HAY, William (1594-1664), of Horsted Parva, Suss.

Following the death of their father in 1605, Hay and his elder brother Harbert Hay* were brought up by their uncles Harbert Morley (d. 1610) and Robert Morley.28Suss. Arch. Coll. cxxv. 256; Notes IPMs Suss., 118; Suss. Inquisitions, 68-9; WARD9/159, f. 184. After education at Clare or Pembroke College, Cambridge (a William Hay was recorded at each in 1612), Hay remained closely associated with the Morleys.29Al. Cant. At some date in 1617, 1618 or 1619 he married the eldest daughter of Robert Morley’s cousin Barnaby Hodgson of Framfield, about 12 miles north-west of Herstmonceux. His bride, Susan or Susanna, brought a portion of at least £500 under the terms of her father’s December 1615 will (of which Morley was an overseer) and of her maternal grandmother’s will a year later (of which Morley was executor). 30E. Suss. RO, Glynde MSS 135, 1358; PROB11/127/129 (Barnaby Hodgson); PROB11/129/97 (Susana Gouldsmith); Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 48. Through the subsequent marriages of some of Susan’s six sisters, Hay’s extensive kinship network was widened and strengthened.31Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 203; C109/16ii/535; W. Suss. RO, Wiston MSS 1292-4; E. Suss. RO, PAR 343/1/1/1; PROB11/193/457 (John Fagge).

As a younger son, William Hay played only a modest role in county affairs until 1640.32C192/1. Like his elder brother, however, he was able to expand his estate. In 1627 he purchased Horsted Parva, about three miles from Framfield; other acquisitions followed during the 1630s.33Suss. Manors, 227; C54/3227/26. Both Hay brothers were evidently active in the electioneering in Sussex in the spring of 1640, but neither man appears to have sought a seat for himself.34C219/42ii/27.

That autumn, however, William Hay stood as a candidate at Rye with his brother-in-law John Fagge*, the borough’s wealthiest inhabitant.35HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘John Fagg I’. Their rivals, John White I* and Sir John Jacob*, were both associated with the court and came with powerful backing. White, secretary to Edward Sackville, 4th earl of Dorset, had sat in the Short Parliament, and his re-election was almost assured; Dorset wrote to the town on 2 October recommending him for a place, and White himself sought the town’s favour (9 Oct.). On 10 October Jacob likewise issued a plea to the mayor and jurats on the back of a recommendatory letter to the town from James Stuart, duke of Lennox [S], the current lord warden of the Cinque Ports. Ignoring the wishes of Lennox, the freemen preferred White and Hay, but the mayor and jurats had other ideas. Hay alleged that the town clerk (Samuel Lansdale) had proceeded to ‘invent and put in practice a new way for the choosing of burgesses never before that time used in that place’. Lansdale deemed that every freeman had to name two of the candidates, and then added the names of some absentees as supporters of Jacob. The resulting election return gave White 24 votes, Jacob 17, Hay 15 and Fagge just 11. The mayor, Richard Cockram, who had voted for both Jacob and White, wrote on 13 November to Lansdale, who had done likewise, to complain about Hay's petition, and about the supposedly false allegations it contained.36E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/133.

Whatever the veracity of the various claims, the tension is undeniable. Despite the election of Fagge as a jurat on 12 October, on the 20th the election of Jacob and White was finally announced.37E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/13, ff. 4v, 6. Once the parliamentary session opened, Hay petitioned the committee of privileges, but the case had not been resolved when Jacob was expelled from the Commons as a monopolist.38CJ ii. 71a; D’Ewes (N), 267-8. The order on 22 January 1641 of a writ for a new election was rapidly followed by renewed attempts by all interested parties to influence the choice of the electorate.39C231/5, p. 424. Robert Rich†, 2nd earl of Warwick, and the duke of Lennox both recommended Sir William Hicks*, who affirmed that he had ‘no relation to court, neither ever had any hand in project or patent’ while Sir Edward Dering* promoted Sir William Waller*.40E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/133. But this time the town opted for Hay, and on 1 February he was summoned to the court hall in Rye to take the oath.41E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/13, f. 15v.

