Chiefly remembered as an iconoclast condemned by Star Chamber in 1633, Sherfield was the third son of a Wiltshire farmer and corn-dealer. He claimed in 1608 that he had been educated ‘as well in the country schools as afterwards in the university’, though he does not appear in the records of either Oxford or Cambridge. As a young man he apparently spent some time at Southampton, before entering Lincoln’s Inn in 1598 at the relatively advanced age of 25.
Sherfield’s career received a major boost in late 1608, when another of his Wiltshire contacts, Sir James Ley*, became attorney of the Court of Wards. Within months Ley’s patronage brought Sherfield a marked increase in Wards business, and as his reputation as a specialist in such cases grew, he was able to attract a wider circle of clients, and charge higher fees. In just five years his annual income from this source quadrupled, from £77 in 1608-9 to £304 in 1612-13.
As Sherfield’s confidence grew, so did his self-assertiveness. One of his early investments was a freehold property which brought him a vote in parliamentary elections at Old Sarum. The customary patron there was the 3rd earl of Pembroke, but in 1610 the castle site had been acquired by Robert Cecil, now 1st earl of Salisbury. The 2nd earl (William Cecil, Viscount Cranborne*), who inherited two years later, considered that owning this property entitled him to nominate Members. Aware of this development, Sherfield contacted the earl’s circle in early 1614, and offered to help Salisbury secure control of at least one seat. Although both of Pembroke’s nominees prevailed in the subsequent general election, Sherfield was so gratified by the attention he had received from the Cecil camp that he leased the castle ruins himself shortly afterwards in order to strengthen his new role as electoral arbiter. Three years later, he became steward of Salisbury’s West Country estates, and his principal local agent.
When a new Parliament was summoned in November 1620, Salisbury instructed Sherfield to secure votes for his nominees at Old Sarum. Suddenly anxious about incurring the earl of Pembroke’s displeasure, the lawyer first insisted that Salisbury obtain legal advice about his rights over the borough. However, he subsequently helped him to obtain both seats in the rotten borough, and was himself returned for Southampton.
Sherfield made a confident parliamentary debut, being personally named to 13 committees and two joint conferences and making at least 25 speeches. Predictably, the bulk of this business related to legal matters. Named to scrutinize five bills concerned with such topics as the limitation of actions and the pleading of alienations by Crown tenants (6 Feb. and 19 Mar.), he probably also attended the committee for the bill against informers, since he was subsequently named to the conference with the Lords about this measure (8 Feb. and 19 April). Drawing on his great experience in the Court of Wards, he complained on 17 Feb. that inadequate notice was given before the holding of inquisitions post mortem, and on 15 Mar. clarified a claim made by Sir Thomas Wentworth about feodaries’ practices.
Sherfield played only a peripheral role in the investigation of monopolies, though on 12 Mar. he alerted the Commons to abuses committed in Salisbury by the patentees for licensing alehouses, and was instructed two days later to deliver his evidence in writing. He was also appointed on 11 May to assist his fellow Lincoln’s Inn bencher, William Noye, when he delivered a revised report to the Lords about the alehouses patent. Sherfield backed the expulsion from the House of Sir Robert Lloyd for promoting a monopoly over the engrossing of wills (21 Mar.), and on 4 June called for an exemplary punishment for Randolph Davenport, a witness against the lord chancellor (Sir Francis Bacon*), who had withdrawn his testimony when examined in the Lords. He took a similarly firm line after Sir John Bennet* was exposed as a corrupt judge, and was added to the select committee to draft charges against him (21 and 23 March).
Like many lawyers, Sherfield enjoyed pondering the intricacies of electoral practice. Indeed, his maiden speech on 15 Feb. was a call to delay a decision on the validity of the election while abroad of Sir Dudley Digges and Maurice Abbot until the matter could be debated by a full House. Two days later he disputed the eminent William Hakewill’s views on the proper returning of election writs by sheriffs, though his narrow interpretation on 22 Mar. of the Westminster election was not accepted. He was appointed on 10 Mar. to help draft a bill on elections.
