Edward Herbert (judge)

Sir Edward Herbert (c. 1648 – November 1698), titular Earl of Portland, was an English judge who served as Chief Justice of the King’s Bench during the reign of James II.

Herbert was a younger son of Sir Edward Herbert, Lord Keeper to Charles II, and his wife, Margaret, daughter of the Master of Requests, Thomas Smith of Abingdon, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire) & Parson's Green, Middlesex, and widow of Thomas Carey of Sunninghill Park, Berkshire. He was brother of Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington and became a scholar of Winchester in 1661, aged 13. He was elected probationer fellow of New College, Oxford, in August 1665, and, having graduated B.A. on 21 April 1609, entered the Middle Temple, where he was called to the bar. He practiced for some years in Ireland, and was there created king's counsel on 31 July 1677.

Returning to England he was appointed Chief Justice of Chester on 25 Oct. 1683, and on 10 February in the following year was knighted at Whitehall. In January 1684-5 he succeeded Sir John Churchill as Attorney General to the Duke of York, on whose succession to the crown he was appointed Attorney General to the queen. On 15 April he was returned to parliament for Ludlow. Like his father he had the highest notions of the royal prerogative, which much helped his advancement. On 16 Oct. 1685 he was sworn of the Privy Council, and on the 23rd he was called to the degree of Serjeant, giving rings with the significant motto 'Jacobus vincit, triumphat lex,' and the same day took his seat as Chief Justice of the King's Bench in succession to Jeffreys, who had been appointed lord chancellor. Jeffreys characteristically exhorted Herbert on this occasion to 'execute the law to the utmost of its vengeance upon those that are now known, and we have reason to remember them, by the name of whigs,' and 'likewise to remember the snivelling trimmers,' because 'our Saviour Jesus Christ says in the gospel that they that are not for us are against us '.

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