HYDE, Alexander (1598-1667)

At the Restoration Alexander Hyde’s connections to the higher clergy in Salisbury and to one of the key families in Restoration Wiltshire and England gave him a good chance of preferment. His brother Henry, then royalist ambassador at Constantinople, had been executed in 1650 for plotting against Parliament’s trading interests; another brother, Robert Hyde, had been elected to the Long Parliament, joined Charles I at Oxford and was later chief justice of the king’s bench; a third, Edward, also a clergyman, determinedly defended the cause of the Church and the king in Oxford during the Interregnum, though he died in 1659. Ath. Ox. iv. 833; HP Commons 1660–90, ii. 625. Most significantly, Hyde was first cousin to Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon.

Alexander Hyde initially read law but by 1634 had been ordained and instituted to his first living in his native Wiltshire, and was soon preferred to the chapter of Salisbury. In 1645, charged with taking the royal oath of association and corresponding with royalists, he was deprived of his rectories; as owner of the advowson of Colsterworth in Lincolnshire he presented his relative John Castilion, though he was also deprived. Walker Revised, 248. In September 1660 he became dean of Winchester, and received over £2,100 in fines during his first two years in office. Green, Re-establishment of the Church of England, 114. Being also the heir of estates in Wiltshire at Swindon, Heale, Durnford and Dinton, he was ideally placed for promotion within the diocese of Salisbury. PROB 11/325. When John Earle, bishop of Salisbury, died in November 1665, Hyde was elevated to the episcopate ‘by the endeavours of his kinsman’ Clarendon. The court having moved to Oxford to escape the plague, he was consecrated on 31 Dec. 1665 in New College chapel by Gilbert Sheldon*[1973], archbishop of Canterbury. Ath. Ox. iv. 832. Three weeks later, he received a ‘friendly’ warning from Sheldon that he should ratify the appointment to the chapter of a royal nominee, particularly since he owed the king ‘a great deal more than so small a return’ and should not incur his anger in this ‘first act of duty and observance’. Bodl. Add. C 305, f. 335v.

Hyde took his seat in the Lords on 18 Sept. 1666; a fourth brother, Sir Frederick Hyde, joined the Commons as Member for Haverfordwest in the same month. HP Commons 1660–90, ii. 625. In a parliamentary career that lasted less than three months, the bishop attended the House regularly until early December 1666 but was named to only three committees, including the privileges committee. After Christmas 1666, having been present for only half of the sittings that session, Hyde did not return to Parliament and there is no evidence that he registered a proxy to cover his absence. His approach to both parliamentary and episcopal duty suggests a marked lethargy. One observer reported to the secretary of state that Hyde had been quite unconcerned when his ecclesiastical jurisdiction was challenged by the mayor of Devizes. Eg. 2539, f. 61.

Hyde died on 22 Aug. 1667. At his own request, he was buried in the south aisle of Salisbury cathedral. In his will he made generous charitable bequests and provided dowries of £1,000 for each of his three younger daughters. His eldest daughter, Margaret, given a dowry of £1,500, had already married Henry Parker^‡, who was named as joint executor of the will. HP Commons, 1660–90, iii. 206. His landed estates went to his only surviving son, Robert Hyde^‡.