Family and Education b. 1 Nov. 1609, o.s. of Robert Hale, barrister, of Lincoln’s Inn by Joan, da. of Matthew Poyntz of Alderley. educ. Wotton-under-Edge (John Stanton); Magdalen Hall, Oxf. 1626; L. Inn 1628, called 1636. m. (1) by 1640, Anne, da. of Sir Henry Moore, 1st Bt., of Fawley, Berks., 4s. (3 d.v.p.) 6da.; (2) 18 Oct. 1667, Anne, da. of Joseph Bishop of Fawley, s.p. suc. fa. 1614; kntd. 30 Jan. 1662.1

Offices Held

Governor, Covent Garden precinct 1646; bencher, L. Inn 1648; j.p. Glos. 1656-d., commr. for militia 1659, oyer and terminer, Oxford circuit July 1660, assessment, Glos. 1664-d., Mdx. 1673-d.

Chairman, law reform commission 1652-3; judge of probate 1653-4; serjeant-at-law 1654; j.c.p. 1654-8; commr. for trade 1655-7; chief baron of the Exchequer 7 Nov. 1660-71; c.j.K.b. 1671-6.2

Biography Hale, the outstanding lawyer of his generation, inherited a small estate of £100 p.a. Receiving a puritan education, he took no part in the Civil War, but assisted in the defence of Archbishop Laud and other Royalists. He was appointed chairman of the law reform committee by the Rump and raised to the bench by Cromwell, serving at the same time for his county in the first Protectorate Parliament, but he relinquished his judgeship on Cromwell’s death.3

At the general election of 1660 Hale was invited to stand both for Oxford University and Gloucestershire, and returned for the county after a contest. Lord Berkeley ‘bore all the charge of the entertainments on the day of his election, which was considerable’. A very active Member, he was appointed to 87 committees and made 14 recorded speeches in the Lower House of the Convention. Lord Wharton marked him as a friend, to be approached by himself, and he was clearly in opposition on several important issues. On the receipt of the King’s letter, according to Burnet, he

moved that a committee might be appointed to look into the propositions that had been made and the concessions that had been offered by the late King during the war, particularly at the Treaty of Newport, that from thence they might digest such propositions as they should think fit to be sent over to the King. The motion was unsuccessful, but Hale was appointed one of the managers of the conference with the Lords on the subject. He seconded the motion of Arthur Annesley for the admission of Edmund Ludlow to the House. He was named to the committees for the land purchases and indemnity bills, and helped to prepare for a conference on the regicides on 21 May. He was confirmed as serjeant-at-law on 22 June. He spoke in favour of naming a day to hear the petition from the intruded dons at Oxford, and was appointed to the committee. In a debate on the indemnity bill he moved ‘to cement differences’ by limiting the exceptions to 20, as originally drafted, and in accordance with the King’s desire and the faith of the House. His first wife had come from a Roman Catholic family, and he advised against pressing the Papists to take the oaths ‘for fear of making them desperate’. He opposed questioning lawyers who had appeared for the prosecution in the High Courts of Justice. He accepted the Thirty-Nine Articles, ‘but thought it not fitting’ to join them in the same paragraph with the Old and New Testaments, and urged the adjournment of the debate on 9 July without a division. He was given special responsibility for the tunnage and poundage bill and for bringing in a bill to appoint commissioners of sewers with Sir Anthony Irby and Edward King. On 28 July he moved for two bills to regularize Interregnum proceedings. The first, to confirm civil marriages, he brought in on 8 Aug., and two days later, with Nathaniel Bacon, he was directed to bring in a bill restraining grants of ecclesiastical leases. Perhaps his most impressive speech was in the debate of 17 Aug. on the Lords’ amendments to the indemnity bill. He agreed that ‘there was never so high a crime’ as the execution of Charles I.

If there should be cause shown by the Lords you may alter your vote, but the question ... was whether the Lords had shown that cause. But here is the case. Now they are in your power, you cannot let them go. He moved for a committee to state the facts, which was immediately ordered and to which he was appointed. He continued to urge that the regicides who had surrendered themselves voluntarily should be pardoned, ‘for the honour of the King and the Houses’. To leave the decision to the King ‘was but to take a thorn out of our foot to put into the King’s’. He helped to manage the conference on 18 Aug., and was added to the committee to draft a petition on behalf of Lambert and Vane. On 5 Sept. he reported amendments to the ecclesiastical leases bill which he had prepared together with William Prynne and Heneage Finch. He was instructed to draft an order for preserving the timber in the Forest of Dean, and he took part in the conference on settling ministers on 10 Sept. After the autumn recess, his was the first name among those ordered to bring in the bill for modified episcopacy, and he was also named to the committee for the attainder bill. But on the same day he was removed from the Commons by his appointment as chief baron.4

