Sir Edward Hales, 1st Baronet
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Sir Edward Hales, 1st Baronet (1576–1654) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons in various years between 1605 and 1648. He supported the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil War.
Edward Hales was the son of William Hales of Tenterden, Kent and Elizabeth Johnson, daughter of Paul Johnson of Fordwich. His paternal grandfather was Edward Hales, third son of John Hales (1469/70 – c. 1540), Baron of the Exchequer, and younger brother of Sir James Hales (c. 1500–1554), Justice of the Common Pleas, whose suicide, the subject of a lawsuit in Hales v. Petit, is thought to be alluded to in the gravedigger's speech in Shakespeare's play, Hamlet.[1]
Career
Hales was elected MP for Hastings in 1605 and 1614, and appointed High Sheriff of Kent for 1608–1609 [2] and was created a baronet by King James I on 29 June 1611.[3]
In 1625, Hales was elected Member of Parliament for Queenborough for one parliament, and then in 1626 was elected MP for Kent for one parliament. In April 1640 he was re-elected MP for Queenborough for the Short Parliament. He was elected again in November 1640 for the Long Parliament, and held the seat until 1648 when he was excluded under Pride's Purge.[4]
Hales died in 1654 at the age of 78.
