SHERMAN, William (c.1590-1667), of Lambeth, Surr.

Sherman belonged to a branch of the Shermans of Yaxley, in Suffolk, that had settled at Ottery St Mary, Devon, in Tudor times.15Vis. Surr. 103; Vivian, Vis. Devon, 680. Nothing is known about Sherman’s early life and education beyond the fact that he does not appear to have attended university or the inns of court. By 1625, he had been appointed to the office of registrar to the vicar-general of Canterbury, ‘with the institution of clerks [ministers] to benefices, the granting of marriage licences and many dispensations and a jurisdiction of 100 parishes for probate of wills and letters of administration’. He also acquired at some point ‘the registries of the archdeaconries of Exeter and Totnes’, comprising 300 parishes. How he came into possession of these lucrative offices is a mystery, but it is likely that the fees from them formed the bulk of his livelihood before the civil war.16LPL, COMM/1/50; CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 3.

Described in 1659 as ‘steward both to George Abbot and William Laud, successively archbishops of Canterbury’, Sherman was bequeathed ‘a gold ring with a turquoise in it’ in Abbot’s will of 1632 and was evidently part of Laud’s household at Lambeth Palace by the late 1630s.17J. Philipot, Villare Cantianum, or Kent Surveyed and Illustrated (1659), 92; W. Oldys, The Life of Dr George Abbot (Guildford, 1777), 63; Lambeth Churchwardens’ Accts. ed. C. Drew (Surr. Rec. Soc. xx), 135. He would be left £20 in Laud’s will, in which the archbishop referred to him as one of his ‘servants’.18W. Laud, Works ed. W. Scott, J. Bliss (Oxford, 1847-60), iv. 445. It was probably on Laud’s recommendation – mediated, perhaps, by his court ally the 1st of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) or the Stanley family, earls of Derby – that Sherman was returned for the Lancashire constituency of Newton to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640. The senior place at Newton went to another carpetbagger and affiliate of the court interest, Sir Richard Wynne.19Supra, ‘Newton’. Sherman received no appointments in the House and made no recorded contribution to debate.

Sherman apparently retained his offices during the first half of the 1640s, despite his close association with Laud.20LPL, COMM/1/103; TK 57, ff. 3-6; Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, DR3/757; CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 126, 394. He seems to have avoided active commitment to either side during the civil war, although in the 1650s he claimed that he had ‘shown his affection to Parliament by advance of horses and money’.21CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 3. Nevertheless, in September 1644 he was assessed at £600 for his twentieth part by the Committee for Advance of Money*, of which he paid at least £460.22CCAM 471; LJ vii. 67a. Moreover, in his will, he referred to a ‘failing of offices as heretofore there was in the last wars’, which suggests that the profits from his ‘registries’ were badly hit during the 1640s.23PROB11/324, f. 410v. In 1655, he petitioned the treasury commissioner in terms that suggest he still enjoyed some income from his offices.24CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 3. And he was apparently wealthy enough to purchase property in Surrey during the 1650s, including a house at Croydon that became his principal residence.25PROB11/324, f. 409v; Surr. Hist. Centre, 2913/2; Hasted, Kent, ix. 465. By 1662, he was apparently in full enjoyment once more of his office as registrar to the vicar-general of Canterbury.26Diary and Corresp. of Dr John Worthington ed. Crossley, 115.

Sherman died in mid-1667 and was buried at St John, Croydon on 7 June.27St John, Croydon par. reg. In his will, he charged his estate with annuities worth £120 and bequests in excess of £3,000.28PROB11/324, ff. 410r-v. He was the first and last of his line to sit in Parliament.