HALES, Sir Edward (c.1577-1654), of Tunstall, Kent.

The Hales family had been prominent among the Kentish gentry since at least the reign of Edward II, and its members sat in several early Tudor Parliaments. By the end of the sixteenth century the family’s estate had been much extended, and it was as a ‘fine and learned gentleman of an exceeding good carriage’, that Hales was recommended as burgess for Hastings by the then lord warden of the Cinque Ports in a 1605 by-election.60Cent. Kent. Stud. C/A(a) 1, f. 107v. Although not an active member of the Commons, Hales displayed an interest in debates over union with Scotland, and his papers contain a copy of Sir Arthur Throckmorton’s tract on the subject, as well as a copy of medieval legal arguments over the status of children born beyond sea, which took on renewed importance in the period after 1603.61Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/38/7; U85/38/6; HP Commons 1604-1629. By the time of his election to the ‘Addled Parliament’ of 1614, Hales had purchased a baronetcy, and was reported to have an income of £4,000 a year, and his estate was enhanced further by his marriage to a wealthy widow in 1616; by this time, if not before, Hales could claim to be one of the wealthiest men in Kent.62BRL, Baker (Hales) 13B; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 400; SP14/89, f. 96; Chamberlain Letters, ed. Maclure, ii. 42. His status and wealth ensured that his son, Sir John Hales†, could secure a marriage portion of £10,000, and that following his heir’s death in 1639, Hales could pay £2,300 for the wardship of his grandson, (Sir) Edward Hales†.63BRL, Baker (Hales) 5/13, 12, 13A/6-7; CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 214, 224. Such wealth also drew to him gentry in the region whose own children needed guardians and patrons.64Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/35/7, unfol.

Summoned before the privy council in 1622 for refusing to contribute to the benevolence for the Palatinate, Hales does not appear to have lost his local posts, and the following year he was among those in the county thanked for his ‘respectful and honourable reception’ of the Spanish ambassador. Likewise, in 1624 he was thanked for ‘repressing the disorders and outrages of the soldiers’ of Count Mansfeld’s expeditionary force.65SP14/127, f. 82; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 614. From at least 1618 he was also zealous in overseeing Kent’s composition regarding purveyance for the royal household, and unlike many of his contemporaries appears to have had few reservations about acting as treasurer in 1620.66Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/35/7, unfol.; U85/35/8, unfol. Hales’ return at Queenborough in 1625 angered the lord lieutenant, the 1st earl of Montgomery (Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke), and his return as one of the knights of the shire in 1626, at the expense of Sir Edwin Sandys†, the candidate of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, can have been no more welcome to the court.67Arch Cant. xxiii. 183. He displayed a tolerant attitude towards puritan ministers and a determination to enforce legislation against recusants.68SP16/18, f 28; Bodl. Rawl. A.346, f. 226v; APC 1623-4, pp. 409-10. But while he was active as a billeting commissioner in 1627, he was not returned to the 1628 Parliament, although his son represented Queenborough.69Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/35/7, unfol.; Cent. Kent. Stud. U36/O46; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 275; Eg. 2087, ff. 18, 22, 35, 39, 43.

In the 1630s Hales remained active in local government and administration, as a sewers commissioner, an overseer of purveyance compositions and a justice of the peace. For example, he took action against notorious libellers like Giles Collins, who was imprisoned in 1635 for a ‘scandalous petition’ against the lord keeper; he oversaw knighthood compositions in the county; and he helped to implement the Book of Orders.70Stowe 743, ff. 81, 96, 85, 110, 112; Cent. Kent. Stud. U951/O7/7, 9, 18; U47/47/Z2/115; U951/C261/25-38; U350/C2/46; Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/35/7, unfol.; SP16/395, f. 3. Not without reason was he described in print by one admirer as ‘a man scarce spends a minute, but hath his country’s service in it’, and as one who ‘spends more to make them all accord, than other knights do at the board’.71T. Powell, Tom of all Trades (1631), sig. A3v.