Unlike that of his younger cousin, Harbert Morley*, Member for Lewes, Hay's parliamentary career got off to a rather slow start. He signed the Protestation in May 1641, and was named amongst those appointed to disarm recusants in Sussex in the following August; he had received his first appointment as a sewers commissioner in July.42CJ ii. 133, 267b; C181/5, f. 206v. During that summer he and White wrote letters to their constituency, relating news of Parliament, and particularly of the poll tax and subsidies, and of moves to abolish the courts of high commission and star chamber, and heard from the mayor regarding the Protestation and the vacancy for a curate for the parish.43E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/133.

Hay’s first committee nomination did not come until 20 June 1642, when he was named to consider information regarding Newcastle, then in the hands of the Scots.44CJ ii. 634a. Shortly before this he had offered to lend Parliament £100, and on 7 September he signed the covenant of allegiance to the 3rd earl of Essex.45CJ ii. 755b; PJ iii. 475. Once war had broken out he steadily emerged as a parliamentarian stalwart in Sussex, although usually in the shadow of his militant cousin Harbert Morley. In April 1643 he was added to commissions for assessments and sequestrations, while in July he was appointed to the county committee.46CJ iii. 45a, 173a. He assented to the Solemn League and Covenant in September 1643, and was subsequently involved in the association of the southern counties and attendant money-raising committees at Westminster.47CJ iii. 383b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 480-1. In July 1644 he was one of three Sussex MPs called before the Committee of Both Kingdoms and instructed to encourage the county to pay for the regiment under Anthony Stapley I*.48CSP Dom. 1644, p. 340.

It may have been through Morley's influence that in 1644 Hay was named to the Sussex commission of the peace. While he was present at the sessions in Lewes with his brother Harbert in April and October 1645, his attendance, like that of the majority of his friends amongst the emerging Independents, was rare before the purge of the bench in 1649, leaving the commission of the peace largely under the domination of the Presbyterians.49Suss. QSOB 1642-1649, 72, 85; ASSI35/85/1. On the other hand, Hay and Morley were both active on the county committee and the local committee for sequestrations.50SP28/181; SP28/246; SP28/343; Cent. Kent. Stud. U455/O4; E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/135/6; HMC 13th Rep. IV, 214-15; W. Suss. RO, PAR516/29/2. Meanwhile, both were also commissioners for the New Model army (17 Feb. 1645) and, as factions jostled at Westminster over the implementation of the ordinance in the spring and early summer, Hay received what for him was an unprecedented clutch of committee nominations, plausibly on the prompting of the war party. On 4 March he was included with some other hitherto relatively invisible MPs on the small committee which addressed the ordinance settling the debts of the deceased John Pym*.51CJ iv. 69a. With Stapley I (a militant who unlike Hay was consistently active at Lewes sessions), he was on the committee considering the ordinance for paying arrears to soldiers and their widows (5 May), and with Stapley, Morley and their more peaceably-inclined Sussex colleague Henry Shelley* on the committee for better regulating sequestrations (18 June).52CJ iv. 132a, 178a. Meanwhile – perhaps in recognition of their somewhat differing viewpoints and likely influence – Hay was instructed with Stapley and Shelley to order the Sussex committee to send a troop of horse for service in the west (7 June).53CJ iv. 168b.

Bolstered, perhaps, by the success of the New Model that summer, Morley and Hay had reached a high point of influence. Hay’s good service to Rye – registered in a letter from the corporation in January 1645 noting his ‘love and care always of our poor town’ – meant that, following the removal of his fellow Member White I from the Commons, he and Morley were able to secure the election in his stead that October of their ward (and Hay’s nephew) John Fagge*.54E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/137; 1/13, f. 158. Still under age, and soon to become Morley’s brother-in-law, Fagge was susceptible to their guidance.55W. Suss. RO, Wiston MSS 1294-5, 1325-6, 1526, 1529, 2252, 3666, 4692, 4762-5, 5048, 6011; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Ardingly, 237; E. Suss. RO, PAR343/1/1/1; PROB11/193/457 (John Fagge). A simultaneous arrival in the House was Hay’s elder brother Harbert, returned for Arundel. For the next three years, periodic failure to distinguish between the two in the Journal gives rise to some uncertainty.

