Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/172

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Herault
166
Herbert


isles.' In 1611 he obtained from the crown the reversion of the office of bailiff of Jersey, then held by George Paulet, and was sworn on 16 Sept. 1615. The unanimous statement of historians that he had previously officiated as greffier of the Jersey court arises from a confusion with another John Herault, who; died during his lifetime. Herault's first appointment was warmly resented by the governor of Jersey, Sir John Peyton, who contended that the power of appointment was vested in him as governor, Herault replied that the clause ruled upon had been surreptitiously foisted into Peyton's patent on the model of one erroneously or fraudulently procured by Sir Walter Raleigh. He contended successfully for the right of the crown, and was confirmed in his ottice with a fixed salary in 1614. The order in council, dated 9 Aug., having been framed after great deliberation, is still held as an organic law of much importance in the island. In 1617 another royal commission visited the island, but Herault remained victorious, another attack upon him by Peyton being decided in his favour, and the governor ordered to pay 60l. costs. In 1621, however, Herault was suspended on a fresh set of charges, and a substitute appointed. In 1624 this order was reversed, and Herault was reinstated, when the states sent a member of each section, a jurat, a rector, and a constable to welcome him and conduct him to his official seat. Herault died on 11 March 1626, when he was buried in the choir of St. Saviour's Church in his native parish.

Herault was an upright magistrate, who is recorded to have deprived his own brother of an office which he held on the discovery of a trifling malversation; but he is admitted to have been haughty and overbearing in manner. He was the first judge who ever wore robes upon the Jersey bench. His house in St. Saviour's parish was standing in the early part of the present century, but has been since removed. He died unmarried and poor, but his memory survives in Jersey as that of a vindicator of the liberties of the island. His exertions established the constitutional principle that 'the charge of the military forces be wholely in the governor, and the care of justice and civil affairs in the bailiff' (Order in Council, 9 Aug. 1614).

[The best account of Herault's quarrels with Peyton is to be read in Le Quesne's Constitutional Hist. of Jersey. London, 1856. Some documents will also be found in E. Durell's notes to Philip Falle's Account of the Isle of Jersey, Jersey, 1837. The rest of the above information is due to the help of Mr. H. M. Godfray, B.A. Oxon.]

H. G. K.

HERBERT of Bosham (fl. 1162–1186), biographer, has told us himself that he was born at the place whence he took his name, Bosham, or, as he spells it, Boseham, in Sussex. Henry II once taunted him with being 'a priest's son;' 'That I am not,' retorted Herbert, 'for my father did not become a priest till after I was born' (W. Fitzstephen, Mat. for Hist. Becket, iii. 101 ). He may have been the 'Master Herbert' who once, while Thomas Becket was chancellor (1155-62), acted as a messenger from Henry to the emperor (Rad. Freisingen, l. i. c. 7). On the morrow of Thomas's election as primate, in May 1162, Thomas appointed him his special monitor in the discharge of his archiepiscopal duties. In this capacity, and also as the archbishop's master in the study of holy writ, Herbert held a foremost place among the eruditi or scholars in Thomas's household. He accompanied the primate to the council of Tours (May 1163) and to that of Clarendon (January 1164); he was one of the two disciples who alone dared to follow him into the king's hall on the last day of the council at Northampton (13 Oct. 1164); throughout that terrible day he sat at his master's feet, till 'the hour was past,' and the two friends fought their way out together and made their escape, both mounted on one horse (W. Fitzstephen, pp. 58, 68; Herb. Bosham, pp. 307-10); he was in the secret of Thomas's flight over sea, and rejoined him at St. Omer with some money and plate, which he had collected at Canterbury; he shared with Lombard of Piacenza the task of securing for Thomas a welcome from the French king and the pope; and thenceforth, throughout the six years of the primate's exile. Herbert was constantly at his side, sharing his scriptural studies, helping him in his correspondence, comforting and lecturing him by turns through the fits of despondency in which his spirit occasionally broke down, and encouraging him with somewhat needless warmth in his resistance to the king's demands. At Easter 1165 an attempt was made to obtain restitution for Herbert and some of the other clerks who had sacrificed their all for Thomas's sake, and they were called to a meeting with the king at Angers; but Herbert's defiant look and manner, as he made his appearance 'splendidly attired in a mantle of green cloth of Auxerre hanging down to his heels in German fashion,' his refusal to forsake his primate, his outspoken denunciation of the royal 'customs,' and his bold bandying of words with the king, only increased Henry's wrath against him (W. Fitzstephen, pp. 99-101). Soon afterwards Pope Alexander recommended him for the provostship of the