HYDE (HIDE), Robert (1596-1665), of Dinton, Wilts. and The Close, Salisbury.

Hyde belonged to one of the great legal and parliamentary dynasties of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. His grandfather, Laurence Hyde† (d. 1590), sat in three Elizabethan Parliaments, and the latter’s four sons all followed him into the Commons, two of them also achieving high legal office.36Vis. Wilts. 1623, 98-9; Hammond, ‘Notes on the Hydes’, 344; HP Commons, 1558-1603. The eldest of our MP’s uncles, Robert Hyde† of Hatch, represented Chippenham in 1584 and 1586, and Great Bedwyn in the Addled Parliament, while the youngest, Sir Nicholas Hyde† (d. 1631) sat in five Parliaments between 1597 and 1625, while also becoming a Middle Temple bencher, serjeant-at-law, and eventually chief justice of king’s bench, as well as counsel to George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham.37Prest, Rise of the Barristers, 372; Baker, Serjeants at Law, 520; M. Temple Bench Bk. 99-100; HP Commons 1558-1603. Their brother, Henry Hyde† (d. 1634) of Purton, who was elected at Ludgershall and Old Sarum during the reign of Elizabeth, was the father of Edward Hyde*, the future royalist grandee and earl of Clarendon.38HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-1629.

Hyde’s father represented Heytesbury in 1597, and Marlborough in 1601 and 1604, and his legal career saw him serve as retained counsel to the dean and chapter of Salisbury, bencher of Middle Temple, and attorney-general to Queen Anne of Denmark. All seven of his sons achieved prominent positions within their professions. Edward and Thomas both became doctors of divinity, while James was appointed principal of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and Alexander was bishop of Salisbury. Lawrence† represented Hindon in 1624 and 1628, and Frederick† was made a serjeant-at-law, and serjeant to Queen Catherine of Braganza.39Vis. Wilts. 1623, 98-9; Hammond, ‘Notes on the Hydes’, 344; Baker, Serjeants at Law, 520; M. Temple Bench Bk. 126; HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-1629; HP Commons 1660-1690.

Robert Hyde, who was baptised at Salisbury Cathedral, was clearly educated for the law, and perhaps also for high office, from a young age. Although he was admitted to Magdalen Hall in March 1610, he had already been enrolled at the Middle Temple two years earlier, at the age of only 12, during his father’s period as reader. By November 1610, moreover, Hyde had secured admission to the chamber of his father, now master of the bench, and Henry Campion*, and pursued his studies supported by an allowance of £50 a year.40MTR ii. 530; B. Villiers, ‘The date of Clarendon’s first marriage’, EHR xxxii. 407. After being called to the bar in 1617, Hyde pursued a successful legal career, alongside friends like Bulstrode Whitelocke* and the future attorney general Peter Ball*, the latter of whom was his sometime chamber fellow.41Whitelocke, Diary, 49; MTR ii. 728, 739. During the 1630s Hyde was regularly employed as counsel during the Western Circuit assizes, and in June 1635 he was made recorder of Salisbury.42Western Circuit Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 12, 51, 63-4, 68, 79, 103, 104, 120, 136, 158, 164, 174, 232; Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, f. 391. Further honours quickly followed, and at the request of his father Hyde was made a bencher of the Middle Temple in November 1639, and appointed Lent reader.43MTR ii. 876, 878. Moreover, having served since at least 1638 as retained counsel to the 3rd earl of Hertford (William Seymour†), in June 1640 the latter combined with Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, to promote Hyde’s candidacy as a serjeant-at-law.44CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 186; Baker, Serjeants at Law, 187, 400.

It is difficult to establish whether Hyde’s meteoric rise to prominence within the legal community was replicated in local government during this period. He was nominated to the county bench in 1636, but is not always readily distinguishable from his uncle, Robert Hyde of Hatch, who served alongside him.45CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 38. It is not possible to be certain, therefore, which man was accused in 1636 of plotting the removal of Samuel Yerworth, minister at Hindon, or which of the namesakes was alleged to have been ‘peremptorily adverse’ by one of the purveyors for timber in 1638.46CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 217; 1637-8, p. 480. As a rising lawyer with powerful court connections, however, Hyde was an obvious candidate for the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, and he was returned at Salisbury alongside Michael Oldisworth* on 30 March.47Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, f. 416. Although he can be presumed to have the backing of Pembroke, he owed his election to his position as recorder, but there was opposition to him within the borough: gloomy predictions were made regarding his chances on the very day of the election.48CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 604. In the event, the opposition proved fruitless, and there is no evidence that the result was challenged. Hyde took his seat in the Commons, but his only recorded activity involved nomination to the committee of privileges.49CJ ii. 4a.