There is little evidence, therefore, that Hales was in any way disaffected towards the government as elections approached in 1640, despite his perceptions that the king must be protected from evil advisers and incompetent servants, and that religious purity needed to be preserved in the face of innovation. Indeed, if he was the author of the anonymous manuscript tract extant among his papers, then he held an exalted view of regal authority. Entitled ‘A true representation of forepast Parliaments, to the review of present times and posterity’, it was written in response to The Priviledges and Practice of Parliaments (1628) and The Practise of Princes (1630), and attacked ‘a royal prerogative and right which subjects have heretofore erroneously pretended unto, and perhaps may hereafter, through ambition, ignorance or misprision affect or assume to themselves’. Hales asserted that ‘kings are no ways to be bound but by their piety’, and that ‘to give laws is one (if not the highest) flower of a king’s crown’, adding that ‘this great, this most essential power of royalty cannot be granted away by the king, nor ought to be participated in or pretended to be the subject’s’.72Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/38/8, ff. 31, 32, 36v.

Such attitudes help to explain Hales’ superficially somewhat contradictory political activity in 1640s. Despite his prominence within the county, he does not appear to have sought election as a knight of the shire in 1640, relying instead upon his personal influence at Queenborough, where he was returned alongside John Harrison*.73Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 138v. Nevertheless, he took an active interest in the county election, and evidently responded favourably to the zealous electioneering by Sir George Sondes†, a future royalist.74BRL, Baker (Hales) 13A/6. When Sondes withdrew, however, Hales transferred his allegiance to courtier but future parliamentarian Sir Henry Vane I*, as he explained to another suitor, Sir Edward Dering* in early March 1640.75Stowe 743, f. 142. Hales’ only recorded activity in the House during the Short Parliament was as a teller in a division in which he supported a motion to deny Dr William Beale advance notice of the charge levelled against him for his 1635 sermon supporting the royal prerogative.76CJ ii. 18a. Nevertheless, as a supporter of the king after the dissolution of Parliament, Hales was reported to have loaned him £2,000 in advance of the second bishops’ war.77Add. 11045, f. 116.

At the elections for the Long Parliament Hales was again returned for Queenborough, alongside William Harrison*. The political dynamic of the election is unclear, but although he faced two court candidates, there is no evidence that Hales himself opposed the court; rather, he was merely asserting his authority as a local magnate.78Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/JMs4, f. 144. In the county election, indeed, he supported a ‘ticket’ of Sir John Culpeper* and Sir Edward Dering, and was prepared to lobby on their behalf. One contemporary told Dering that Hales ‘hath requested divers other gentlemen and others to the same effect, so that I hope you will find the greatest part of this country to stand accordingly’.79Add. 26785, f. 17. Disregarding his and Pembroke’s confrontation of 1625, Hales recommended that Dering should seek the earl’s support to ensure the success of his and Culpeper’s candidacy.80Stowe 743, f. 147.

Hales was named to the committee for privileges, but made little immediate impression upon parliamentary proceedings.81CJ ii. 21a. A powerful speech which circulated in manuscript, said to have been made by him in the opening weeks of the session, asserted that ‘better it were the Scots come unto us than the devil should raise his army to overthrow us both in the church and commonwealth’, and railed against the king’s favourites and the ‘ill counsel’ which threatened to lead him ‘so far in jeopardy of trouble and distress’. It defended liberty of speech in the House and ‘each one’s right to our own’, and called for further reformation of religion and concerted action against Catholics.82Add. 26640, ff. 66-71v. But it is possible that the attribution of the speech to Hales was spurious, the result of ‘a busy prating newsmonger’ seeking to make it marketable. Minded to complain about this deception, Hales was apparently advised by Sir Norton Knatchbull* that it was better ‘to take no notice of the imposture than to make the speech more public by the punishment of the imposter’.83Nalson, Impartial Collection, II. p. ix. Yet there is little in the speech – critical of the court and its policies, rather than of the king – which could not have been uttered by Hales, and its ideas were reflected in his subsequent activity.