Despite representing a major port, Sherfield did not comment on economic affairs until the Parliament’s second sitting, opposing a proviso on 30 Nov. to exempt Berwick from the bill against wool exports. However, later that day he warned the House not to debate a petition about a new imposition, as this was liable to hinder the more important discussions taking place on war and religion. On this front he was uncompromising. On 3 Dec. he called for the Commons’ petition to James I to be amended, so that it recalled the king’s own statement that the Palatinate must be defended by force if necessary. Even after James indicated that he would not welcome this petition, Sherfield persisted in saying that the king should be asked to read it, and urged the suspension of business until the Commons received a satisfactory response (7 December). He also questioned the tenor of James’s message on 14 Dec. allowing the House to sit for one more week. Asserting that Members were ‘not fit for business’ unless they were assured of the king’s favour, he added, ‘I am not yet satisfied ...in the point of religion’, presumably a reference to the clause in the petition which asked for the Prince to be ‘timely and happily married to one of our own religion’. His subsequent call for the king’s letter to be read again may have been intended as a delaying tactic, for the ensuing debate wrecked that morning’s agenda.
Following the dissolution, Sherfield was recruited in January 1622 as counsel to Sir Edward Coke*, who had been sent to the Tower for causing offence to the king in Parliament. Sherfield’s selection is probably to be explained by the fact that Coke also faced charges in the Court of Wards. That same month Sherfield was summoned before the Privy Council for failing to contribute to the Benevolence for the relief of the Palatinate, and was obliged to pay £43 6s. 8d. His initial reluctance may have had less to do with political objections than with financial difficulties, for in 1623 he calculated that he was £2,000 in debt. His fee-income from Wards suits had peaked in 1620-1 at £547, and had now fallen by over £150 a year. Meanwhile, the burden of providing for his 14 stepchildren was making major inroads into the estate which his wives had brought him, and he was evidently over-reaching his resources.
In the short term, Sherfield’s financial difficulties made no impact on his public career. A vestryman of St. Edmund’s, Salisbury since around 1617, he had emerged as one of the leading godly figures in the city, a firm supporter of efforts to achieve a more radical reformation there. One of the principal initiatives was a scheme launched in June 1623 to tackle simultaneously the problems of drunkenness and poverty by establishing a corporation-run brewhouse, whose profits would be used for poor relief. This project was understandably opposed by Salisbury’s existing brewers, who formed a powerful faction within the corporation, and a political struggle ensued between them and the godly group. In this situation, Sherfield’s election as recorder in December 1623 caused an ‘unreasonable combustion’ in the city, since it represented a major victory for his puritan allies.
At the 1624 general election, Sherfield secured one seat at Old Sarum for a nominee of the earl of Salisbury. He himself was returned for both Southampton and Salisbury boroughs, and without hesitation opted for the latter. Southampton’s corporation attempted to accept his decision gracefully, but declined to co-operate when he proposed as his replacement one Mr. Peasley, probably William Peasley, an associate of his old friend George Calvert. Sherfield’s friends in Salisbury had high expectations of their new Member. One of them, Thomas Squibb, wrote to him in February, enclosing two bills that the corporation wished to have introduced in the Commons, and observed:
The general notice that was taken of you at the last Parliament, hath gotten you such an applause, that you are thought by us a fit man for that service, being of an acute wit and sound judgment, an eloquent orator, and of an undaunted spirit, and such a one that will not spare speech for his country’s good.
Hants RO, 44M69/L35/6, 8-9; L37/26; L39/8; R.E. Ruigh, Parl. of 1624, p. 62 n. 29; Calvert Pprs. ed. D.M. Ellis and K.A. Stuart, 37.
The subjects of the two bills are not recorded, and Sherfield’s performance in 1624 does not indicate that he made any effort to promote them. In fact, he was much quieter than in the previous Parliament, one reason undoubtedly being his repeated absences in late February and early March while he delivered the Lent readings at Lincoln’s Inn. Of his three known speeches, one was merely to confirm which borough he was representing (2 March). In his second intervention he commented on the committee for privileges’ ruling that Chancery affidavits were inadmissible as evidence in election dispute hearings (5 Mar.), while in his third he defended the narrow franchise at the Wiltshire borough of Chippenham (12 March).
When Charles I summoned his first Parliament in April 1625, the earl of Salisbury once more approached the Old Sarum voters. One of them, Thomas Hooper, responded that he could speak only for himself and one other freeholder: ‘all the rest ... are wholly at Mr. Sherfield’s command, who hath hither unto of late made choice of whomsoever it pleased him’. Hooper assumed that Sherfield would co-operate with Salisbury, but in December 1624 the earl had greatly offended him by dismissing his brother Richard, who had been acting as his deputy steward. Salisbury then made matters worse by requesting Sherfield to present him with both seats at Old Sarum. With the steward now unsure of his patron’s favour, he was certainly not prepared to risk offending the earl of Pembroke, who had also approached him with nominations, and therefore he undertook to supply Salisbury with just one burgess-ship as usual. When this offer was rejected, Sherfield presented both seats to Pembroke. He himself was returned once again for Salisbury borough, and secured the junior place there for his stepson, Walter Long II.