‘Mr Hayes’ was nominated on 4 and 8 December 1645 to committees to confer with City authorities over their propositions for the militia and to the committee considering the reasons of Alderman Fowke for not lending money for Ireland.56CJ iv. 365a, 368b. Whether this was Harbert, who through his second marriage on 2 December had acquired property in Lambeth but also a reason for temporary absence, or William, as the more established Member, seems impossible to determine. Both then disappeared from the Journal until 15 May 1646, when they each received their most important parliamentary appointment – to the Committee of Plundered Ministers*.57CJ iv. 545b. Both had other nominations in the next two months, more often than not alongside Morley – Harbert on 10 June and 9 July; William on 11 July, to investigate the authorship of the Leveller-generated Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens – so resolving undifferentiated references is problematic.58CJ iv. 571a, 612b, 616a Either might have been named to work on the ordinances for arrears payable to the court of wards (20 May) and sale of delinquents’ estates (10 July).59CJ iv. 552a, 613a.

Thereafter, whereas Harbert appeared in the Journal in October 1646 and March 1647, there is no definite reference to William until 9 October 1647.60CJ v. 153a, 237b. Given that this registered his absence, it is more likely that Harbert was the Hay who received nominations in the intervening April and July.61CJ v. 330b. Perhaps the brothers agreed a division of labour, with Harbert the default player at Westminster. The efforts of the latter, who had been appointed to the committee reviewing absentees, probably contributed to the acceptance of William’s excuses – as also those of Morley, Fagge and Shelley – and an order for the repayment of the £20 fine they had initially incurred (28 Oct.).62CJ v. 329b, 344a. William Hay and Morley, at least, had been with Stapley at the Lewes quarter sessions on 7 and 8 October.63Suss. QSOB 1642-1649, 137.

The low profile at Westminster which makes it difficult to track Hay’s path through the party conflicts of 1647 continued through 1648, with much the same consequence. Harbert was named in connection with the Westminster militia ordinance on 31 December 1647, but it is not clear which brother was appointed, following the Vote of No Addresses to the king on 3 January 1648, to potentially radical committees addressing the grievances of the kingdom (4 Jan.) and the reform of hospitals (6 Jan.), or to devise a fairer method of assessments (15 Jan.).64CJ v. 417a, 421a, 434a. Especially since it was Harbert who had a further nomination related to the Westminster and Southwark militias (10 July), it seems more likely to have been he than William who was appointed to committees related to security around Westminster (17 May) and to the national militia (13 June).65CJ v. 562b, 597b, 630a The same applies to a nomination on 9 October regarding guards around the House.66CJ vi. 47a.

Unlike his brother, William Hay sat in the Rump, although the date of his dissent from the vote of 5 December 1648 is unknown, and it is difficult to gauge the extent of his revolutionary zeal. However, if he followed his cousin Morley in this, as in much else, then he was probably merely a ‘conformist’. Morley re-appeared on 6 February 1649, after the king had been executed. A lack of enthusiasm for the execution of the king is suggested by Hay's absence from the Journal until 8 May, when (with Stapley) he was among MPs appointed to a consider reform of the committee of accounts.67CJ vi. 204b. He was then named to three committees (court of wards officers, 14 July; probate of wills, 18 July; inductions to benefices, 18 July) – all with Morley and one also with Fagge – before once again disappearing from the record.68CJ vi. 260a, 263b. In the meantime, his warm relations with his constituency seem to have cooled. In December 1649 he wrote a sharp letter to the town about the renewal of its charter, although this may have been connected with the fact that the mayors of the town in 1649 and 1650 were Samuel Lansdale and Richard Cockram, the men he held responsible for his failure to secure election at Rye in November 1640.69E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/143/1.

