Family and Education

bap. Sept. 1612, 1st s. of Edward Herrys of Great Baddow, by Elizabeth, da. of Robert Taverner of Aveley. educ. L. Inn 1628, called 1636. m. lic. 19 May 1645, Bridget, da. and h. of Thomas Glascock of Doddinghurst, wid. of Thomas Luther of Kelvedon Hatch, s.p. suc. fa. by 1648.1

Offices Held

Bencher, L. Inn 1648; commr. for militia, Essex Mar. 1660, j.p. July 1660-d., commr. for assessment Aug. 1660-1.2

Biography

Herrys came from a cadet branch of a family settled in Essex in early Tudor times which first entered Parliament in 1572. A lawyer, he took no known part in the Civil War. He was involved in a double return for the junior seat at Maldon with Henry Mildmay at the general election of 1660. The election was declared void on 14 May, and Herrys was returned at the ensuing by-election after the Restoration. A firm Anglican, he was a moderately active Member of the Convention, in which he was named to 26 committees and spoke on ten occasions, chiefly on religious matters. He favoured committing the bill for the religious settlement and summoning Convocation. A member of the committee on the bill for settling ecclesiastical livings, he seconded the motion of Heneage Finch on 14 Aug. to recommit it, and was among those ordered to give directions to the clerk of the Commons for engrossing it. He opposed the Lords’ arguments for excepting all the King’s judges from the indemnity bill, and demanded a conference. In September he was appointed to the committees for settling the establishment of Dunkirk, for the supplementary disbandment bill and for preventing inconveniences from usurped grants.3

When Parliament met again after the recess Herrys opposed the motion for giving statutory force to the Worcester House declaration for modified episcopacy, but he was named to the committee to draw up a bill, as well as to those to bring in a supplementary poll bill, and to consider the attainder bill. On 16 Nov. he moved for a second reading of the militia bill. He opposed the bill for the restoration of the dukedom of Norfolk to the mad Earl of Arundel, declaring that ‘it was promoted by his Lordship’s brother, who was a known Papist and sought it for himself’. He was no friend to the corporation of London, opposing both the reimbursement of the City’s expenses for the reception of the King, and the powers sought to raise money for the London militia, saying that ‘it was only a design of some few officers of the city to promote the bill for their own advantage’. He is unlikely to have stood again. He was buried at Great Baddow on 3 Mar. 1662, the last of the family to serve in Parliament.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / Gillian Hampson / Geoffrey Jaggar

Notes

• 1. Great Baddow par. reg.; Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 415; Morant, Essex, i. 191; ii. 54; London Mar. Lic. ed. Foster, 672; PCC 84 Laud.
• 2. Essex RO, Q/SR 386-7.
• 3. Vis. Essex, 59; Morant, ii. 54, 74; CJ, viii. 3, 25; Bowman diary, ff. 55v, 66v, 134, 138, 154v.
• 4. Old Parl. Hist. xxiii. 5, 15, 32, 46, 50; Great Baddow par. reg.