HADDE, Matthew (c.1544/5-1617), of St. Alphege, Canterbury, Kent and Lincoln’s Inn, London

By the late thirteenth century the Haddes were seated at Chart Sutton, a few miles south-east of Maidstone, but a century later they had moved to Frinsted manor, near Sittingbourne, where they remained until Hadde’s elder brother Arnold alienated the property in 1587. Draft CPR, 1585-7, ii. 26. Hadde entered Lincoln’s Inn in his early twenties, becoming a barrister at about 32. By 1586 he was leasing property near Canterbury from the local dean and chapter. Canterbury Cathedral Archives, DCc/CA3, f. 57. For subsequent leases, see ibid. ff. 149, 162v, 163v, 202, 265. Despite his bailiff having killed a labourer in April 1591 while distraining some livestock, Cal. Assize Recs. Kent Indictments, Eliz. I, 327. Hadde was shortly afterwards retained as standing counsel at 40s. p.a. by Canterbury’s corporation, and became a magistrate in the following year. In 1597 he leased a schoolhouse in the parish of St. Alphege from Archbishop Whitgift, SP12/277/95. CSP Dom. 1598-1601, p. 532 (surname mis-spelt). which may have become his permanent home outside London. He subsequently became a prominent Kent lawyer, and by about 1612 had ‘virtually monopolized all the high legal posts’ in the county. Clark, 275.

Hadde was returned to Westminster as the junior Member for Canterbury in 1604. A newcomer to Parliament, he was evidently taken under the wing of his senior colleague, the recorder of Canterbury and veteran parliamentarian, Sir John Boys, who was named to five of the nine committees to which Hadde was appointed in 1604. His interests as a lawyer and magistrate largely influenced his appointments, as he was named to consider bills concerned with the continuation of expiring laws (24 Mar.), the release of prisoners from gaol (31 Mar.), the relief of prisoners (20 Apr.), bigamy (26 Apr.), the legal status of the post-nati (3 May) and poor relief (4 May). However, local considerations explain his inclusion on bill committees for Edward Neville of Birling (14 May) and John Theobald of Seal (22 May). CJ, i. 152b, 160b, 180a, 185a, 197b, 198b, 210a, 283a, 222a, 234b. He made no recorded speeches in 1604, although he must have been interested in wardship, one of the session’s key themes, as he often practised in the Court of Wards and had purchased a wardship himself. WARD 9/528, ff. 141v, 262, 501.

Hadde played little recorded part in the second session. On 3 Mar. 1606 he brought in a bill for the repair of the bridge over the Severn at Upton although he had not been named to the committee, and on 27 Mar. he was added to the committee concerned with the enforcement of the penal laws. On 1 Apr. he was named to two more committees, one concerned with the Pinners’ Company and the other with church government, but received no mention thereafter. CJ, i. 277a, 290b, 291b. However, by now he had made enough of an impression on his colleagues to merit inclusion in the ‘Parliament Fart’: ‘Yet, quoth Mr. Had, that we may come by it,/ Let’s make a proviso to limit and tie it’. Add. 34218, f. 21v. During the third session his only bill committee appointments concerned Cheshunt vicarage (12 Dec. 1606), Henry Boughton’s Warwickshire estate (15 Dec. 1606) and the Kent lands of Sir William Selby I* (30 Apr. 1607). On 11 May 1607 he also opposed the addition of a proviso to the clothing bill. CJ, i. 330a, 331a, 365a, 1043b. Following the end of the session, Hadde helped Sir John Boys inspect the Act allowing Richard Sackville to surrender the office of chief butler, as the Cinque Ports were concerned that it might prejudice their right to collect prisage. Cal. of White and Black Bks. of Cinque Ports ed. F. Hull (Kent Recs. xix), 386. In 1608 he backed Boys, his fellow subsidy commissioner, in a rating dispute with Sir Thomas Peyton. STAC 8/235/18. In the fourth session he was named to just two bill committees, one concerned with the lands of the late Lord Cheyney (19 June 1610) and the other with the parish of Ashe (4 July 1610). Both were Kent measures. CJ, i. 441a, 445b.

Hadde was granted the chambers formerly belonging to Serjeant Humphrey Winch* in November 1606, and was also permitted access to Lincoln’s Inn Library, of which he subsequently became master. In 1612 he succeeded Sir John Boys as recorder of Canterbury, and in the following year presented silver cups to Prince Charles, Princess Elizabeth and the Palsgrave on their visit to the city. C.R. Bunce, Ancient Canterbury, 17. Unable to attend the Maidstone assizes of March 1613 due to illness, Cal. Assize Recs. Kent Indictments, Jas.I ed. J.S. Cockburn, 121-2. he was not re-elected to Parliament in 1614 and was probably seriously ill by November 1615, when Lincoln’s Inn passed a resolution on the use of his chambers in anticipation of his imminent demise. LI Black Bks. 178. He died unmarried and childless on 8 Aug. 1617 and was buried at St. Alphege, Canterbury six days later. Regs. St. Alphaege, Canterbury 1558-1800 ed. J.M. Cowper, 209. No will or administration has been found, but he was evidently succeeded in his estates by his barrister nephew, Edmund Hadde. LI Admiss. 111; W.R. Prest, Rise of the Barristers, 365. Twelve shillings were spent on repairing his arms in the window of Lincoln’s Inn chapel in 1628-9. LI Black Bks. 289.