Yet appearances were deceptive: behind the scenes at Westminster, Hay had become busy. His lodging at The Six Pigeons near St Bride's, Fleet Street, may have commenced long before it was recorded in July 1652.70CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 335. In November 1649 Morley and Hay both tried to nominate accountants for the committee of accounts.71SP28/258, f. 538. Hay became increasingly active on the Committee for Plundered Ministers.72SP22/2a, f. 202; SP 22/2b, ff. 4, 14, 16, 37, 50, 58, 64, 70, 126-38, 148, 172, 204, 216, 314–24, 330, 338; SP22/3, ff. 73, 199, 532, 580. Above all, from as early as January 1649 until September 1652 he was a constant presence on the Committee of Navy and Customs*, a stalwart of Morley’s powerful group.73Add. 63788B, f. 55; Add. 22546, ff. 35-6; Add. 18986, ff. 21, 25, 27; CJ vi. 420a; vii. 227b; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 269. From 8 February 1650, when his appointment to a committee to consider a bill for establishing a corporation of weavers in Norwich testified to his interest in commerce (already apparent in naval affairs), he finally emerged into the limelight and attained what was to be the high point of his parliamentary career (as it was Morley’s). During the Rump, Hay was nominated to a further 28 committees, on many of which he served with Morley or John Fagge. These included at least one dealing with Sussex affairs – a petition from Sackville College in East Grinstead (31 May 1650) – but wider concerns predominated.74CJ vi. 418a. Up to May 1651 he was named to promote preaching in Colchester, Essex (24 May 1650) and to suppress religious libertarianism (14 June); to address the abuse of public office (27 June, 24 Oct.); and to numerous committees related to the army, the militia, and the payment of arrears and compensation.75CJ vi. 368a, 382b, 416a, 417a, 423b, 432b, 487b, 516b, 524a, 569b. Like others, his formal addition to the Navy Committee (6 June 1650) came after he was an established member of it; he was probably among those for whom settling land on Sir Henry Vane II* was intended to signal the neutralisation of the latter’s power over that committee (16 July).76CJ vi. 420a, 441a.

By February 1651 Hay’s scope for influence was seen in his appointment, with Morley, to the committee allocating lodgings in Whitehall to MPs.77CJ vi. 534b. In April, in what might be seen as an indication of commitment to the commonwealth regime, he was among those added to a committee for the removal of obstructions in the sale of episcopal lands.78CJ vi. 558a. But after another committee nomination on 2 May, he was then inexplicably absent from the Journal for more than six months.79CJ vi. 569b. That his re-appearance on 25 November was owing to his election to the council of state only highlights his importance at Westminster, no doubt partly as an acolyte of Morley, but surely partly as an effective politician in his own right.80CJ vii. 42b. His 133 attendances at council meetings over the ensuing year placed him squarely in the middle as regards assiduity, only slightly lower than Morley, with whom he often worked, and slightly above Vane II and Stapley; characteristically, his profile fluctuated, with three months when he was completely absent and 63 of his attendances located in the period May to July 1652.81CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. xxxv-xlvii. The latter saw his most noteworthy appointments – attending the Swedish ambassadors in May and the Portuguese representatives in July.82CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 43, 54, 80, 132, 143, 150, 240, 253, 316, 336, 406. To supplement his work for the Navy Committee, in June Hay was added to the council's admiralty committee.83CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 280.

During this period, Hay's work for the council overshadowed his visible contribution to Parliament, although the coincidence of absences from the council with those from the Journal suggests that at those times he was ill or out of London (as he certainly was in April) rather than overwhelmed by business. He was nominated to only seven Commons committees, the two most important of which involved arrangements for the sale of fee farm rents (11 Mar. 1652) and of the estates of those deemed guilty of treason (15 July).84CJ vii. 104a, 154b. His appointment to consider the punishment of the Leveller John Lilburne once again suggests the limits of his radicalism (21 Jan.), while that to encourage merchant shipping was obviously related to his naval work (4 Nov.).85CJ vii. 75b, 210a Otherwise, among business concerning individuals, as seven years previously Hay was named to address John Pym’s debts.86CJ vii. 55b, 131b, 182b.

Later in November, Hay was not re-elected to the council of state. Other members of Morley's group had the same experience – victims perhaps of a protest against the current state of Anglo-Dutch relations – yet the fact that Hay was named a teller of the votes for the 20 additional members, over and above the original election of 22, suggests that he may not even have stood.87CJ vii. 220b. In the remaining four months of the Parliament he received four committee nominations, of which the first two indicate that his credit was not exhausted: he was among MPs to work on a bill for constituting admiralty and navy commissioners (9 Dec.) and joined such luminaries as Vane I* and Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke, in being added to those deputed to meet envoys from Scotland (15 Dec.).88CJ vii. 227b, 229b. Collecting further nominations on 2 February and 14 April 1653, he appears to have attended Parliament until the dissolution.89CJ vii. 253b, 278a.

