the court' till success turned his head and made him insolent. Roger North, who says that in his passion he would 'swear like a cutter,' adds that he was too prone to indulgence in wine. His enemy the Duchess of Marlborough further describes him as consumed by petty vanity and love of trifling ceremonies (Account of Conduct, p.98). But it is impossible on this subject to trust either her or Halifax, who with aristocratic spite referred to him as 'scarce a gentleman' (Reresby, p.273). Though he began his public career as a diplomatist, he was, as King William found in his latter days, little versed in foreign affairs. The strength of his position lay in his being long accounted the head of the church of England party; and at the crucial moment under James II he showed himself worthy of the confidence placed in him. In his domestic relations he was unexceptionable. He is described by Macky as of middle stature, well-shaped, and of a brown complexion. A portrait of him and his wife by Lely, and another of him by Wissing, are preserved at the Grove, Watford.
His only son Henry (1672-1753) became fourth and last Earl of Clarendon, and second and last Earl of Rochester of the Hyde family. He is noticed under his wife, Jane Hyde. Rochester also had four daughters Anne, first wife of James Butler, second duke of Ormonde [q. v.]; Henrietta, wife of James Scott, earl of Dalkeith; Mary, first wife of Francis Seymour, first lord Conway; and Catherine, who was unmarried.
[The Correspondence of Rochester and his elder brother, with the Diary of Clarendon from 1687-90, and that of Rochester during his Polish embassy in 1676, was edited with notes and biographical introductions by S. W. Singer (2 vols. 1828), and is here cited as Diary and Correspondence. This includes the whole of the State Letters of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, edited, with a preface vindicating his memory (by Dr. Douglas, bishop of Salisbury), for the Clarendon Press, 2 vols. 1763, and reprinted at Dublin in 1765. See also Burnet's Hist. of his own Time, 6 vols. 1833; Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence, ed. H. B. Wheatley, 4 vols. 1879; Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, ed. J. J. Cartwright, 1875; Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth, Hist. MSS. Comm. llth Rep. App. pt. v. 1887; Roger North's Lives of the Norths, 3 vols. 1826; Clarke's Life of James II, 2 vols. 1816; Ellis Correspondence, 2 vols. 1829; [Hooke's] Account of the Conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough, 1742; [Fielding's] Vindication of the Duchess of Marlborough, 1742; Dalrymple's Memoirs, 3 vols. 1790; Macaulay's Hist. of England, 5 vols. 1857-1861. See also Lady T. Lewis's Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, 3 vols. 1852; Lister's Life of Clarendon, 1837-8; Doyle's Baronage.]
HYDE or HIDE, Sir NICHOLAS (d. 1631), chief justice of England, was the fourth son of Lawrence Hyde of West Hatch, Tisbury, Wiltshire, and of Gussage St. Michael, Dorsetshire, by Anne, widow of Matthew Colthurst of Claverton, near Bath, and daughter of Nicholas Sibell of Chimhams, near Farningham, Kent. His grandfather was Robert Hyde of Norbury, Cheshire; Edward Hyde, first earl of Clarendon [q.v.], was his nephew, and Alexander Hyde [q.v.], Edward (1607–1659) [q.v.] , and Sir Robert [q.v.], were his nephews. As a younger son he took under his father's will only a small portion of 30l. per annum, and accordingly entered the Middle Temple, where he was called to the bar. He was returned to parliament for Andover in 1601, and for Christchurch in 1603–4, and became one of the leaders of the popular party, opposing the great contract and the prerogative of imposition in the debates of 1610. He was also one of the speakers in the conference of the houses on impositions in 1614. He must be carefully distinguished from another Nicholas Hyde, or Hide, of Aldbury, Hertfordshire, who was created a baronet in 1621 (Cussans, Hertfordshire, iii., ‘Hundred of Dacorum,' 30, 33; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1619–23, p. 307). His career at the bar was undistinguished. Nevertheless in 1626 he was retained by Buckingham to draft the defence to the articles of impeachment exhibited against him. The sudden removal of Sir Ranulphe Crew [q.v.] from the chief justiceship of the king's bench, 9 Nov. 1626, was followed within a month by the death of his successor-designate, Sir John Davies [q.v.] Hyde, who had changed his political principles, was nominated in his place, was knighted at Whitehall on 28 Jan., was called serjeant-at-law on 31 Jan., and was appointed to the chief justiceship on 6 Feb. 1626–7 (Whitelocke, Mem. p.8; Metcalfe, Book of Knights; Parl. Hist. ii. 167; Rymer, ed. Sanderson, xviii. 835). This unexpected advancement created much indignation in Westminster Hall, which vented itself in the following 'significant tetrastich,' which Sir Simonds D'Ewes heard whispered in court at the Bury Lent assizes:—
Learned Coke, Court Montague,
The aged Lea, and honest Crew;
Two preferred, two set aside,
And then starts up Sir Nicholas Hyde.
(Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Autobiog. ed. Halliwell, ii. 49; Walter Yonge, Diary, Camd. Soc. pp. 100–1.). The first case that came before Hyde was that of the five knights [see Darnell, Sir Thomas]. He was summoned with his colleagues to the bar of the
