HALL, Henry (c.1537-1616), of Greatford, Lincs.

Hall’s great-grandfather was one of the principal inhabitants of Grantham by the close of the fifteenth century, and his grandfather, Francis Hall, a prosperous merchant of the Staple and surveyor of Calais, represented the borough in the Reformation Parliament. HP Commons 1509-58, ii. 278-9, 283. Hall’s father obtained in 1541 a grant of the manor of Greatford, six miles from Stamford, and his second wife, noted for her ‘good zeal in religion’, Letters and Pprs. of Hen. VIII, 1540-1, p. 238; HMC Buccleuch, iii. 61. brought him kinsfolk on the corporation. This interest, however, did not suffice to procure Hall election to Parliament until 1604, by which time he was over 60. During the course of the first Jacobean Parliament he was appointed to only two committees. In the first session he was among those named to consider the bill for an exchange of land between Sir Thomas Monson* and Trinity College, Cambridge (26 May 1604). Sixteen days later he was granted a 20-day leave of absence. His remaining committee appointment was in the second session, and concerned a bill to confirm conveyances made by corporate bodies that were misnamed in the granting deeds (25 Jan. 1606). CJ, i. 260a, 981a, 991a. In 1608 he put up £100 bond as security for Sir Thomas Darnell on the latter’s appointment as receiver-general of Lincolnshire. Lansd. 168, no. 200. He retired from the Kesteven bench at about the time he drew up his will on 4 Nov. 1609. In this he described himself as ‘a rebellious and disobedient servant to my heavenly master’, being ‘not worthy to present myself before thy divine presence’. Despite his sense of worthlessness, he was prepared for death, which he was ‘ready to entertain ... with a thankful and humble heart’, as he thereby expected to be ‘freed from all misery’. Moreover, he trusted that ‘at the general resurrection both I and all other of God’s elect, redeemed by the blood shed of our Saviour Christ, shall receive and put on bodies incorruptible then to live with him in perfect glory for ever’. Hall appointed as one of his executors Robert Bertie, 14th Lord Willoughby of Eresby, and added a codicil to his will on 21 Feb. 1615. He died at Greatford on 27 Jan. 1616, and was buried there, as he had requested, the same day. He was the last of this branch of the family to sit in Parliament. PROB 11/302, f. 61; Blore, 131.