# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Herring, Julines

​HERRING, JULINES (1582–1644), puritan divine, was born at Flambere-Mayre, Montgomeryshire (Clarke, Martyrologie, 1683, p. 462), in 1582. When three years old he was removed to Coventry, where his father appears to have been in business. He was educated under Perkin, minister at Morechurch in Shropshire, and at the grammar school at Coventry, and when fifteen years old was sent to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. After he had proceeded M.A., he returned to Coventry, and studied divinity under Humphrey Fenn [q. v.], vicar of Holy Trinity in that town. He objected to subscription, but obtained orders from an Irish bishop, and became a frequent and successful preacher in Coventry. Through the interest of Arthur Hildersam [q. v.], minister of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, he obtained the living of Calke, near Melbourne, Derbyshire, where he remained about eight years, attracting so many hearers that the church would not hold them. During this incumbency he married Miss Gellibrand, daughter of the minister to the English congregation at Flushing, by whom he had thirteen children. He was apparently compelled to resign his living on account of his scruples as to ceremonies. In 1618 he hired the hall of the Drapers' Company at Shrewsbury as a preaching place, and in the same year was appointed Tuesday lecturer, and preacher at the Sunday midday service at St. Alkmond's Church in that town. He was watched by spies, but escaped prosecution in the ecclesiastical courts, although Archbishop Laud is reported to have said he ‘would pickle that Herring of Shrewsbury’ (Brook, Hist. of the Puritans, ii. 491). Complaints of his nonconformity were finally lodged before Thomas Morton, bishop of Lichfield, who, though satisfied of Herring's integrity, was obliged to suspend him. His friends obtained temporary removals of the suspension, but it was reimposed on account of his persisting in ignoring ceremonies. Leach, the vicar of St. Alkmond's, had been reported to the Star-chamber to be ‘no preacher,’ and Herring's preaching appears to have been often connived at by the authorities. While at Shrewsbury he refused several offers of a pastorate in New England. In 1633 he refused the offer of a chaplaincy by the Drapers' Company, and about 1635 went to reside at Wrenbury in Cheshire, where he ‘instructed’ from house to house, until in 1636 he accepted an invitation to become co-pastor with one Rulice to the English church at Amsterdam. On account of the edict forbidding ministers to leave the country without a license, he had much difficulty in escaping, and did not arrive in Holland till 20 Sept. 1637. He was warmly welcomed, the magistrates of Amsterdam paying the expenses of his journey. He died at Amsterdam, after a lingering illness, on 28 March 1644. Fuller says ‘he was a pious man, and a painful and useful preacher,’ and Samuel Clarke affirms that he was ‘a hard student, a solid and judicious divine, and in life a pattern of good works.’
[Brook's Hist. of the Puritans, ii. 492; Clarke's Martyrologie, pp. 462–72; Owen and Blakeney's Hist. of Shrewsbury, ii. 279–80; Fuller's Worthies, pt. iv. p. 47.]
A. C. B.