From 27 January 1641, when he was named to a committee establishing the law surrounding salt marshes, Hales attended the Commons fairly regularly.84CJ ii. 73b. As befitted a gentleman with a reputation for public service, many of his committee appointments related to matters of wide economic and social concern, including the export of wool, the supply of water to London, and the curbing of usury and the conversion of tillage to pasture.85CJ ii. 77b, 85b, 87a, 92b, 108a, 157a, 161a, 164a, 195b, 200a, 276a. Nominated to committees dealing with supply (23 Feb.) and subsidies (30 Apr.), and on the delegation to seek funds from the City (25 Mar.), he was prepared to advance substantial loans on his own account.86CJ ii. 91b, 113a, 130b, 222a; D’Ewes (C), 438. Hales demonstrated a continuing attachment to solid mainstream Protestantism, his appointments including those to bring in measures against pluralism in ecclesiastical promotions, but thus far he had not necessarily struck observers as among those MPs most zealous for religious reform.87CJ ii. 101a, 129b, 258a; Harl. 163, f. 421b. In April Richard Tray, a Kentish minister who would be sequestered from his living during the civil wars, solicited Hales to help protect him against a hostile petition submitted by his parishioners.88Add. 26785, f. 170; Walker Revised, 226. However, in the aftermath of the army plot, Hales not only subscribed the Protestation, but was also placed on the committee regarding the bill for safeguarding the security of true religion, the safety and honour of the king’s person, the just rights of the subject, and the better discovery of recusants (6 May).89CJ ii. 133a, 136b. On 3 July he was nominated to the committee discussing freedom of speech in the House.90CJ ii. 198b. That he was a Member with authority and standing is indicated by his nomination to the committee to manage the response to the outbreak of plague in London (1 Sept.); that he was included on the recess committee (9 Sept.) betokens even greater political engagement.91CJ ii. 280a, 288a.

Yet in practice Hales appears to have remained in Kent beyond the end of the recess until after the arrival of news of the Irish rebellion.92Cent. Kent. Stud. U951/O7/16. He had returned to his lodgings in Whitefriars by 20 December, and although not named again in the Journal until February 1642, was certainly present in the chamber in the aftermath of the attempted arrest of the Five Members.93Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/35/7, unfol. In a speech delivered on 20 January and subsequently printed, Hales evinced his satisfaction with the measures taken in 1641 ‘for the settling of religion, and abolishment of superfluous ceremonies … [and] the defence of the liberties of the subject for Parliaments’. Since then the institution had been outraged by ‘the subtle and wily practices of the enemies and professors thereof’. Its Members had ‘been forced against our desires and real intentions to certify all things amiss both in church and state’, and to take steps ‘to prevent imminent danger now in agitation, both against the Parliament and the whole state’, and to ‘comply with our brethren in Scotland’.94The Humble Petition of the Inhabitants of the County of Glocester… Whereunto is Annexed Sir Edward Hales his Worthy Speech (1641), sig. A4 (E.133.7); Two Speeches Spoken in Parliament (1641, E.200.17)

In the weeks which followed Hales not only wrote letters to Kent with news from Westminster, but also displayed evidence of a new-found conviction that the purification of church and state required drastic measures.95E. Kent RO, Sa/ZB2/94. On 8 February he was named to the committee to attend the king with the Commons’ reasons for removing the bishops from the House of Lords, and he subsequently appears to have lent money for the campaign against the Irish rebels, and to have assisted in raising further contributions from the City.96CJ ii. 421b, 441b, 461a, 484a, , 496a, 498b, 534b, 570b, 580b; PJ i. 322, 324; Add. 26785, f. 32. On 16 May, furthermore, he provided evidence to the House regarding a provocative sermon at St Pauls by Mark Frank, a fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, alleging that the Protestation had been transformed from an instrument for achieving sound religious purposes into a means to achieve treasonable ends.97PJ ii. 328a; Walker Revised, 38.