Controversy flared, however, during the election in October 1640, when the re-election of both Hyde and Oldisworth made both men targets for opponents of the court.50Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, f. 421. Oldisworth was challenged on the grounds that he was not a resident citizen. In 1625 the corporation had declared that candidates must be both freemen and resident at the time of the election, but this decision had been overturned at the request of the earl of Pembroke in February 1640, in order to secure a place for Oldisworth, his secretary.51Wilts, RO, G23/1/3, ff. 318v, 416. This manoeuvre clearly left a bitter taste in the mouths of some townsmen, but it was not the cause of animosity towards Hyde. The latter’s return was opposed because of his political views, thus indicating the extent to which national issues could affect local elections. Hyde took his seat at the opening of the session, and contributed to a debate regarding monopolies on 9 November.52Procs. LP i. 72. Before the end of the month, however, a petition had been presented against him to the Commons, signed by a raft of local puritans, including John Dove*, William Stone*, Richard Hill*, and Humphrey Ditton*.53CJ ii. 39b; Harl. 541, f. 91v; Hoare, Hist. Wilts. vi (Old and New Sarum), 391.

Although the text of this petition is now lost, its content is evident from the debates which followed its presentation. The townsmen claimed that Hyde had ‘procured himself unduly to be returned burgess for Sarum’, and accused him of ‘injustice in his place as recorder of that town against many of the chief burgesses and others that had opposed his election [to] the last parliament’. Moreover, not only had he declared himself ‘to be against the breeding of poor men’s children in learning’ – a cause espoused by some godly townsmen – but he had also committed ‘crimes’ including being ‘an allower of Ship Money’ (which he had countenanced ‘by his [legal] opinions’), ‘an enemy to preaching’, and an advocate of its ‘suppression’. Furthermore, he was ‘for joining the clergy with the town in power, which is most prejudicial to the town’.54Procs. LP i. 373, 380, 382-3. Hyde was considered, in other words, to be both a court flunkey and a Laudian.

The Commons appointed a committee to consider this petition, and the report delivered on 3 December revealed significant divisions within the House.55CJ ii. 39b. Reporting from the committee, Sir Francis Seymour*, another Wiltshire MP, noted that ‘it appeared by [Hyde’s] own letter that he forwarded Ship Money and advised to get it by violence’, but in characteristically moderate fashion he sought to downplay allegations regarding Hyde’s religion, by suggesting that although he ‘did advise the schoolmaster in Salisbury to catechise the scholars’ without ‘expounding it’, he only opposed Friday lectures on the grounds that they ‘hindered their town business’.56Procs. LP i. 438-9. In the debate which followed, Sir Walter Erle* likewise defended Hyde, at least on this rather minor point, by saying that the comment regarding the education of ‘poor mechanic men’s children’ occurred in the context of a schoolmaster who was ‘troubled with twenty poor children’.57Procs. LP i. 439.

Hyde’s critics included Denzil Holles*, who responded by claiming that a much more serious problem was Hyde’s recommendation regarding the relationship between catechising and biblical explication, and his hope that ‘there would be an order taken with lectures’. Holles also claimed that Hyde gave 40 shillings ‘to an ordinary at a canonical lecture and said that their souls were as well saved when there was no sermon… as well as since there were more’. Furthermore, Holles reminded the House that Hyde had promoted Ship Money even before the judicial pronouncement in its favour, and asserted that his threats to those who had opposed his election involved the claim that ‘that they had spoken against the state because they had spoken against monopolies’.58Procs. LP i. 439. As the debate continued, Hyde was defended by Lucius Cary* (the future 2nd Viscount Falkland), and attacked by Sir John Hotham*, who stated that ‘if these matters were fully proved against him, his voice should be to turn him out of the House’.59Procs. LP i. 439. On the issue of Hyde’s support for Ship Money, and to a lesser extent on his religious pronouncements, the House thus found itself split along faultlines which would later produce parliamentarian and royalist parties.

