Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury (or Chirbury) KB (3 March 1583 – 5 August 1648Herbert's date of death has been the source of confusion. The date 5 August appears in the burial registers of St Giles in the Fields, and is corroborated by independent documentary evidence. However, his tombstone, erected some years later, apparently bore the date 20 August, and this date was subsequently accepted by many biographers. It is now believed to have been an error: see ) was an English soldier, diplomat, historian, poet and religious philosopher.
He studied multiple languages and disciplines at University College, Oxford, and began his political career in Parliament, representing the Welsh counties Montgomeryshire and Merioneth.
As a soldier, Herbert distinguished himself in the Low Countries, serving under the Prince of Orange. His diplomatic career was most active in Paris, where he aimed to arrange a marriage between Charles, Prince of Wales, and Henrietta Maria, which took place in 1625.
Herbert was granted an Irish peerage as the Baron Herbert of Castle Island in 1624, followed by an English barony in 1629. During the English Civil War, he took a neutral stance, retiring to Montgomery Castle which he surrendered to Parliament.
Herbert is most renowned for his work in philosophy, particularly his treatise De Veritate which positioned him as the "father of English Deism". This seminal work distinguishes truth from revelation, probability, possibility, and falsehood. Other significant works include the De religione gentilium, a pioneering work on comparative religion, and Expeditio Buckinghami ducis, a defence of the Duke of Buckingham's actions in 1627.
Herbert also produced a body of poems, showing his prowess as a faithful disciple of John Donne, and his autobiography provides a lively account of his life up until 1624.
Life
Early life Edward Herbert was the eldest son of Richard Herbert of Montgomery Castle (a member of a collateral branch of the family of the Earls of Pembroke) and of Magdalen, daughter of Sir Richard Newport, and brother of the poet George Herbert. He was born within England at Eyton-on-Severn near Wroxeter, Shropshire. After private tuition, he matriculated at University College, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner, in May 1596. On 28 February 1599, at the age of 15, he married his cousin Mary, then aged 21, ("notwithstanding the disparity of years betwixt us"Autobiography.), who was daughter and heiress of Sir William Herbert (d. 1593). He returned to Oxford with his wife and mother, continued his studies, and learned French, Italian and Spanish, as well as music, riding and fencing. During this period, before he was 21, he started a family.
Herbert entered Parliament as knight of the shire for Montgomeryshire in 1601. On the accession of King James I he presented himself at court and was created a Knight of the Bath on 24 July 1603. From 1604 to 1611 he was Member of Parliament for Merioneth.Bedford, p. 2. From 1605 he was magistrate and appointed sheriff of Montgomeryshire for 1605.Welsh Biography Online
Soldier
In 1608, Edward Herbert went to Paris, with Aurelian Townshend, enjoying the friendship and hospitality of the old Constable de Montmorency at Merlou and meeting King Henry IV; he lodged for many months with Isaac Casaubon. On his return, as he wrote of himself, he was "in great esteem both in court and city, many of the greatest desiring my company". At this period he was close to both Ben Jonson and John Donne, and in Jonson's Epicoene, or the Silent Woman Herbert is probably alluded to.Richard Dutton (editor), Epicene, Or, The Silent Woman: By Ben Jonson (2003), p. 10. Both Donne and Jonson honoured him in poetry.Bedford, pp. 10–11. In December 1609 he fought with a Scottish usher at Greenwich Palace who had snatched a ribbon from Mary Middlemore's hair, and if the Privy Council had not prevented it, would have fought a duel in Hyde Park.Edward Herbert, The Life of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury (London, 1826), pp. 108-9: Norman Egbert McClure, Letters of John Chamberlain, vol. 1 (Philadelphia, 1939), p. 296.
In 1610 Herbert served as a volunteer in the Low Countries under the Prince of Orange, whose intimate friend he became, and distinguished himself at the capture of Juliers from the Holy Roman Emperor. He offered to decide the war by engaging in single combat with a champion chosen from among the enemy, but his challenge was declined. Back in England in 1611 he survived an assault in London by Sir John Eyre who accused him of having an affair with his wife Dorothy.Christine Jackson, Courtier, Scholar, and Man of the Sword: Lord Herbert of Cherbury and His World (Oxford, 2021), pp. 91-92. He paid a visit to Spinola, in the Spanish camp near Wezel, and afterwards to the elector palatine at Heidelberg, subsequently travelling in Italy. At the instance of the Duke of Savoy he led an expedition of 4,000 Huguenots from Languedoc into Piedmont to help the Savoyards against Spain, but after nearly losing his life in the journey to Lyon he was imprisoned on his arrival there, and the enterprise came to nothing. Thence he returned to the Netherlands and the Prince of Orange, arriving in England in 1617.
Diplomat In 1619, Herbert was made ambassador to Paris, taking in his entourage Thomas Carew. He became involved with the case of Piero Hugon who had stolen jewels belonging to Anne of Denmark.Sidney Lee, Autobiography of Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (London, 1886), p. 343. A quarrel with de Luynes and a challenge sent by him to the latter occasioned his recall in 1621. After the death of de Luynes, Herbert resumed his post in February 1622.