As war approached in the early summer of 1642, Hales played a less active part in the Commons, but showed signs of having supported the cause of those who would soon become parliamentarians.98CJ ii. 685a. Although he sought to be excused from implementing the militia ordinance, because of his great age, he does not appear to have been opposed to it in principle.99CJ ii. 641a; Cent. Kent. Stud. U951/C261/36. In giving him particular responsibility for going to Kent to prevent suspected plots by royalists (22 July), the ‘fiery spirits’ may have been testing Hales’ loyalty, but he proved willing to undertake this task, and was subsequently confirmed as a deputy lieutenant and added to the Committee for Examinations.100CJ ii. 686a, 724a, 725a; PJ iii. 249, 277; Cent. Kent. Stud. U47/47/O1, p. 19. Although he was forced to deny rumours of having sent money to the king, Hales remained a trusted ally of Parliament into September 1642, when he was involved in committees which were charged with organising military preparations in Kent, and appointed to travel to the region to oversee the raising of forces and finances.101CJ ii. 726a, 737b, 763a, 765b.

Hales’ support for Parliament evaporated once war began, as it became harder to demonstrate that the king’s safety and honour remained the goal. Following the outbreak of hostilities, Hales’ attendance dropped dramatically, at the same time as his activity in Kent ceased. His presence in the House was not recorded between early September 1642 and the issuing of a summons for his attendance in mid-February 1643, some time after it was reported that he had failed to contribute the £1,800 at which he was assessed for the parliamentarian cause.102CJ ii. 765b, 968a; Add. 18777, f. 116b. Hales evidently returned to Westminster, but ignored an order issued in early March that he should assist in the collection of the assessment, which provoked a complaint from the other deputy lieutenants in early April.103CJ ii. 992b; Harl. 164, f. 315; CJ iii. 31b. Commenting upon a second order for Hales to assist in raising money and sequestering delinquents, Sir Simonds D’Ewes* sensed a plot by the fiery spirits against ‘a discreet, honest man’. D’Ewes recorded that Hales ‘fully justified himself that he had been no way faulty in his attendance for the performance of the service of the House and showed his readiness to go presently down to the said gentlemen to Rochester’. Nevertheless, Hales’ enemies, ‘seeing … that they could not ensnare him in this particular … then desired that he might speedily be compelled to pay in £1,500 which the House had assessed upon him to lend upon the propositions, being a man of five or £6,000 per annum’. There ensued a heated debate between radical and moderate MPs, and although Hales claimed to have paid £250, and to have been unable to pay more, he was given merely two weeks in which to raise the money.104Harl. 164, f. 356b-7a; CJ iii. 31b.

Hales neither paid this money, nor obeyed the order to travel to Kent, and his last recorded appearance in the House was on 14 April, when he was again ordered to assist in the collection of assessments, and named to a committee regarding the Merchant Adventurers.105CJ iii. 43, 44a. On 28 July the Commons ordered Hales to be imprisoned in the Tower, upon suspicion of being involved in the Kent uprising. It was reported that the rebels ‘received supplies of match and powder from his House’, and that he ‘sought by no means to allay the tumult’.106CJ iii. 185a; A Perfect Diurnall, no. 5 (24-31 July 1643), 39 (E.249.30). The Kent committee took control of his house at Tunstall in order to establish a secure venue for ‘a rendezvous for the well-affected’, while his possessions were ordered to be seized and inventoried, and he was ordered to pay the remaining £1,250 of his assessment.107Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/35/7; U85/35/8; CJ iii. 186b, 187b. As a high-profile prisoner, Hales received the attention of powerful committees at Westminster, but although he remained on friendly terms with leading parliamentarians in the county like William Kenwricke*, his petition to Westminster fell on deaf ears, and his estate was ordered to be sequestered in late September 1643.108CJ iii. 209a, 216a, 257b, 258a, 264a; Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/35/7; 38/2/11; HMC 5th Rep. 108; CCAM 257.