These allegations against Hyde were not deemed sufficient to merit his exclusion from the Commons, however, and he retained his seat. On 10 December he was named to a committee to consider a mysterious petition discovered on Salisbury Plain which he himself had reported to the House and which was described as a ‘libellous fancy’.60CJ ii. 48b; Procs. LP i. 554, 558. But a second challenge to his position soon emerged, involving a double return, and this ensured that Hyde’s position in the Commons remained in question until 3 March 1641. On that day, a report from the committee of privileges indicated that while Hyde and Oldisworth had been returned by the corporation, two local puritans, John Dove* and John Ivie, had been chosen by the commonalty. The claim made by John Selden*, that the franchise lay in the corporation (the mayor, the ‘twenty-four’ aldermen and the ‘forty-eight’ common councillors or assistants), was challenged by Robert Holborne* and Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, the latter of whom apparently claimed that this was ‘against the hereditary right of the subjects of England’. When the question was put, moreover, a division was required, ‘some doubt arising which number was the greater, and neither being willing to yield to the other’.61Procs. LP i. 612-3. In the end, however, Hyde’s supporters, represented by Sir Edward Ayscough* and Sir John Corbet*, easily defeated his opponents, led by Sir Henry Vane (?II)* and John Ashburnham*.62CJ ii. 95b-96a. D’Ewes commented, sourly, that

many gave their voices out of affection, especially for the sake of the earl of Pembroke … and yet I was exceedingly troubled to see a business for which upon all the debate I had heard in it, I could see not colour of justice or law to be carried by so great a number of voices against the vote of the religious and sound men of the House.63Procs. LP i. 613.

Long before Hyde’s position in the House was safe, he had emerged as a figure of some importance in relation to legal business. He was appointed to committees regarding the jurisidiction of the council of the north, the council of the Marches, and the Stannary courts, and he delivered a report from the committee regarding the charges against leading Caroline judges.64CJ ii. 57a, 57b, 83b. He was also permitted to act as counsel for Lord Herbert of Chirbury (Sir Edward Herbert†), in the House of Lords.65CJ ii. 60b. Hyde’s other roles included chairing on at least two occasions in February 1641 the committee of the whole House regarding the issue of supply.66CJ ii. 87b, 88a, 89b. In each case, it can be presumed that Hyde opposed reform, and supported the crown and its allies.

Having been granted leave to return to Salisbury in order to attend the sessions on 23 February 1641, Hyde remained in his constituency until he joined those who voted against the attainder of the 1st earl of Strafford (Thomas Wentworth†) the following May.67CJ ii. 90b; Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, ff. 1, 2, 3v, 4v, 7v; Verney, Notes, 58; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 248. Although he subscribed the Protestation (12 May), and may even have conformed to orders that MPs should sent it to their constituencies, Hyde then withdrew from the Commons, or at least retired to backbench anonymity.68CJ ii. 144a; HMC Var. iv. 240. His only known activity as an MP thereafter came almost exactly a year later, when his legal expertise and political views combined to secure nomination to the committee regarding the charge against one of the Ship Money judges, Sir Robert Berkeley†.69CJ ii. 572b. Hyde’s subsequent absence from the chamber prompted an official summons on 22 July, but within a week news had arrived that he had tried to persuade the mayor of Salisbury of the legality of the king’s commission of array, and of his duty to ignore Parliament’s Militia Ordinance. Hyde was also accused of having released one of the townsmen who had been arrested for saying that ‘Parliament was all rebels’.70PJ iii. 252; CJ ii. 685b, 696a-b. Hyde was duly summoned to appear before the House, and on 4 August he was found guilty, disabled from sitting, and sent to the Tower.71CJ ii. 696a-b, 701a, 702a, 703a; PJ iii. 280-1. Almost immediately a new writ was ordered to be issued, but no action was taken. When an election was finally called in the autumn of 1645, one of Hyde’s leading opponents, John Dove, was returned.72CJ ii. 704a; iv. 295b; Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 17v.