He was popular at the French court and showed considerable diplomatic ability. His chief objects were to accomplish the marriage between Charles, Prince of Wales and Henrietta Maria, and to secure the assistance of Louis XIII for Frederick V, Elector Palatine. He failed in the latter, and was dismissed in April 1624.
Herbert returned home greatly in debt and received little reward for his services beyond the Irish peerage of Baron Herbert of Castle Island on 31 May 1624 and the English barony of Herbert of Cherbury, or Chirbury, on 7 May 1629.
Later life In 1632, Herbert was appointed a member of the council of war. He attended the king at York during the First Bishops' War with Scotland in 1639, and in May 1642 was imprisoned by the parliament for urging in the House of Lords the addition of the words "without cause" to the resolution that the king violated his coronation oath by making war on parliament. He determined after this to take no further part in the struggle that became the English Civil War, retired to Montgomery Castle, and declined the king's summons to Shrewsbury, pleading ill-health.
On 5 September 1644 he surrendered the castle, by negotiation, to the Parliamentary forces led by Sir Thomas Myddelton. He returned to London, submitted, and was granted a pension of £20 a week. In 1647 he paid a visit to Pierre Gassendi at Paris, and died in London the following summer, aged 65, being buried in the church of St Giles in the Fields.
Family Herbert left two sons, Richard (c. 1600 – 1655), who succeeded him as 2nd Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and Edward. Richard's sons, Edward Herbert (died 1678) and Henry Herbert (died 1691), each succeeded to the title, after which it became extinct. It was revived in 1694 when Henry Herbert (1654–1709), son of Sir Henry Herbert (1594–1673), last surviving brother of the 1st Lord Herbert, was created Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Lord Herbert's cousin and namesake, Sir Edward Herbert, was also a prominent figure in the English Civil War.
De Veritate Herbert's major work is the De Veritate, prout distinguitur a revelatione, a verisimili, a possibili, et a falso (On Truth, as It Is Distinguished from Revelation, the Probable, the Possible, and the False).On Truth, as it is Distinguished from Revelation, the Probable, the Possible, and the False) (Paris, 1624; London, 1633; translated into French in 1639 and into English in 1937. He published it on the advice of Grotius.
In the De Veritate, Herbert produced the first purely metaphysical treatise, written by an Englishman. Herbert's real claim to fame is as "the father of English Deism". Herbert's common notions of religion are the famous five articles, which became the charter of the English deists. Charles Blount, in particular, acted as a publicist for Herbert's idea.
De Veritate has been placed on the index of forbidden books of the Catholic Church.
Five Articles (Herbert's Common Notions of Religion) 'Deism' (2020) In Our Time, BBC Radio 4. 08 October 2020.
That God exists; That God ought to be worshipped; That virtue must be a chief part of that worship; That you must repent of all wickedness; and You will face reward or punishment in the afterlife depending on how you lived your life.
Other works
The De religione gentiliumCompleted 1645, published Amsterdam, 1663, translated into English by William Lewis, London, 1705. was a posthumously published work, influenced by the De theologia gentili of Gerardus Vossius, and seen into print by Isaac Vossius. It is an early work on comparative religion, and gives, in David Hume's words, "a natural history of religion." It is also to some extent dependent on the De dis Syris of John Selden, and the Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim of Marin Mersenne.Bedford, p. 179. By examining pagan religions Herbert finds the universality of his five great articles, and that these are clearly recognisable. The same vein is maintained in the tracts De causis errorum, an unfinished work on logical fallacies, Religio laici,Wright, Herbert G. “An Unpublished Manuscript by Lord Herbert of Cherbury Entitled ‘Religio Laici.’” The Modern Language Review, vol. 28, no. 3, 1933, pp. 295–307. JSTOR website Retrieved 24 July 2025. and Ad sacerdotes de religione laici (1645).
Herbert's first historical work was the Expedition Buckinghami ducis,Published in a Latin translation in 1656 and in the original English by the Earl of Powis for the Philobiblon Society in 1860. a defence of the Duke of Buckingham's conduct on the La Rochelle expedition of 1627. The Life and Raigne of King Henry VIII (1649) is considered good for its period, but hampered by limited sources.
His poems, published in 1665 (reprinted and edited by John Churton Collins in 1881), show him in general a faithful disciple of Donne. His satires are poor, but a few of his lyrical verses show power of reflection and true inspiration, while his use of the metre afterwards employed by Tennyson in his "In Memoriam" is particularly happy and effective. His Neo-Latin poems are evidence of his scholarship. Three of these had appeared together with the De causis errorum in 1645.
To these works must be added A Dialogue between a Tutor and a Pupil,1768; a treatise on education, manuscript in the Bodleian Library. which is of disputed authenticity;Upheld by Günter Gawlick in his 1971 facsimile edition, after this had been cast in doubt by Rossi. and a treatise on the king's supremacy in the Church (manuscript in the Record Office and at the Queen's College, Oxford). His autobiography, first published by Horace Walpole in 1764, a naïve and amusing narrative, is much occupied with his duels and amorous adventures, and breaks off in 1624. Missing from it are his friendships and the diplomatic side of his embassy in France, in relation to which he described only the splendour of his retinue and his social triumphs.