SIR BAPTIST HICKS.
By B. Woodd Smith, F.S.A., Hon. Sec. of the Middlesex
County Record Society.
The Photograph which forms a frontispiece to the present
Volume is a reproduction, made for the first time and
under great difficulties, of a portrait bearing the name of
Sir Baptist Hicks, which has been in the possession of the
Justices of Middlesex since the early part of the seventeenth
century, and which, after one or two changes of locality,
now hangs in the Sessions House at Westminster. It is
not known by whom it was painted. It has been attributed
to Gerard Honthorst, who in 1628 was in England by
invitation of Charles I. for six months, during which he
painted various portraits of distinguished persons; but the
inscription attached to the frame ("Sir Baptist Hicks, Knt.,
1618"), believed by experts to be contemporaneous with
the picture, of itself negatives this idea. (fn. 1) The signature is a
facsimile of one of many attached to documents in the
Middlesex Records.
The occasion seems a fitting one for putting together a
few notes in reference to Sir Baptist Hicks himself, occupying as he does an almost unique position on the Roll of
Middlesex Justices; though there is not very much that is
new to be added to the facts of his history which are
already in one form or other before the public, and some
apology may be needed for repeating what is old.
The family of Hicks, or Hickes, is of Gloucestershire
origin, and traditionally descended from Sir Ellice Hicks,
who is said to have been knighted by Edward III. on the
field of battle for his personal bravery. No pedigree of the
family exists which goes back so far, but the arms still bear
the three fleurs-de-lis, or, said to have been granted by the
King. The existing authentic pedigree starts from John
Hicks of Tortworth, co. Gloucester, who died 38 Henry
VIII. (1546), and Margaret his wife, who was still living in
1557. John Hicks owned fulling-mills and other property
in Tortworth. The family do not appear to have been
buried there, but in the neighbouring parishes of Charfield
and Cranhill. Bigland (fn. 2) gives some ten parishes in which
the name occurs in epitaphs, but Tortworth is not one
of them, and few of the epitaphs are earlier than the
seventeenth century, the older ones having probably been
destroyed in the fanatical iconoclasm which was the needless
accompaniment of the Reformation. There is some evidence,
but not very conclusive, of a connection between the Hicks
family and that of the reformer and martyr, William Tyndale.
Thomas Hicks was churchwarden of Tortworth in 1598,
and William Hicks in 1619. Another William Hicks was
rector from 1644 to 1654.
John and Margaret Hicks had an only son, Robert, who
married Juliana de Clapham, co. Somerset, according to the
Herald's Visitation. Strype says that she was a Somersetshire
heiress. Wotton calls her Julian, daughter of William Arthur,
Esq., of Clapham, Surrey. (fn. 3) Robert came to London, and
carried on business as a silk mercer at the sign of the White
Bear at Soper Lane (now Queen Street) End, Cheapside,
near "the great Conduit in Cheape." He was a member
of the Ironmongers' Company, to whom he gave or be
queathed "a standing cupp with a cover guilte waving xxvi
ounces three quarters and a half," which is still in their
possession.
Robert Hicks died in 1557–8, leaving three sons by his wife
Juliana, who is said to have afterwards married Arthur Penne
of London, and to have been still living a second time a widow
in 1577 (fn. 4) . Michael, the eldest son, who was born in 1542,
studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn,
and was called to the Bar. "By his ingenuous education and
good parts he became very polite and agreeable, and was
admitted into the society of learned and eminent persons,
having the accomplishment of a facetious wit to recommend
him." "He was a very witty and jocose man, and his
company much sought after by persons of distinction." He
was also evidently the good elder brother of his father's
younger sons, who constantly turned to him in their
difficulties. He became the secretary and confidential friend
of Lord Treasurer Burghley, and afterwards of his son and
successor, Sir Robert Cecil, and lived on intimate terms with
Bacon (who frequently borrowed money of him,) Raleigh,
"Britannia" Camden, and the other eminent man of the day.
