HERLE, Thomas (1622-81), of Luxulyan, Cornw.

Thomas Herle was a younger brother of Edward Herle* of Prideaux, and his political career was very much in his brother’s shadow. Herle entered Exeter College, Oxford, in December 1639, at the age of 14, and he was no older than 16 at the outbreak of the first civil war.6Al. Ox. There is no evidence that Herle served in the parliamentarian army with his brother. In November 1648 he resumed his education, being admitted to the Middle Temple, bound with the prominent Devonshire Presbyterian, John Maynard*, and the son of Nicholas Leach* of Penpill, Cornwall, who was admitted on the same day.7MTR ii. 970-1. Whether Herle practised as a lawyer during the 1650s is uncertain, and his other activities during this time are entirely obscure.

Herle was returned for Grampound to the third protectorate Parliament, but made no visible impact on its proceedings. Although he was among those recommended by Richard Lobb* as suitable militia captains in August 1659, he followed his brother in siding with more conservative Cornishmen, and both went on to sign the declaration drawn up at Truro on 27 December 1659, calling for a ‘free Parliament’ and opposing the army’s intervention in politics.8FSL, X.d.483 (127); Publick Intelligencer no. 210 (2-9 Jan. 1660), 998 (E.773.41). Herle was re-elected for Grampound in April 1660, and in 1661 was returned for Tregony, although he made very little impact on either Parliament.9HP Commons 1660-1690. After the Restoration he was living in the parish of Luxulyan, where he paid his poll tax in 1660, and he was probably staying with his brother at Prideaux.10Cornw. Hearth Tax, 238. He never married, and his will, drawn up in July 1680, was extremely brief, leaving modest sums to cousins of the Glyn family and a sister, Anne Allen, and ‘the rest of my goods and chattels and other advantages’ to his younger brother, Charles Herle.11PROB11/366/424.