Hay had begun to attend the quarter sessions regularly in April 1652, having previously put in only occasional appearances. After the dissolution he returned to Sussex to concentrate on being a justice of the peace and member of the county committee.90Suss. QSOB 1642-1649, 85, 137, 187; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW2, ff. 31v, 38, 43, 52v, 56; SP28/181. Once his enemies in Rye had ceased to occupy the position of mayor, Hay also resumed his close relationship with the town, procuring an augmentation of salary for the vicar, John Allin, whom he had recommended.91E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/14, f. 37v; 47/137; 47/146/86; 47/148; 47/147/6; HMC 13th Rep. IV, 220; Calamy Revised, 5-6. The corporation sought his assistance with their many grievances, such as the poverty of their tradesmen, and the poor condition of their harbour, although they frequently by-passed Hay, and communicated directly with Morley.92E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/145/1-2; 47/146/97, 98, 105.

Under the Instrument of Government, Rye was given only one representative in Parliament, as against nine for the county. Hay was returned for the latter, alongside Morley, who was elected for both. When Morley opted to be a knight of the shire, he and Hay seem to have ensured that he was replaced by a local man, Nathaniel Powell*, rather than Thomas St Nicholas*, a candidate proposed by protectorate loyalists.93E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/149/10, 12-15; 1/14, ff. 126-8, 151, 153; 47/151/3, 5. By this time Hay, like Morley, had joined a coalition of Sussex gentry, comprising purged members of the Long Parliament, closet royalists, and disillusioned Rumpers, who dominated county politics in the mid-1650s, and who frustrated the policies of the government. Since their aim was to express opposition to the lord protector, and to take up valuable seats in Parliament, Hay fulfilled his role simply by being elected, and he made no further impression on the assembly.

Hay's dependency on Morley during the 1650s was noted by Major-general William Goffe*. In late 1655 Goffe told John Thurloe* that ‘of late [Hay] hath not acted in any thing’, adding that neither he nor Fagge would ‘stir a hair's breadth without Colonel Morley’.94TSP iv. 161, 238. In the elections for the second protectorate Parliament in the late summer of 1656, when Goffe reported that Morley ‘ruled the roost, by the help of the disaffected party’, there was little difficulty in ensuring that ‘Old Mr Hay’ was returned for Rye.95TSP v. 341. Morley wrote to the town recommending Hay as a candidate of experience, ‘great ability and integrity’, and promised that, should they chose Hay, they would find Morley himself most industrious on their behalf.96E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/14, f. 208; 47/153/4. At the election on 14 August a large turn-out, including Morley and Fagge, gave Morley 25 votes to the one received by former mayor Allen Grebell and five received by Edward Hopkins*, a commissioner of the admiralty and navy, who was the nominee of Major-general Thomas Kelsey.97E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/14, f. 209; 47/153/2, 47/153/3, 47/153/24; 47/154/3-4; 1/14, ff. 207, 208v.

Despite his opposition to the protectorate, Hay was allowed to take his seat, unlike Morley, who was excluded.98Bodl. Tanner 52, f. 156; SP18/130, f. 46. That Hay could safely be admitted as long as Morley was not there to mobilize him against the government, is clear from the fact that after nomination to the privileges committee on 18 September, Hay made no further appearance in accounts of the 1656 Parliament.99CJ vii. 424a. Excluded from power at Westminster, Morley, Fagge, and Hay renewed their interest in local affairs. They made a report on the governorship of St Mary's Hospital in Chichester in January 1656; and they were named as commissioners for charitable uses in Rye in June 1657.100CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 95; E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 112/5. Hay also appears as an assessment commissioner for Sussex.101SP28/181.

Following the issue of writs for elections to the third protectorate Parliament, Morley and Fagge persuaded the mayor and jurats to postpone the poll at Rye until after that for the county so that they could stand at Rye should their candidacy as knights of the shire prove unsuccessful. In the meantime they recommended ‘your old friend and burgess, Mr William Hay’.102C219/48; E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/157/5, 7; HMC 13th Rep. IV, 232. Duly returned for Sussex, Morley and Fagge turned up at the Rye election on 6 January 1659 to ensure their colleague's unanimous return for the borough, alongside Mark Thomas*, a local man and future mayor.103E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/14, f. 293; 47/157/8; HMC 13th Rep. IV, 233.

