Herris, William (1585 -1622)

According to E. Gordon Duff this is the stamp of Sir William Herris of Cricksea in Essex, (1556-1616) eldest son of Arthur Herris, of Cricksea in Essex, and Dorothy, daughter of Sir William Waldegrave. If this attribution is correct, then the arms were probably also used by Sir William Herris (1585-1622), his second son, and by later members of the family, as several books were published after 1622. William jun. was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he was a Fellow Commoner, matriculated Easter 1608, took his B.A. in 1612, and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn 25 February 1613. The arms are those shown for this branch of the family in the Visitation of Essex of 1612, including the quartering. The crescent points to the son, the father having been the eldest, and the initials P H probably signify Pembroke Hall, i.e. Pembroke College, Cambridge. It cannot be determined whether Sir William left a sum of money for books to be bought for his second son's college, or whether the stamp marks books the son gave to his college himself, or whether he perhaps used it on his own library. The imprint dates complicate matters.