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.

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