James Hales

Sir James Hales (c.1500–1554), judge, was the son of John Hales (1469/70–1540?), Baron of the Exchequer. He refused to seal the document settling the crown on Lady Jane Grey, and during the reign of Queen Mary opposed the relaxation of the laws against religious nonconformity. His suicide by drowning resulted in the lawsuit 'Hales v. Petit', considered to be a source of the gravedigger's speech in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Family

James Hales was the eldest son of John Hales (1469/70–1540?), Baron of the Exchequer, of The Dungeon, Canterbury, Kent, by Isabel or Elizabeth Harry or Harvey. Hales' father was a bencher of Gray's Inn, and Hales was admitted as a student there between 1517 and 1519. He was elected an ancient of the Inn in 1528. By 1530 he was acting a counsel in the Court of Requests, and in 1532 became a bencher of Gray's Inn. In 1541 he was appointed counsel to the corporation of Canterbury, and was an adviser to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. On 4 November 1544 he was appointed King's Serjeant. At the coronation of King Edward VI he was made a Knight of the Bath. On 20 May 1549 he was appointed a Justice of the Common Pleas.

In 1553 Hales refused to seal the document by which John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland and others attempted to settle the crown on Lady Jane Grey. When Queen Mary came to the throne shortly thereafter, and favoured greater tolerance towards Roman Catholics, Hales opposed the relaxation of earlier statutes against nonconformity. As a result, on 4 October 1553 Bishop Gardiner, then Lord Chancellor, refused to take Hales' oath as a justice, and he was committed in turn to the King's Bench prison, the Counter in Bread Street, and the Fleet. While in prison Hales unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide by opening his veins with a penknife. In April 1554 Queen Mary ordered that Hales be released, but by then his mental condition was so disturbed that on 4 August of that year he drowned himself by lying face down in a stream at Thanington, near Canterbury. A coroner's inquest determined that his death, being self-inflicted, was a felony.

In 1558 Hales' widow instigated legal proceedings against Cyriac Petit to recover a lease of land in Graveney marsh which had been made in 1551 to herself and her late husband. Since the coroner had earlier ruled Hales' death to be a felony, the case, Hales v. Petit, turned on the abstruse point of whether the felony, i.e. Hales' suicide, had occurred during Sir James' lifetime or after his death. In 1562 the court ruled in favour of Petit. Plowden published a full report of the case in 1571. According to Baker Hales v. Petit is 'often held up as an extreme example of abstract legal reasoning', and it is considered that Shakespeare alludes to it in the gravedigger's speech in Hamlet:

First Clown Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here

stands the man; good; if the man go to this water,
and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he
goes,--mark you that; but if the water come to him
and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he
that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
Second Clown But is this law?

First Clown Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law.

Marriages and issue

Hales was twice married. His first wife was Mary Hales, the daughter of Thomas Hales of Filetts or Phyllis Court, Henley on Thomas, Merchant of the Staple. His second wife was Margaret (d.1577), one of the daughters and coheirs of Oliver Wood, Justice of the Common Pleas during the reign of King Henry VIII, who had been twice widowed before her third marriage to Hales. Her first husband was Sir Walter Mantell (d.1529) of Nether Heyford, Northamptonshire, while her second was Sir William Haute. She is buried in the south or Woods chancel in St Mildred's Church, Canterbury, where there is a monument to her memory. She is also mentioned in the monument in Canterbury Cathedral [1] to Richard Neville (c.1510–1599) of South Leverton, Nottinghamshire, and Anne, daughter of Sir Walter Mantell of Heyford, Northamptonshire, parents of Thomas Neville (c.1548–1615), Dean of Canterbury.

Hales had two sons, Humphrey and Edward, and a daughter, Mildred.

References

• Baker, J.H. (2004). Hales, John (1469/70–1540?). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 4 January 2013. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (subscription required)
• Baker, J.H. (2010). Hales, Sir James (c.1500–1554). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 4 January 2013. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (subscription required)
• Hales, R. Cox (1882). "Brief notes on the Hales Family". Archaeologia Cantiana. Vol. XIV. London: Kent Archaeological Society. pp. 61–84. Retrieved 4 January 2013. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

J. B. Mullinger, ‘Neville , Thomas (c.1548–1615)’, rev. Stanford Lehmberg, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 4 Jan 2013

• Mullinger, J.B. (2004). Neville , Thomas (c.1548–1615). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 4 January 2013. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (subscription required)

External links

• Hales, from Hasted's History of Kent
• Mauntell, Nether Heyford, Northamptonshire
• St Mildred's Church, Canterbury
• Lawsuit re manor of Phillis Court (Fyllettes) to which James Hales and his wife Mary were parties, National Archives catalogue