Early Life
According to the most reliable evidence, Augustine Herman was born about 1621 in Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia; the location he himself stated in his last testament. The claim that he was born in 1605, as the son of Augustine Ephraim Herman, and Beatrice, the daughter of Caspar Redel, has never been established, nor has the belief of some that he may have been the son of Abraham Herman, the evangelical pastor of Mšeno. Accordingly, the claims that his father was a wealthy merchant and councilman of Prague, who was killed in 1620 at the Battle of White Mountain during the Thirty Years' War, remains hearsay.
Herman was trained as a surveyor, and was skilled in sketching and drawing. He was also conversant in a number of languages, including Latin, which he successfully applied in his diplomatic assignments with the British.
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