HALE, SIR MATTHEW: Lord Chief Justice of England; b. at Alderley (15 m. n.e. of Bristol), Gloucestershire, Nov. 1, 1609; d. there Dec. 25, 1676. Left an orphan at the age of five he was placed under the care of the Puritan vicar of R% otton-under-Edge. In 1626 he matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, with a view to taking orders, but soon devoted himself to law, and in Sept., 1628, entered Lincoln's Inn. He was called to the bar in 1636 and quickly attained eminence in his profession. He was one of Laud's counsel on the archbishop's impeachment in 1643. Having adopted Pomponius Atticus as his model he sought to maintain a position of strict neutrality during the civil war, but after the execution of Charles I. he threw in his lot with the commonwealth. He was justice of common pleas 1654-58, and member of parliament for Gloucester 1654-55, and for the University of Oxford 1659-60. In the convention parliament, which met in Apr., 1660, he sat again for Gloucester and took an active part in the restoration of Charles II., by whom he was knighted Jan. 30, 1661. He was lord chief baron 1660-71, and lord chief justice from May 18, 1671, till Feb. 20, 1676, when, on account of failing health, he surrendered his office to the king in person. At the time of the Savoy Conference he wished to see the Presbyterians comprehended in the Church, and later he showed his sympathy for dissenters by his lenient administration of the Conventicle Acts, and also by an attempt made with Sir Orlando Bridgeman in 1668 to bring about the comprehension of the more moderate. He was on intimate terms with Baxter, Stillingfieet, and other celebrated divines.

Hale's rank as a lawyer and judge, and as a Christian, is of the highest. That he condemned

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two poor women to death for witchcraft, at the Bury St. Edmunds assizes, Mar. 10, 1662, has been by some considered a blot on his reputation, but, though a deplorable fact, it only shows that he was not in advance of his times. His principal religious works are Contemplations, Moral and Divine (London, 1676); Of the Nature of True Religion (ed. from MS. by R. Baxter, 1684); A Discourse of Religion (1684); and A Discourse of the-Knowledge of God and Ourselves (1688). His Works, Moral and Religious, with Burnet's Life and R. Baxter's Notes prefixed, were edited by T. Thirlwall (2 vols., 1805).

Bibliography: The sources are: G. Burnet, The Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale, London, 1682, and prefixed to Hale's works, ut sup.; A. h Wood, Athenm Ozoniensea, ed. P. Bliss, iii. 1090-96, 4 vols., ib. 1813-20. Consult: J. B. Williams, Memoirs of the Life, Character and Writinp8 of Sir Matthew Hale, ib. 1835 (careful but pragmatic); John Campbell, Limes of the Chief Justices, 3 vols., ib. 1849-57; DNB, xxiv. 18-24; W. H. Hutton, The English Church . . . 1886-171.¢, pp. 204, 336 337, London, 1903.