Perhaps as a result of the influence of Henry Heyman*, Hales secured an audience before the Commons on 20 October, at which he admitted having a limited amount of foreknowledge regarding the insurrection, but denied any involvement in it, suggesting instead that he had been disarmed by the rebels, who included his grandson.109CJ iii. 279a, 282a, 283a. The matter was referred to a committee, and the House subsequently accepted Hales’ voluntary composition, at £6,000, whereupon his sequestration was lifted (30 Oct.).110CJ iii. 293b; Harl. 165, f. 199a. Hales himself remained a prisoner, however, despite his apparent willingness to subscribe the Covenant.111CJ iii. 301a; CCC 3. Such imprisonment served to ensure that he paid his assessment, which was cleared by the end of May 1645.112CCAM 257; CJ iv. 119a, 126a. Nevertheless, despite further petitions, and calls for his being expelled from the Commons, Hales remained both a prisoner and an MP until 18 April 1648, when his release was ordered, and he was disabled from sitting in the House.113CJ iv. 385b, 397b, 512b; v. 330a, 536a, 556a; C231/6, p. 115.

Within weeks of his release, Hales was once again suspected of involvement in royalist activity in Kent. Although it quickly became apparent that it was not him but his grandson who was the ringleader of the June rebellion, Hales nevertheless faced recriminations.114R. L’Estrange, L’Estrange his Vindication (1649), sigs. A3v, D, D2v, D3; Newes from Kent (1648) 4 (E.445.27); The Lord Generals Letter in Answer to the Message of the Kentish Men (1648), 8; Cent. Kent. Stud. U120/C5/1-3; The Declaration of the High-Sheriffs of Yorkshire… Also, a Message from General Hales (1648), 5-6 (E.445.43); Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/35/7. The seizure of his horses in early June 1648 prompted a plea for help to Sir Thomas Fairfax*, who immediately issued orders to secure protection for Hales and restitution of his property.115BRL, Baker (Hales) 13A/8; Canterbury Cathedral Lib. 38/2/1-5. Although the rebels were known to have been based at, and returned to, Tunstall, Hales’ parliamentarian friends were confident that he himself had not been involved, and they probably helped to protect him, and to restore property which had been seized.116Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/38/2/6-10, 12; U85/35/7. Nevertheless, the more radical elements within the Kent county committee retained their suspicions. Hales certainly felt financially persecuted, and questions continued to be raised into the early 1650s regarding his activity during the insurrection, although once again this represented nothing more than mistaken identity.117SP28/234 unfol.; CJ vi. 411b; CCAM 1276; Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/38/2/13.

Hales was unmolested by the republican authorities, and was able to concentrate on reviving his financial fortunes. He had long since acquired ‘a terrible name among his tenants’, and a reputation as a landlord who was apt to use ‘menaces’ and ‘oppressions’ in order to secure his rents, and his imprisonment during the 1640s had probably encouraged non-payment.118Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/35/7, unfol. By 1649, however, he was free to give the matter his undivided attention. Strenuous efforts to recover arrears of rent in Tenterden in October 1649, for example, yielded over 70 per cent of the £1,113 due to him, as well as a further £540 which became due in Michaelmas of that year.119Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/35/5. How far his fortunes had recovered by his death is unclear, but in his will of October 1651 he was able to make substantial bequests, including £500 to each of two unmarried granddaughters. That Hales retained a degree of godly zeal is evident from the specification that he was to be buried ‘without any pomp or ceremonies at all, no funeral sermon, no vain commemoration, no invitation, strangers or friends far off, but such friends only as are near at hand … no escutcheons or vanity of heralds’. Moreover, while he left £20 to the poor of the parish, he excluded those who ‘live idly by freebooting, begging, filching or stealing or otherwise disorderly in their lives’. He also directed that his grandchildren should be raised ‘in the fear of God, and good literature’.120PROB11/237/499. Having outlived his son, Sir John Hales†, Hales was succeeded by the grandson with whom he had so often been confused, Sir Edward Hales†.121Canterbury Cathedral Lib. U85/35/8; HP Commons 1660-1690.