Sherfield was named in person to only five committees during the 1625 Parliament, and probably made just four recorded speeches, though he was associated with several items of high-profile business.
Sherfield attended the Oxford sitting, and was twice named to take charge of bills, one relating to sheriffs’ accounts, the other concerned with writs of partition (2 and 6 August). He was also appointed on 6 Aug. to the legislative committee which considered a new oath to be administered to tax collectors.
At the 1626 general election the earl of Salisbury attempted to circumvent Sherfield’s influence at Old Sarum by approaching its voters directly, but the new alliance between Sherfield and Pembroke remained solid, and the latter obtained both seats for his candidates. By contrast, a nomination from Pembroke was rejected at Salisbury, where the corporation had resolved to seek an Act of Parliament to confirm the public brewhouse, and therefore wanted Members who were committed to promoting this legislation. Accordingly, Sherfield was returned there for the third time, with a senior alderman, John Puxton, as his partner. Sherfield apparently also tried to influence the election at Southampton, but was politely rebuffed.
Back in the Commons for the fourth time, Sherfield was much more in evidence than he had been in 1625, receiving 25 committee nominations and making at least 15 speeches. As usual a proportion of his appointments related to legislation on private or legal matters. He is likely to have taken an interest in the bill concerning the estates of the late 3rd earl of Dorset, since he numbered the Sackvilles among his clients, and presumably also followed the progress of the revived bill against secret offices, which he had criticized in the previous year (15 and 17 February).
Appointed on 3 Mar. to the committee to consider alternative procedures for selecting committees, Sherfield attended all three meetings, keeping careful notes. He was also named to the select committee to prepare grievances for presentation to the king (25 May).
Although he considered the councillors of war to be in contempt of the House for refusing to answer questions about their military strategy (8 Mar.), Sherfield barely mentioned the conflict with Spain itself. (An isolated comment on 24 Mar. concerning shipping losses in the Channel is attributable either to him or to Thomas Sherwill.)
Now firmly identified as one of Buckingham’s enemies, Sherfield was dismissed from the Hampshire and Wiltshire benches in October 1626. Around this time his record in the Commons was also deployed against him in a letter to the duke appealing against one of his judgments as recorder of Salisbury. Despite his removal from office, Sherfield remained a major force in his home city, and following a severe plague outbreak there in 1627 he led renewed calls for a thorough-going reformation to avert God’s wrath. His hold over the Old Sarum voters was finally broken in early 1628, when the earls of Salisbury and Pembroke apparently agreed in advance to share the nominations, but he had no trouble securing his own re-election at Salisbury.
Sherfield kept a diary intermittently during the 1628 session, describing debates on 23 days between 24 Mar. and 22 May, with another five days during this period covered by loose notes. Written mainly in English, but sprinkled with law French and Latin, the diary is a very selective record of issues which interested him. Although he systematically noted the names of those who spoke during debates, Sherfield frequently omitted their actual contributions, and never mentioned his own interventions. Indeed, the diary is silent on over half the days when he spoke himself. He praised ‘an excellent, solid speech’ by Sir Benjamin Rudyard on 28 Apr., and considered that Ralph or Robert Goodwin ‘spoke very well’ on 6 May, but in general he avoided personal comment. The text surprisingly contains a number of inaccurate legal citations, but the explanation may lie in part in Sherfield’s complaint on 31 May that he was struggling to follow the debate due to the general hubbub in the Chamber.
During this session the extent of Sherfield’s contribution to proceedings fell again, for although he made 12 speeches he was personally named to only 14 committees. This diminution is unlikely to have been caused by absence, for although he was granted leave to depart on 9 Apr. ‘for special occasions’, he was back in the House three days later.
