Edward Herbert (judge)

Sir Edward Herbert (c. 1648 – November 1698), titular Earl of Portland, was an English judge who served as Chief Justice of the King's Bench during the reign of James II.

Herbert was a younger son of Sir Edward Herbert, Lord Keeper to Charles II, and his wife, Margaret, daughter of the Master of Requests, Thomas Smith of Abingdon, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire) & Parson's Green, Middlesex, and widow of Thomas Carey of Sunninghill Park, Berkshire.

On 16 Oct. 1685 he was sworn of the Privy Council, and on the 23rd he was called to the degree of Serjeant, giving rings with the significant motto 'Jacobus vincit, triumphat lex,' and the same day took his seat as Chief Justice of the King's Bench in succession to Jeffreys, who had been appointed lord chancellor.

Thereupon his coachman, Arthur Godden, brought a collusive action against him in the king's bench for the prescribed penalty of £500, to which Hales demurred, pleading a dispensation under the great seal.

It was impugned as bad in point of law by Sir Robert Atkyns (1621–1709) in a tract entitled ' An Enquiry into the Power of dispensing with Penal Statutes.'

The latter bill lapsed owing to an early prorogation, but Herbert's estates were sequestrated, the royal palace of Oatlands, Weybridge, Surrey, which had been granted to him by James shortly before his abdication, being given to his brother Arthur, Earl of Torrington, who had taken the opposite side in politics.