He was knighted by James I. in 1604, after previously
refusing the honour. When over fifty years of age he
married Elizabeth, daughter of Gabriel Colson, and widow
of Henry Purvis or Parvish, an "Italian merchant," and
owner of the manor of Ruckholt in the parish of Leyton,
Essex. Sir Michael bought the manor of the heirs of the
late owner, and it continued in his family till 1720. He
also purchased the manor of Beverston, co. Gloucester.
He died 1612. Both knight and dame lie buried under a
stately monument in the chancel of Leyton Church; the
epitaph placed upon it by the latter being more complimentary to her second husband than to her first. Their son
William was in 1619 raised to a baronetcy, of which the
present holder is his descendant, the Right Honourable Sir
Michael Hicks-Beach.
Of Robert Hicks's second son very little is heard. The
official pedigree gives his name as Francis, but letters from
him to his elder brother, preserved in the Lansdowne MSS.,
are signed Clement Hickes. (fn. 5) He does not appear to have
done much.
His third son, Baptist, the subject of this notice, was
born in 1551. Of his early years and education we have no
account. It would be interesting to know how these
children, left fatherless so young, were trained. The parish
registers of St. Pancras, Soper Lane, might have told us
more about the family, but they were destroyed with the
church itself in the Great Fire. All we know is that he
succeeded to the business and prospered early. It 1580 he
received the freedom of the Mercers' Company, of which he
was subsequently Master at least three times, viz. in 1604,
1611, and 1622. He is described on the Roll of the
Company as "the son of Robert Hycke, late of London,
Yermonger" (Ironmonger). The same year he was
elected on Midsummer day one of the "Auditors of the
Accounts of the Chamber and Bridge," a post which he
held for two years. In 1597 he was already supplying the
Court of Elizabeth with his wares, as appears from an entry
in the State Papers (Domestic Series). "Aug. 15. Bill for
Silks, Satins, Velvets, and Taffetas, sold by Baptist Hicks,
Merchant, to Sir Thomas Wilkes, on his going to Florence.
Total £68 3s. 2d." In 1602, June 17, is a reference in the
same papers to "Dethick, factor for Hicks in Cheapside at
Florence."
After the accession of James I. his fortunes rose rapidly.
On July 5th, 1603, "Baptist Hicks, Mercer," was appointed
by the Court of Aldermen as one of the citizens "to attend
on the Lord Maior of the Cittye in Westminster Hall, on
the day of the most honourable Coronation of the King's
and Queene's most Excellent Majestic" James, who had
knighted two hundred and thirty-seven gentlemen in the
course of his month's progress from Edinburgh to London,
knighted Sir Baptist Hicks at Whitehall on Sunday,
July 24th, the day before the Coronation. The handsome
presence and good looks which seem to have characterised
his family, as preserved in effigy and portrait, may have stood
him in good stead with the King, with whom he speedily
became a favourite. He was appointed mercer to the King,
a promotion to which his brother's interest with Sir Robert
Cecil no doubt helped. "This Baptist," says Strype, as
often quoted, "upon King James coming in was sworn his
servant and soon knighted. He supplied the Court with
silks and rich mercery ware, when King James with his bare
Scotch nobility and gentry came in, by which means he got
a great estate."
Frequent entries in the State Papers (Domestic Series)
bear witness to the profitable transactions which thenceforward took place with the Court. On August 7th, a
fortnight after the Coronation, is a notice of a warrant to
pay Sir John Fortescue £5,000, "whereof £2,000 is for
charges of the Coronation, and £3,000 to be paid to Sir
Baptist Hicks for silks and stuffs." Next year, July 20th,
1604, is a warrant for discharge of a debt due by him to
the Crown in abatement of the sum owing to him by the
King. On July 25th, 1607, a warrant to repay to Sir
Baptist Hicks on February 1st, 1608, £12,000 with interest,
part of a sum of £24,000, of which £16,285 9s. 6½d. was
balance due to him from the Great Wardrobe and the
remainder advanced to meet the King's urgent occasions.
