Julines Herring

[8] Eyton, the pioneering historian of Shropshire, considered that More probably began as a chapelry of Lydbury North but "became independent, at a period which the earliest Records fail to reach.

[10] The older Dictionary of National Biography avers that Perkin was a minister at Morechurch:[3] there is a Churchmoor, further east, in Lydbury North parish, but it is a hamlet with no chapel.

Clarke credits him with an early interest and delight in the Bible passages that deal with faith and repentance – themes typically of great concern to Protestants.

University records show he graduated BA in the academic year 1603-4: Clarke thought Herring returned to Coventry as a Master of Arts.

[17] Herring was not the first member of Hilderham's circle appointed to Calke: Robert Bainbridge, the patron, had earlier installed George More, a close associate of Hildersham and of John Darrell.

During the 1590s More took part in the religious exercises of the Hildersham circle, which included fasting, prayer, lectures and fellowship,[18] and supported Darrell in the highly controversial work of exorcism.

[19] Clarke considered Calke a relatively secure base for Herring because it was a peculiar jurisdiction exempt from episcopal authority, as well as bringing the support of a sympathetic patron.

He was a militant Protestant, three times MP for Derby, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London during March 1587 after he had demanded the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots and supported Anthony Cope's proposal for a radical reform of Church government: he and his friends made the mistake of continuing to argue outside the chamber of the House of Commons, where they were not protected by parliamentary privilege.

"[15] A clear and powerful preacher, he drew an audience from up to twenty towns and villages, with Sunday congregations in good weather so large that many were forced to cluster around the windows to hear him.

Clarke thought that the effectiveness of Herring's preaching as part of the Hildersham circle was proved by the very high retention of Puritan converts in the region, who remained with the cause through the "broken dividing times" that followed: presumably meaning the period of Thorough or absolute monarchy, the English Civil War and the Regicide.

Herring seems to have had a profound influence over Simeon Ashe, later a moderate Presbyterian preacher and an intimate of important parliamentarian leaders, including Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke and Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester.

This was provided by Rowland Heylyn, a merchant of Welsh ancestry, educated at Shrewsbury School and a former parishioner of St Alkmund's, who had become immensely wealthy and powerful in the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers in London.

[29] Heylyn had two sisters living in Shrewsbury, Ann and Eleanor, who were married respectively to John Nicholls and Richard Hunt, powerful local politicians who were associates of William Rowley, described by Clarke as "a wise religious man.

[34] In addition, he repeated the Sunday sermon that evening, alternating between the houses of three powerful Puritan merchants: Edward Jones, George Wright and Rowley.

As early as 1620, just after Thomas Morton became Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, Herring was reported to the authorities for failure to use the prayer book and to receive or administer the sacraments.

His response had been eirenic in spirit,[35] if sometimes exacting and abrasive in person: he had, for example, given Thomas Paget, a leading Lancashire Puritan minister, 10 shillings towards his legal expenses after compelling him to appear with a list of written arguments against signing with the cross in baptism.

[41] An episcopal visitation of 1626, possibly attended by Morton himself, found Studley at loggerheads with the town's Puritans and many of the complaints and counter-claims were directly related to Herring's preaching ministry.

Studley reported Rowley and Wright for holding preaching and prayer meetings in their homes on Sunday evenings, suggesting that the episcopal court should judge whether or not these constituted conventicles.

Herring was opposed to this group, and Clarke reports his frequent observation: It is a sin of an high nature to unchurch a Nation at once, and that this would become the spring of many other fearful errours, for separation will eat like a Gangrene into the heart of Godlinesse.

"[49] However, after Browne's death in 1632 and the appointment of the Puritan James Betton to St Mary's,[50] the entry for Herring's son Theophilus on 5 September 1633 again uses the title "Minister".

[53] His distance from any radicalism strengthened his position, so that it was admitted even by his enemies: Though he be scrupulous in matter of ceremony, yet he is a loyal subject unto the King, and a true friend unto the state.

[34]Herring continued to make and maintain links with moderate Presbyterian preachers in the region and beyond, gaining recognition for Shrewsbury as the centre of a Puritan network.

Bishop Wright's visitation of the town provided Studley with an opportunity for a triumphal reading of ordinances on the decoration of churches, but also for a denunciation of his opponents that revealed the depth of opposition.

[57] Studley went on to write a savage denunciation of Puritanism, The Looking-Glass of Schisme, claiming that religious nonconformity had influenced the commission of sensational murders at Clun.

"[63] Clarke claimed that Herring only moved to Wrenbury after despairing of his future in Shrewsbury, but it seems that he had not taken steps formally to terminate his lectureship or even his tenancy.

From the outset, he took a full part in the liturgy and culture of the Dutch Reformed Church, keeping the fast decreed by the States General of the Netherlands for the success of the army at the Siege of Breda.

"[68] In 1640 he welcomed the invasion of northern England by a Scottish Covenanter army expressing the hope that the Scots "might be instruments of much good, but of no blood nor division between the two Nations."

Clarke describes him as "one of God's special Remembrancers, in behalf of England, begging fervently that the Lords and Commons in Parliament, might be preserved from the two destructive rocks of pride and self-interest."

[70] In the event, the corporation proved supine at the commencement of hostilities and a royalist coup led by Francis Ottley allowed the king's field army to occupy Shrewsbury on 20 September.

The parishioners of Chad's parish in Shrewsbury subsequently switched their attention to Thomas Paget, Herring's co-pastor at Amsterdam, and in 1646 elected him their minister.