Hyde was released upon petition on 10 August 1642, but evidence regarding his subsequent activity is sketchy.73CJ ii. 713b. He remained active in his capacity as recorder of Salisbury until at least September 1643, but by January 1644 he had joined the king at Oxford and entered the Oxford Parliament.74Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 12v; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 574. He would later claim to have done so merely in obedience to the king’s orders, and in the face of royalist occupation of Wiltshire, but he remained in Oxford until its surrender in May 1646, when he was granted a pass to leave the city by Sir Thomas Fairfax*.75SP23/192, pp. 812, 819. It was only at this moment that Hyde was removed from the recordship of Salisbury, the townsmen claiming that he had long absented himself, and that he had thereby

not only neglected to perform the trust reposed in him concerning his recordership, but also hath caused within the said city a great failure of the execution of justice, and likewise great prejudice to this corporation concerning the particular affairs thereof.76Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 19v; HMC Var. iv. 240.

Having compounded in November 1646 and paid a fine of £233, Hyde was able to resume his legal career.77CCC 1562; SP23/192, pp. 814-5. He secured work as a counsellor at the assizes in 1647 and 1648, and served as legal adviser to the wife of his cousin, Edward Hyde* during the same period.78Western Circuit Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 248, 259, 270; CCSP i. 371. Although his house was used to shelter Charles Stuart after the battle of Worcester, Hyde himself was not there, and went unpunished, and there is no evidence of his involvement in any royalist plots thereafter.79M. Temple Bench Bk. 113. Indeed, Hyde remained inactive in public affairs for most of the republic and protectorate, other than serving as treasurer of Serjeants’ Inn, and negotiating with the corporation at Salisbury over his father’s legacy.80Baker, Serjeants at Law, 520; Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 104v.

At the Restoration, Hyde was knighted and appointed as a justice of common pleas, and he quickly filed a writ of mandamus to secure his old position as recorder of Salisbury.81HMC Portland, iii. 222; Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 120; HMC Var. iv. 243. Made chief justice of king’s bench in 1663, Hyde proved to be an active and controversial judge, particularly in trials relating to religious non-conformists.82Baker, Serjeants at Law, 520; CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 325. In December 1663 Pepys enjoyed the spectacle of a trial in which

it was pleasant to see what mad sort of testimonies the seamen did give, and could not be got to speak in order, and then their terms such as the judge could not understand, and to hear how sillily the counsel and judge would speak as to the terms necessary in the matter would make one laugh.83Pepys’s Diary, iv. 403-4.

At a trial of Quakers at the Hertford assizes in 1664, Hyde advised the jury against relying upon ‘the vote of many ignorant justices on the bench according to their fancy and opinion’.84C.W. Horle, Quakers and the English Legal System, 1660-1688 (1988), 31, 107-9, 112. He was also reported as having expressed his ‘fury’ at those whom he styled ‘mad fellows’.85Horle, Quakers, 112-13. At another Quaker trial, Hyde was reported to have been ‘angry’, and to have ‘disputed severally with the jurymen’.86CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 39. His religious concerns were also evident from a letter of July 1664 to his cousin, the earl of Clarendon, in which Hyde bemoaned the number of vacant church livings, and expressed his fear that this would lead to counties being over-run with fanatics and separatists. For such men, Hyde may even have contemplated a policy of transportation.87CCSP v. 411; Bodl. Clarendon 82, ff. 44-5; CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 244.

Hyde died unexpectedly of a stroke in May 1665, and his hearse was driven ‘with all funeral solemnity’ through London before being taken to Salisbury for burial ‘amongst his ancestors’.88Pepys’s Diary, vi. 96; HMC Hastings, ii. 152. One observer noted that this procession was accompanied by ‘all the heralds in their rich coats, a considerable number of gentlemen all in mourning and mounted, his majesty’s coaches, duke of York’s, queen mother’s, chancellor’s, and indeed most of the nobility, judges and rest of the long robes, the bishops and above one hundred coaches’.89HMC Hastings, ii. 152. According to the terms of his will, Hyde was buried in Salisbury cathedral – ‘in such decent manner as by the good order of the godly Book of Common Prayer is directed’ – where a monument was erected in his honour.90PROB11/316/571; Baker, Serjeants at Law, 520; Le Neve, Monumenta Anglicana, i. 60. He left no children to succeed him in Parliament.