HILLIARD, William (d.1608), of York.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1586

Family and Education

4th s. of Martin Hilliard of Winestead in Holderness and bro. of Christopher I. educ. St. John’s, Camb. 1557; I. Temple 1560, called 1571. m. Ann, da. of William Hill (or Howe), of London, 2s.

Offices Held

Bencher, I. Temple 1580, Summer vacation reader 1583, Lent reader 1590; freeman, York c.1581, recorder from 1582; j.p. Yorks. (E. Riding) 1575-86 or 1587, again by 1598, escheator 1586; member, council in the north by 1587; eccles. commr. diocese of York by 1579; high commr. province of York 1597.

Biography

Hilliard was a lawyer who became recorder of York and sat once for the city in Parliament, serving on a committee about Mary Queen of Scots (4 Nov. 1586). By 1590 he was rich enough to be put down for £30 for the loan to the Queen, and between 1575 and 1602 he acquired a good deal of landed property in Beverley and elsewhere. Hilliard had Catholic connexions: Lady Catherine Constable of Burton Constable bequeathed him a ‘cup of mother of pearl’ in 1590, and in 1598 a relation who was a recusant made Hilliard the supervisor of his will. He died 20 Aug. 1608, and was buried at St. Michael Belfry, York.

Glover, Vis. Yorks. 1584-5, p. 51; York Freemen (Surtees Soc. cii), 22; York Civic Recs. passim; Stowe, 570, f. 67v; Lansd. 121, f. 70; HMC Hatfield, vi. 253, 416, 493, 515; ix. 396; D’Ewes, 394; York Fines (Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. v), 70, 190, 193; (vii), 70, 131, 142, 182; (viii), 125, 186; J. J. Cartwright, Chapters in Yorks. Hist. 373; J. C. H. Aveling, Catholic Recusancy in York (Cath. Rec. Soc. 1970), 344.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N.M.S.

Notes