Hale served as a judge with great distinction until a few months before his death. His behaviour in Church, according to Baxter, was ‘conformable but prudent’. He tried to mitigate the severity of the Conventicles Act wherever possible, and in 1668, together with Lord Keeper Bridgeman, drafted a comprehension bill. He died on 25 Dec. 1676, and was buried in the churchyard at Alderley. He had not greatly enriched his family, despite the studied simplicity of his life-style. His estate was worth under £900 p.a., and none of his descendants sat in Parliament.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690 Author: M. W. Helms Notes 1. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. Trans. lxxiv. 199-202; Burnet, Life of Hale (1806), 130-2; Glos. Par. Regs. x. 55. 2. Whitelocke Mems. iii. 385. 3. Burnet, Life, 3-6. 4. J. B. Williams, Mems. of Hale (1835), 45-48; Burnet, Life, 37-38; Burnet, Hist. Own Time, i. 160; CJ, viii. 7, 74, 94, 95, 127, 142, 156; Voyce from the Watch Tower, 120; Bowman diary, ff. 25v, 43v 54v 57v, 65, 68, 102v, 128, 147, 153. 5. Burnet, Hist. i. 465; Burnet, Life, 110; Works of Hale ed. T. Thirwall, 89, 101, 104

Sir Matthew Hale Born: 1-Nov-1609 Birthplace: Alderley, Gloucestershire, England Died: 25-Dec-1676 Location of death: Alderley, Gloucestershire, England Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male Race or Ethnicity: White Occupation: Judge

Nationality: England Executive summary: Lord Chief Justice of England

Lord chief justice of England, born on the 1st of November 1609 at Alderley in Gloucestershire, where his father, a retired barrister, had a small estate. His paternal grandfather was a rich clothier of Wotton-under-Edge; on his mother's side he was connected with the noble family of the Poyntzes of Acton. Left an orphan when five years old, he was placed by his guardian under the care of the Puritan vicar of Wotton-under-Edge, with whom he remained until he attained his sixteenth year, when he entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford. At Oxford, Hale studied for several terms with a view to holy orders, but suddenly there came a change. The diligent student, at first attracted by a company of strolling players, threw aside his studies, and plunged carelessly into gay society. He soon decided to change his profession; and resolved to trail a pike as a soldier under the prince of Orange in the Low Countries. Before going abroad, however, Hale found himself obliged to proceed to London in order to give instructions for his defense in a legal action which threatened to deprive him of his patrimony. His leading counsel was the celebrated Serjeant Glanville (1586-1661), who, perceiving in the acuteness and sagacity of his youthful client a peculiar fitness for the legal profession, succeeded, with much difficulty, in inducing him to renounce his military for a legal career, and on the 8th of November 1629 Hale became a member of the honorable society of Lincoln's Inn.

He immediately resumed his habits of intense application. The rules which he laid down for himself, and which are still extant in his handwriting, prescribe sixteen hours a day of close application, and prove, not only the great mental power, but also the extraordinary physical strength he must have possessed, and for which indeed, during his residence at the university, he had been remarkable. During the period allotted to his preliminary studies, he read over and over again all the yearbooks, reports, and law treatises in print, and at the Tower of London and other antiquarian repositories examined and carefully studied the records from the foundation of the English monarchy down to his own time. But Hale did not confine himself to law. He dedicated no small portion of his time to the study of pure mathematics, to investigations in physics and chemistry, and even to anatomy and architecture; and there can be no doubt that this varied learning enhanced considerably the value of many of his judicial decisions.

