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HYDE, Nicholas (c.1572-1631), of the Middle Temple, London and Marlborough, Wilts.
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Biography Detail
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Family and Education
b. c.1572, 4th s. of Lawrence Hyde I by his 2nd w. and bro. of Henry, Lawrence II and Robert. educ. Exeter Coll. Oxf. 1590; M. Temple 1590, called 1598. m. Mary, da. of Arthur Swayne of Sarson in Amport, Hants. Kntd. 1627.2
Offices Held
Recorder, Bristol 1615-27; Lent reader, M. Temple 1617, treasurer 1626, serjeant-at-law 1627; cj. King’s bench 1627.3
Biography
Hyde was born in Wardour castle, leased at that time by his father from the Earl of Pembroke. On his father’s death in June 1590 he received only an annuity of £30, augmented by financial support from his mother ‘who was now left very rich’.4
Entering Parliament in 1597 for Old Sarum, Hyde was one of only two or three Members for the borough in this period not directly nominated by the earls of Pembroke. William Blacker and Hyde’s brother Robert were members of a commission sent by the Exchequer to investigate a dispute between two of the Old Sarum ‘free tenants’. The commission was hearing evidence near Old Sarum 30 Sept. 1597, a few days before the election at which Blacker and Nicholas Hyde were returned. The fact that the return was not a ‘blank’ indicates that it was not forwarded to Pembroke, though possibly the candidates already had some assurance of his approval. It is not clear how Hyde came to be elected for Andover in 1601; possibly this was through the influence of the Sandys family. On the other hand Hyde’s wife’s family lived only five miles from the borough.
Though, after the end of the Elizabethan period, Hyde took an active part in parliamentary affairs, it is likely that the majority of the references to Mr. Hide (or Hyde) in the journals of the 1597 and 1601 Parliaments refer to his elder brother Lawrence. Hyde was responsible for the legal education of his nephew, Edward Hyde, the future Earl of Clarendon. He died of gaol fever 25 Aug. 1631.5
