June.36PJ i. 80, 87, 349; iii. 88; CJ ii. 390b, 628a, 630b. Arundel had meanwhile left England and, given that Herman did not accompany him, his services as secretary presumably came to an end.

The outbreak of the civil war placed Herman in an especially vulnerable position, as Middleton Stoney was located in that part of north Oxfordshire that was under royalist sway but very close to areas controlled by Parliament. On 15 May 1643 the House of Lords agreed to issue a pass to him so that he could bring his wife and some of his personal possessions from Oxfordshire to Chelsea.37LJ vi. 46b. In 1644 he assisted Middlesex’s bailiff, Robert Fawdon, when he travelled to Oxford after Middlesex’s lands at Milcote came under threat from royalist troops.38Prestwich, Cranfield, 573. In May of that year Herman was assessed for £500 by the Committee for Advance of Money.39CCAM 392, 1497. Later, the Committee for Compounding seems to have proceeded against him, although all that is known is that having petitioned for permission to compound, he took the Negative Oath and the Covenant on 24 October 1645.40CCC 3526. In the summer of 1646 he paid in half of the money which had been demanded from him by the Committee for Advance of Money and, as that assessment was then reduced to £100, he had £150 returned to him.41CCAM 392.

If Herman had ever been a royalist – and it is not entirely clear that he had – he quickly adjusted to the shifting political landscape. By 1648 he was considered sufficiently reliable by Parliament that on 27 November the Commons nominated him to become the sheriff of Oxfordshire.42CJ vi. 89a; LJ x. 612b; List of Sheriffs, 110. This then paved the way for him to be appointed as one of the assessment commissioners six months later.43CJ vi. 214b; A. and O. He continued to serve on the Oxfordshire assessment commissions throughout the Rump and the protectorate.44A. and O. He may also have been less than enthusiastic about the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, as he appears not to have contributed to the 1661 voluntary gift to Charles II and he served on no local commissions after that date.45Oxon. Contributors to the Free and Voluntary Present ed. G. de Jong and J. Gibson (Oxford, 2012), 42.

Herman died on 2 April 1668 and was buried in the chancel of the parish church at Middleton Stoney, where a monument was erected to his memory.46Dunkin, Oxon. ii. 62, 75. His widow later donated a silver collection plate to the parish church.47Parochial Colls. ed. Davis, 208; J.T. Evans, The Church Plate of Oxon. (Oxford, 1928), 106. In his will, which he had compiled in 1664, Herman had lamented that he was ‘a most grievous sinner’ who had ‘broken and daily do break and transgress all the most holy laws and commandments of Almighty God’.48PROB11/327/414. The will specified that the lands at Middleton Stoney should pass to his widow, Susan, for life and then to their only child, Hester, baptised in Middleton Stoney in July 1657 as the daughter of Nicholas Herman ‘esquire, lord of this town’. As Hester was still a minor, Herman left instructions that in the event of her mother remarrying, she was to pass into the care of his friend, Lady Norreys, wife of Sir Francis Norreys*.49Middleton Stoney par. reg.; PROB11/327/414. In 1673 Hester married Alexander Denton, one of the sons of Sir Alexander Denton*. 50Dunkin, Oxon. ii. 67, 75n. Their sons, Sir Edmund† and Alexander†, later became MPs.