Morley played the radical republican upon his return to Westminster, but Hay's activity before the dissolution (22 Apr.) is not recorded. Once the Rump was restored in May, however, Hay's activity increased noticeably, perhaps because Morley was on the new council of state. He had 15 committee nominations before the ‘interruption’ of proceedings by the army in October, often alongside either Morley, Fagge or the Sussex regicide William Cawley I*. As in the Rump, these nominations testified to a variety of interests; they often involved revisiting familiar business. Three concerned religious radicals and those persecuted for their beliefs regarding forms of worship (20 May; 1, 22 July).104CJ vii. 659b, 700b, 728a. Another, addressing the probate of wills (14 July), arose in response to a report by Morley from the council of state.105CJ vii. 717b. Otherwise, they related to private petitions (five, including at least one affecting Sussex), public revenue (8 June, 20 July, 1 Sept.), the navy (5 July), establishing a market in Lincoln’s Inn fields (12 Aug.) and, in the wake of a summer of unrest, an engagement to be taken by militia officers (6 Sept.).106CJ vii. 663a, 676b, 705a, 705b, 726a, 748b, 752b, 757a, 767a, 772a, 774b. When on 25 August Fagge and Hay were awarded chambers in Whitehall to facilitate their service, they were directed to share what space Morley could conveniently spare.107CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 144.

On 19 July Hay was added with William Cawley II*, apparently as an afterthought, to the militia commissioners for Sussex. Like Fagge, Hay was occasionally referred to in the Journal as ‘Colonel’ (8 June, 12 Aug.), but he had nothing like Morley’s high military profile over the summer.108CJ vii. 676b, 757a. However, at the end of August he was a recipient with Morley and Fagge of a complaint from the town of Rye regarding the arrival of troops under Captain Heath and Colonel Gibbon; the three men obliged by securing their removal.109E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/14, f. 306v; 47/161/1-2. The army’s ‘interruption’ converted Morley to cautious but active support for a restoration of the monarchy, and in November he asked John Evelyn to intercede with the king, on behalf not only of himself, but also of Fagge and Hay. When the Commons resumed proceedings at the end of the year, the troika were still operating together. On 23 January 1660 Hay joined a committee discussing qualifications to sit as MPs, on which Morley had been appointed on 11 January, and all three were named to a follow-up committee on 22 February.110CJ vii. 818b, 848b. All were appointed to a committee on 23 February to settle county militias, and the same month they all again received complaints from the mayor of Rye about troops in the town.111CJ vii. 849a ; E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/163.

Unlike Morley, Hay did not sign the letter of the county gentry welcoming Charles II, perhaps because of his inferior social standing.112SP29/1, f. 89. He was returned with Morley for Rye to the Convention.113  E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/14, ff. 329v-330v; HMC 13th Rep. IV, 235; HP Commons 1660-1690. He, Morley and Fagge were noted to have been ‘begging pardon for all their faults, and vowing allegiance, duty, and fidelity in time to come, which nothing under heaven shall make them violate’ and to have ‘undertake[n] for the obedience of their two regiments’ (that is those of Morley and Fagge), as well as ‘for the whole county of Sussex, in his Majesty’s name, so long as they are in command’.114Clarendon SP iii. 749. Morley and Hay also forwarded to Rye a copy of the declaration proclaiming the restoration of Charles II.115E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/14, f. 332v. Other than this, however, Hay's activity at Westminster was minimal: Morley’s influence was in eclipse, and Hay himself was well into his sixties. He did not stand at the Rye election in 1661.

Nevertheless, Hay engaged zealously in raising taxes for the disbandment of the army in September 1660.116E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 82/82. He drew up his will in October 1663, leaving to his children specific bequests worth £1,250. His only named property, the manor of Horsted Parva, was left in trust to his friends and kinsmen, Fagge and Morley. He was buried on 26 December 1664.117PROB11/316/121; Add. 5697, ff. 251-2. His eldest son, William, who had joined him on the commission of the peace in the late 1650s, was a lawyer at Gray’s Inn, but neither he nor any subsequent members of the family entered Parliament.118Al. Cant.; G. Inn Admiss. 238; PBG Inn i. 388, 402; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW3, ff. 71v, 75, 77v.