George Herbert (1593–1633) was born in Montgomery Castle, Wales, to Richard and Magdalen Herbert. After receiving his early education at home, Herbert attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degrees with distinction. At the age of twenty-seven, Herbert was elected public orator of Cambridge, a position fitting a young man of political ambition. Seven years later, however, Herbert resigned his position, turning from Parliament and politics to religion. He married Jane Danvers in 1629 and, one year later, after being ordained by the Anglican Church, he accepted a clerical appointment in Bermerton. Known as "Holy Mr. Herbert," he devoted himself to his rural Bermerton parish and wrote poetry. Like the Metaphysical poet John Donne, who was a friend of the aristocratic Herbert family, Herbert struggled with questions of spiritual emptiness. During his brief three years as a country rector, he finished writing a collection of 160 religious poems known as The Temple. Nearing his fortieth birthday and gravely ill with tuberculosis, Herbert gave the manuscript to a friend, Nicholas Ferrar. After Herbert's death in 1633, Ferrar published the first edition of The Temple, the major work upon which Herbert's reputation still stands.