Sherfield was again vocal on religious affairs, and was keen to promote Parliament as a vehicle for reform. When doubts were raised over whether the Commons were entitled to discuss the contents of the Arminian John Cosin’s Private Devotions, he reminded Members on 24 Mar. that Tudor Parliaments had several times confirmed doctrinal statements. ‘How can we make laws and not debate religion? Never was there more need for this House to be careful in religion, for religion cannot be divided from the state’. The parliamentary attack on Arminianism was now being managed by John Pym, but Sherfield continued to speak out on this issue, on 26 Apr. condemning Richard Montagu for affirming in print that Anglicans and Catholics shared the same core doctrines. On 20 May he was appointed to help examine a petition from a puritan publisher complaining of government censorship. He supported the Lords’ proposal for a petition to the king requesting stricter implementation of the recusancy laws, and, dissatisfied with the current bill to prevent children being educated abroad as Catholics, offered to draft a new one (27 March). Nothing came of this, but as a lawyer he became eligible two days later to join the existing bill committee. He was also nominated personally to legislative committees concerned with the punishment of adultery and scandalous ministers (19 and 22 April).
Judging from his diary, Sherfield’s main preoccupation during this session was the great campaign to protect subjects’ liberties. As recorder of Southampton he must have been well aware of the tensions generated in Hampshire by the large-scale billeting of soldiers there since 1626. His first diary entry records part of a debate on 24 Mar. about abuses committed by deputy lieutenants, who were key figures in implementing this policy, and he made detailed notes of the debates on 8 and 16 Apr. about billeting and martial law. Although he omitted to mention the fact, he himself contributed to the discussion on 8 Apr., offering a legal precedent against billeting. He was also alarmed by the Crown’s increasing use of arbitrary imprisonment. On 29 Mar. he argued at length that the royal prerogative was part and parcel of the Common Law, and that the king should therefore exercise it only in ways which protected the liberty of the subject.
As a lawyer, Sherfield was entitled to attend the committee appointed on 28 Apr. to draft a bill of liberties, and one of his surviving manuscripts suggests that he was at least peripherally involved. During the next few days he made quite extensive notes on the debates about this measure, and on 1 May expressed his support for the general strategy, arguing that legislation offered the only certain guarantee that the king would hold to his undertakings on arbitrary government.
Following Buckingham’s assassination Sherfield was reinstated as a magistrate, but he returned to Westminster in the New Year no more inclined than before to trust the government. His tally of business during the 1629 session was seemingly modest, with nine committee appointments and just five recorded speeches, but in fact he achieved a higher profile than usual. On 21 Jan. he was named to the committee to examine the warrant for suppressing the first print run of the Petition of Right, which contained the king’s fuller answer. This warrant was a serious grievance, but it was another provocative government action, the granting of pardons to the controversial Arminian clerics Richard Montagu, John Cosin, Roger Manwaring and Robert Sibthorpe, all of whom had been attacked in the Commons for Arminianism or supporting arbitrary rule, which exercised Sherfield most. Sherfield chaired the sub-committee appointed on 3 Feb. to investigate the pardons, and in the course of his three reports, made on 4, 6 and 11 Feb., he revealed that they had been procured by no less a figure than Bishop Neile of Winchester, himself a notorious anti-Calvinist. As Manwaring had been condemned by the Commons in 1628, Neile’s contempt for parliamentary judicature helped significantly to sour Members’ attitudes to the Court.
Following the dissolution, Sherfield represented his stepson Walter Long when the latter was indicted for rioting in the Commons’ chamber. Eighteen months later, he was under investigation himself. Having long objected to a stained glass window in St. Edmund’s, Salisbury, whose depiction of God the Father he regarded as idolatrous, he obtained the vestry’s permission in January 1630 to destroy the image. The bishop banned this intended act of iconoclasm, but in October that year Sherfield personally smashed the window. The government responded severely to this defiance of ecclesiastical authority, and two months later Sherfield was again dismissed as a magistrate. Furthermore, an investigation was launched which led to a Star Chamber indictment in early 1632. In the meantime Sherfield was obliged to compound for knighthood with a large fine of £35.
Sherfield’s career now hung in the balance. He resisted private pressure from Charles I immediately after the trial to resign his recorderships, and Lincoln’s Inn registered its support by awarding him the prestigious keepership of the Black Book later that year. Nevertheless, his local reputation lay in tatters, Salisbury’s corporation began to question his handling of the city’s funds, and his personal finances stood on the brink of collapse. An unwise investment in his stepson George Bedford’s project to monopolize the English madder market was just one of many drains on his purse in recent years, and by early 1632 he and some of his friends, notably Sir George Wrottesley and Sir Thomas Jervoise*, were collectively more than £6,000 in debt.