Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hitcham, Robert
HITCHAM, Sir ROBERT (1572?–1636), serjeant-at-law, was born at Levington, Suffolk, about 1572. He was educated at the free school at Ipswich and at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and was a barrister of Gray's Inn. In 1597 he represented West Looe in parliament, Lynn in Norfolk in 1614, and Orford in Suffolk in 1625. In 1603 he was made attorney-general to Anne of Denmark, the queen consort, with a patent of precedence next after king's counsel, and was knighted. He was made a serjeant-at-law 25 June 1614, and king's serjeant 4 Jan. 1616. On 15 Aug. 1636 he died, and was buried at Framlingham, where he was lord of the manor. He had often acted, says his epitaph, as a judge of assize. There was a portrait of him in Serjeants' Inn Hall down to the dissolution of the inn. He left large funds to pious uses, especially to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and to the foundation of a school at Framlingham.
[Loder's Hist. of Framlingham, ed. J. Hawes; Fuller's Worthies, ii. 346; Willis's Not. Parl. iii. 138, 171, 204, 214; Bond's East and West Looe, p. 238; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. p. 105; Wynne's Serjeants, pp. 57–8; Woolrych's Eminent Serjeants.]