HERLE, Edward (c.1617-95), of Prideaux, Luxulyan, Cornw.

The Herles were established at Prideaux, near Fowey, by the end of the fourteenth century, and in the early seventeenth century they were among the leading gentry families of eastern Cornwall.14Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 218-20. Edward Herle’s early life is obscure - he apparently attended neither university nor inn of court - but in 1634, at the age of around 17, he married the daughter and heir of Nicholas Trefusis of Landue. Herle was elected as MP for Bossiney in the Short Parliament of April 1640, but did not play a role in the brief session that followed, unless he is the ‘Mr Hearne’, recorded by Sir Thomas Aston*, who commented on the disputed election for Gloucester in debate on 28 April.15Aston’s Diary, 156, 166. Nothing is known of Herle’s career in the early years of the first civil war, but he had been commissioned as captain of horse in the earl of Essex’s army by September 1644, when he and his men received a fortnight’s pay.16SP28/18/94. He may have been in the regiment commanded Hans Behre, which was disbanded with the rest of Essex’s army in the spring of 1645, as he subsequently followed another of Behre’s officers, Lieutenant-colonel Anthony Buller*, into the regiment of Edward Massie*.17SP28/144/10, p. 3. Massie’s men were stationed in the south west in the final months of the first civil war. Herle signed the surrender articles agreed with the remainder of Sir Ralph Hopton’s* army at Truro on 14 March 1646.18LJ viii. 227b; Anglia Rediviva, 229, 236. In mid-August he signed the treaty that brought the siege of Pendennis Castle to an end, and his troop was paid by the treasurer of the Cornish committee until August 1647.19Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 295; Coate, Cornw. 219; Bodl. Walker c.10, ff. 96v, 97. By this stage Massie’s regiment had been disbanded and Herle instead commanded the ‘county troop’, which was not dissolved until October 1648.20Coate, Cornw. 242; M. Stoyle, West Britons (Exeter, 2002), 120.

During the later 1640s Herle became a man of some influence in Cornwall. The Dorset colonel John Fitzjames*, wrote to him in October 1646, when he was looking for a Cornish seat. Herle had already promised to help Colonel Edward Cooke*, and Fitzjames hoped he might use his contacts to further his own ambitions, alongside those of ‘your county gentlemen and many others of my friends in the House’ who had also promised support.21Alnwick, Northumberland MS 547, ff. 45-6. Fitzjames did not secure his seat, but his letter indicates that Herle was a rising man in Cornish affairs. This impression was confirmed in December 1646, when Parliament appointed Herle as sheriff of Cornwall - although as a draft order of April 1647 allowing him to come to London suggests, he was not tied to his county.22LJ viii. 590a; HMC 6th Rep. 170. On the death of his wife’s relative John Trefusis in the autumn of 1647, Herle was suggested as his replacement as vice-admiral of northern Cornwall, and was confirmed in the position by Parliament on 17 December.23LJ ix. 570a, 571a, 580a, 584b; HMC 6th Rep. 215. As sheriff, Herle distinguished himself by discovering the plot that led to the abortive royalist rebellion in western Cornwall in May 1648, and, working closely with Sir Hardress Waller* and Colonel Robert Bennett*, he was instrumental in stamping out the last pockets of resistance.24Buller Pprs. 101-2; Stoyle, West Britons, 117, 120, 128-9. He remained vigilant through the early summer, as rumours of insurrection continued.25FSL, X.d.483 (18, 19).

Although Herle was not appointed to assessment and militia commissions after December 1648, there is plenty of evidence that he continued to work with the government after the regicide.26A. and O. He was apparently serving as sheriff until at least July 1649; he was still in post as vice-admiral in June 1649 (and he probably served until April 1650, when a new officer was appointed); and in February 1651 he was added to the commission of the peace.27CCC 145; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 203; Sainty and Thrush, Vice-Admirals, 5; C231/6, p. 205. His later claim that as sheriff he worked through his subordinates, and ‘did never intermeddle in the execution of the said office’, was thus disingenuous.28E113/5, unfol. During the Cromwellian protectorate, Herle’s involvement in local affairs tailed off. He had been removed from the bench by the autumn of 1653 (although he was restored in March 1657) and was named to other local commissions between 1653 and 1659.29C231/6, p. 361; A. and O. His election for his local borough, Fowey, for Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament in 1659, may have been on the ‘country’ ticket as well as his own interest, and he perhaps enjoyed the tacit support of the Rashleighs. In any case, Herle’s involvement in this Parliament seems to have been minimal, and he was named to only one committee, that appointed on 31 March 1659 to bring in a bill to allow equal representation for County Durham.30CJ vii. 622b. After the fall of the protectorate, Herle was courted by the new commonwealth regime, and was named to the Cornish militia commission in July 1659 and the assessment commission of January 1660.31A. and O. In August 1659 he and his brother, Thomas, were among those proposed as militia captains by Richard Lobb*, Robert Bennett’s righthand man in Cornwall, but in later months Herle aligned himself with the conservative gentry in Cornwall who opposed the army and called for a free Parliament, and went on sign the Cornish declaration to that effect on 27 December 1659.32FSL, X.d.483 (127); Publick Intelligencer (2-9 Jan. 1660), 998 (E773.41).

In April 1660 Herle was re-elected for Fowey and also returned for Callington. Having survived investigation for his involvement in the usurpation, he seems to have accepted the Restoration readily enough, paying the relatively generous sum of £20 towards the ‘free and voluntary present’ in 1661.33E113/5, unfol.; Cornw. Hearth Tax, 254. Herle’s religious views appear to have been moderate. Although his uncle, Charles Herle, had been moderator of the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s, there is no sign that Edward was a committed Presbyterian. In 1648 he was one of the Cornish gentlemen who objected to the ejection of the former royalist, Dr Peterson, from his living, in opposition to Thomas Gewen* and other hard-line Presbyterians; conversely, in 1660 Herle used his position as justice of the peace to free two Quakers arrested for refusing to sign the oaths of supremacy and allegiance.34Coate, Cornw. 335; Recs. Quakers Cornw. 26, 28. Herle only returned to national politics after the Glorious Revolution, as MP for Grampound.35HP Commons 1660-1690. He died in 1695, and was succeeded by his grandson, also Edward, who served as sheriff of Cornwall in 1713.36Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 220.