Herbert, Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583 -1648)

Edward Herbert was the eldest son of Richard Herbert, of Llyssin, and Magdalen Newport. He went to court in 1603, was made a Knight of the Bath, served on the Continent as a soldier and as ambassador to France from 1619 to 1624, and was created Lord Herbert of Cherbury in 1629. The elder brother of the poet, George Herbert, he wrote several books including The life and raigne of King Henry the VIII, and an Autobiography. He left his Latin and Greek books to Jesus College, Oxford, where there is a full class catalogue of about nine hundred books from his library, the majority of which are still there. This catalogue was printed by C. J. Fordyce and T. M. Knox as an appendix to their article `The library of Jesus College' in the Papers of the Oxford Bibliographical Society v (1936) 75 115. The remaining part of the library descended to the Earl of Powis, and was sold in part in the Powis sales at Sotheby's 17 January 1956 and 20 March 1967. The Sothebys Catalogue of 20 March 1967 illustrates some of the armorial stamps and ownership marks. Stamps 4 and 5 were probably cut to be used on the presentation copies on which they are found, and were not used as ownership stamps.