Robert Hyde
Encyclopedia
Sir Robert Hyde was an English judge and Chief Justice of the King’s Bench
Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the judiciary and President of the Courts of England and Wales. Historically, he was the second-highest judge of the Courts of England and Wales, after the Lord Chancellor, but that changed as a result of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005,...

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Early career

Hyde, who was born at his father's house, Heale, near Salisbury
Salisbury
Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England and the only city in the county. It is the second largest settlement in the county...

, in 1595, was second son of Sir Lawrence Hyde
Lawrence Hyde (attorney-general)
Sir Lawrence Hyde was an English lawyer who was attorey-general to the consort of King James I. He sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1584 and 1611....

, attorney-general to Anne
Anne of Denmark
Anne of Denmark was queen consort of Scotland, England, and Ireland as the wife of King James VI and I.The second daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark, Anne married James in 1589 at the age of fourteen and bore him three children who survived infancy, including the future Charles I...

, the consort of James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...

, by his wife, Barbara Castilion of Marsh Benham
Marsh Benham
Marsh Benham is a village in civil parish of Speen in the English county of Berkshire. It is situated in the unitary authority of West Berkshire, just west of Newbury.-External links:...

, Berkshire. Alexander Hyde
Alexander Hyde
Alexander Hyde was an English royalist clergyman, Bishop of Salisbury from 1665 to 1667.-Life:Hyde was born at Salisbury in 1598, the fourth son of Sir Lawrence Hyde. At the age of twelve he entered Winchester College as a scholar, and matriculated 17 November 1615 at New College, Oxford. In...

 and Edward Hyde (1607–1659) were his brothers, and Edward, first earl of Clarendon
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon was an English historian and statesman, and grandfather of two English monarchs, Mary II and Queen Anne.-Early life:...

, his first cousin. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...

 7 February 1617, was appointed Lent Reader there in 1638, and became a serjeant-at-law
Serjeant-at-law
The Serjeants-at-Law was an order of barristers at the English bar. The position of Serjeant-at-Law , or Sergeant-Counter, was centuries old; there are writs dating to 1300 which identify them as descended from figures in France prior to the Norman Conquest...

 in May 1640. In the time of Lord Coke
Edward Coke
Sir Edward Coke SL PC was an English barrister, judge and politician considered to be the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Born into a middle class family, Coke was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge before leaving to study at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the...

 he attended as reporter in the king's bench. He was recorder of Salisbury
Salisbury
Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England and the only city in the county. It is the second largest settlement in the county...

 as early as 1638, when complaints were made against him for his remissness in collecting ship-money
Ship money
Ship money refers to a tax that Charles I of England tried to levy without the consent of Parliament. This tax, which was only applied to coastal towns during a time of war, was intended to offset the cost of defending that part of the coast, and could be paid in actual ships or the equivalent value...

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Conduct during the Civil War and Protectorate

Hyde represented Salisbury
Salisbury (UK Parliament constituency)
Salisbury is a county constituency centred on the city of Salisbury in Wiltshire. It elects one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, by the first past the post voting system....

 in the Long Parliament
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...

, professed loyalist principles, voted against the bill for the attainder
Attainder
In English criminal law, attainder or attinctura is the metaphorical 'stain' or 'corruption of blood' which arises from being condemned for a serious capital crime . It entails losing not only one's property and hereditary titles, but typically also the right to pass them on to one's heirs...

 of Strafford
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford was an English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. He served in Parliament and was a supporter of King Charles I. From 1632 to 1639 he instituted a harsh rule as Lord Deputy of Ireland...

, and was accordingly included in the list of the minority, whose names were placarded as betrayers of their country. Having joined the king
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

 at Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, he was voted a malignant by parliament, and incapacitated from sitting in the house
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

. He was committed to the Tower
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...

 from 4 to 18 Aug. 1645, and on 11 May 1646 was deprived of the recordership of Salisbury
Salisbury
Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England and the only city in the county. It is the second largest settlement in the county...

, He then retired into private life. In 1651 Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

 during his flight from Worcester
Battle of Worcester
The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 at Worcester, England and was the final battle of the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians defeated the Royalist, predominantly Scottish, forces of King Charles II...

 was sheltered for some days in his house at Heale. During the protectorate he occasionally practised his profession, and his name occurs in the reports of Siderfin and Hardres.

Judicial career

At the Restoration he was knighted, and appointed a judge of the common pleas
Court of Common Pleas (England)
The Court of Common Pleas, or Common Bench, was a common law court in the English legal system that covered "common pleas"; actions between subject and subject, which did not concern the king. Created in the late 12th to early 13th century after splitting from the Exchequer of Pleas, the Common...

, 31 May 1660, and on 14 June 1660 was reinstated in the recordership of Salisbury
Salisbury
Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England and the only city in the county. It is the second largest settlement in the county...

. He was also a commissioner upon the trial of the regicides, but took no part beyond advising upon points of law. Thanks to his cousin's influence, he was promoted to be Chief Justice of the King's Bench
Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the judiciary and President of the Courts of England and Wales. Historically, he was the second-highest judge of the Courts of England and Wales, after the Lord Chancellor, but that changed as a result of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005,...

 on 19 October 1663. He is said to have been an authority upon pleas of the crown, but was not learned otherwise. Upon the trials of Twyn for printing a book called A Treatise of the Execution of Justice, and of Benjamin Keach at Aylesbury for publishing The Child's Instructor, he took a tone very hostile to dissenter
Dissenter
The term dissenter , labels one who disagrees in matters of opinion, belief, etc. In the social and religious history of England and Wales, however, it refers particularly to a member of a religious body who has, for one reason or another, separated from the Established Church.Originally, the term...

s and seditious books. He was not, however, always opposed to non-conformists.

He died suddenly on the bench on 1 May 1665, and was buried in Salisbury Cathedral
Salisbury Cathedral
Salisbury Cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an Anglican cathedral in Salisbury, England, considered one of the leading examples of Early English architecture....

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Private life

Hyde's wife was Mary, daughter of Francis Baber, M.D., of Chew Magna
Chew Magna
Chew Magna is a village and civil parish within the Chew Valley in the Unitary Authority of Bath and North East Somerset, in the Ceremonial county of Somerset, England. The parish has a population of 1,161.To the south of the village is Chew Valley Lake...

, Somerset, but he had no children. By the demise of his brother Lawrence he came into possession of the Heale estates in the Amesbury
Amesbury
Amesbury is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It is most famous for the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge which is in its parish, and for the discovery of the Amesbury Archer—dubbed the King of Stonehenge in the press—in 2002...

 valley, and these, with his collection of heirlooms, he settled on the issue of his brother Alexander
Alexander Hyde
Alexander Hyde was an English royalist clergyman, Bishop of Salisbury from 1665 to 1667.-Life:Hyde was born at Salisbury in 1598, the fourth son of Sir Lawrence Hyde. At the age of twelve he entered Winchester College as a scholar, and matriculated 17 November 1615 at New College, Oxford. In...

, Bishop of Salisbury
Bishop of Salisbury
The Bishop of Salisbury is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Salisbury in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers much of the counties of Wiltshire and Dorset...

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