Sir Thomas Herbert

Sir Thomas Herbert, 1st Baronet (1606–1682), was an English traveller, historian and a gentleman of the bedchamber of King Charles I while Charles I was in the custody of Parliament (from 1647 until the King's execution in January 1649).

Herbert was born to a Yorkshire family, Several of Herbert's ancestors were aldermen and merchants in that area – such as his grandfather and benefactor, Alderman Herbert (d. 1614) – and they traced a connection with the Earls of Pembroke. After attending Tonbridge School, he is said to have studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Jesus College, Oxford (1621), but afterwards removed to Cambridge, through the influence of his uncle Dr Ambrose Akroyd.

In 1627 William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, procured his appointment in the suite of Sir Dodmore Cotton, then starting as ambassador for Persia with Sir Robert Shirley. Sailing in March they visited the Cape, Madagascar, Goa and Surat; landing at Gambrun on the Persian coast (10 January 1628), they travelled inland to Ashraf and thence to Qazvin, where both Cotton and Shirley died, and whence Herbert made extensive travels in the Persian hinterland, visiting Kashan, Baghdad and Amol etc. On his return voyage Herbert touched at Ceylon, the Coromandel coast, Mauritius and St Helena. He reached England in 1629, travelled in Europe in 1630–1631, married in 1632 and retired from court in 1634 (his prospects perhaps blighted by Pembroke's death in 1630), after this he resided on his Tintern estate and elsewhere until the English Civil War, siding with Parliament.

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