HUGHES, Alexander (by 1532-70/79), of London and Cheshunt, Herts.

Alexander Hughes was a stranger to the constituency for which he sat in the second Marian Parliament. The nominee of Richard Phelips usually obtained the senior place at Wareham during the 1550s, and Phelips could have been the intermediary whereby he was returned; through William Wynter, whose candidature in 1563 was to be preferred to his own at Portsmouth, he had a link with two Phelips kinsmen and later Members for the borough, the brothers Hugh and Matthew Smith. A colleague of his in augmentations, Matthew Colthurst, stood close to the 1st Earl of of Pembroke, who as vice-admiral of Dorset perhaps favoured his election. Little trace has been found of Hughes outside the execution of his office; on the accession of Elizabeth he sued out a general pardon and four years later he was listed as a pensioner of Edward Hastings, Baron Hastings of Loughborough. He died intestate and letters of administration of his estate were granted on 3 Aug. 1579 to Edmund Cowper of the Middle Temple.3Ibid. 1558-60, p. 159; C193/31/3-7; Lansd. 7(15), f. 31; PCC Admins. ed. Glencross, ii. 120.