Hale was called to the bar in 1637, and almost at once found himself in full practice. Though neither a fluent speaker nor bold pleader, in a very few years he was at the head of his profession. He entered public life at perhaps the most critical period of English history. Two parties were contending in the state, and their obstinacy could not fail to produce a most direful collision. But amidst the confusion Hale steered a middle course, rising in reputation, and an object of solicitation from both parties. Taking Pomponius Atticus as his political model, he was persuaded that a man, a lawyer and a judge could best serve his country and benefit his countrymen by holding aloof from partisanship and its violent prejudices, which are so apt to distort and confuse the judgment. But he is best vindicated from the charges of selfishness and cowardice by the thoughts and meditations contained in his private diaries and papers, where the purity and honor of his motives are clearly seen. It has been said, but without certainty, that Hale was engaged as counsel for the earl of Strafford; he certainly acted for Archbishop William Laud, Lord Maguire, Christopher Love, the duke of Hamilton and others. It is also said that he was ready to plead on the side of Charles I had that monarch submitted to the court. The parliament having gained the ascendancy, Hale signed the Solemn League and Covenant, and was a member of the famous assembly of divines at Westminster in 1644; but although he would undoubtedly have preferred a Presbyterian form of church government, he had no serious objection to the system of modified Episcopacy, proposed by James Ussher. Consistently with his desire to remain neutral, Hale took the engagement to the Commonwealth as he had done to the king, and in 1653, already serjeant, he became a judge in the court of common pleas. Two years afterwards he sat in Oliver Cromwell's parliament as one of the members for Gloucestershire. After the death of the protector, however, he declined to act as a judge under Richard Cromwell, although he represented Oxford in Richard's parliament. At the Restoration in 1660 Hale was very graciously received by Charles II, and in the same year was appointed chief baron of the exchequer, and accepted, with extreme reluctance, the honor of knighthood. After holding the office of chief baron for eleven years he was raised to the higher dignity of lord chief justice, which he held until February 1676, when his failing health compelled him to resign. He retired to his native Alderley, where he died on the 25th of December of the same year. He was twice married and survived all his ten children save two.

As a judge Sir Matthew Hale discharged his duties with resolute independence and careful diligence. His sincere piety made him the intimate friend of Isaac Barrow, Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Wilkins and Bishop Stillingfleet, as well as of the Nonconformist leader, Richard Baxter. He is chargeable, however, with the condemnation and execution of two poor women tried before him for witchcraft in 1664, a kind of judicial murder then falling under disuse. He is also reproached with having hastened the execution of a soldier for whom he had reason to believe a pardon was preparing.

Of Hale's legal works the only two of importance are his Historia placitorum coronae, or History of the Pleas of the Crown (1736); and the History of the Common Law of England, with an Analysis of the Law, etc. (1713). Among his numerous religious writings the Contempleftions, Moral and Divine, occupy the first place. Others are The Primitive Origination of Man (1677); Of the Nature of True Religion, etc. (1684); A Brief Abstract of the Christian Religion (1688). One of his most popular works is the collection of Letters of Advice to his Children and Grandchildren. He also wrote an Essay touching the Gravitation or Nongravitation of Fluid Bodies (1673); Difficilees Nugae, or Observations touching the Torricellian Experiment, etc. (1675); and a translation of the Life of Pomponius Atlicus, by Cornelius Nepos (1677). His efforts in poetry were inauspicious. He left his valuable collection of manuscripts and records to the library of Lincoln's Inn.

   University: Magdalen Hall, Oxford University (dropped out)

UK Member of Parliament 1665 for Gloucestershire

   Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn 1626

   Knighthood 1660

Sir Matthew Hale SL (1 November 1609 – 25 December 1676) was an influential English barrister, judge and lawyer most noted for his treatise Historia Placitorum Coronæ, or The History of the Pleas of the Crown. Born to a barrister and his wife, who had both died by the time he was 5, Hale was raised by his father's relative, a strict Puritan, and inherited his faith. In 1626 he matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford(now Hertford College), intending to become a priest, but after a series of distractions was persuaded to become a barrister like his father thanks to an encounter with a Serjeant-at-Law in a dispute over his estate. On 8 November 1628 he joined Lincoln's Inn, where he was called to the Bar on 17 May 1636. As a barrister, Hale represented a variety of Royalist figures during the prelude and duration of the English Civil War, including Thomas Wentworth and William Laud; it has been hypothesised that Hale was to represent Charles I at his state trial, and conceived the defence Charles used. Despite the Royalist loss, Hale's reputation for integrity and his political neutrality saved him from any repercussions, and under the Commonwealth of England he was made Chairman of the Hale Commission, which investigated law reform. Following the Commission's dissolution, Oliver Cromwell made him a Justice of the Common Pleas.

Biography: wikipedia.org

Baptism Record

Ano 1609, November 5, Alderley, Gloucestershire, England
Matthew son of Robert Hale Esquier

Burial Record

1676/7, Jan 4, Alderley, Gloucestershire, England
Sr Mathew Hale Kt. Lord Chiefe Justice of England was buryed.