And on the same date is a warrant to pay the second moiety
of £12,000 on the 1st of August, 1608. And again on
December 28th, 1607, a warrant to pay to Sir Baptist
Hicks and Sir Peter Van Loes several sums due to them
by assurance of letters patent from the King. On January
22nd, 1608, mention is made of a bond from the King in
the sum of £150,000 to Sir Thomas Hayes, Sir Baptist Hicks,
and others, to secure £63,038 16s. 0d. advanced by them
on loan, and to make them a grant of divers rents and
customs. In 1609 he was a contractor for Crown Lands.
In 1612 again (February 6th) is a warrant for £1,909 0s. 1d.
for wares to the Queen. In 1617, March 7th, a warrant to
discharge the Teller of the Exchequer, Sir Thomas Watson,
for £2,000 paid by him to Sir Baptist Hicks without special
warrant. Also to pay £126 8s. 0d. for his account for
certain cloth of tissue of gold, satins, &c., purchased four
years before for the King. In 1621 he and two others had
advanced £30,000, ordered to be repaid, for the Palatinate,
the Elector Palatine being the King's son-in-law. And so
on through a long list, which will be found in the Calendar
of State Papers, of payments for goods supplied and money
lent, until almost the last year of his life. His shop in
Cheapside seems to have been a fashionable resort, for a
letter of April 20th, 1618 (Chamberlain to Carleton),
mentions that "the Archbishop of Spalato (fn. 6) preached at
Mercers Chapel . . . . The Chancellor (Bacon) was there in
as great pomp as when he went awhile ago to Sir Baptist
Hicks' and Barnes's Shops to cheapen and buy silks and
velvets." The transactions with the Court did not cease
with the death of James, but were continued with his
successor, for in November, 1626 (15th and 24th) are two
warrants, one to pay him £10,000 lent to the late King,
and another to pay £4,966 13s. 4d. for use and interest
of £10,000 lent to the late King and of £10,000 lent to
"his now Majesty." No wonder "he got a great estate."
Hicks did not confine his commerce to mercery wares
nor his loans to the King. But his letters in the Lansdowne
MSS. show that it was not always easy to get repaid by
King or subjects. He found the Scots "fayre speakers and
slow performers." Repeatedly he begs his good brother to
put pressure on the Lord Treasurer and others on his behalf.
In 1600 he writes to him about a Mr. Thornebury, who
owes him money. In 1605 the King already owed him
£16,000, which he wants because "I am shortly to marry both
my daughters, to whom I am to give good rounde portions in
marriage." One of the daughters was apparently married from
Ruckholt, as he writes to Sir Michael, December 14th, 1605:
"Lett me understand the charge of my daughter's dynner. I
thanke my sister and you for owre good entertainment,
everythyng was so well that it pleased much the companie."
Again in 1611: "My occasion for monies to you knowen
are many, by reason of my late purchase of landes"—probably
at Campden. Lord Pembroke owes him £1,600, and some
one else £1,600. The two brothers and sisters were on
the most friendly terms. He writes "from my house in
Cheapside" to "my very loving syster Lady Hicks,"
sending as "a smaule token of my love" "a meane present"
of some "purple stryped stuffe with goulde."
Another time, probably 1611, he is "yll by reason of a
colde," and prays his brother to come to London because
his name has been sent up to the Lord Mayor for an alder
man, which he knows is "done of malice." Another time
he wants his brother to help him in some businesse, but
adds, "If you feel not yourself very well I would not by
any meanes you should come hither. You shall have a
bed and a good fyer with me if you come to-night if you
bethynke well of it."
The citizens indeed had demurred to his carrying on his
business after his knighthood, contrary to the usual custom,
and a good deal of ill-feeling was the result. He defended
himself, not very candidly, by saying that his servants
carried it on for him. The Court connection was too
valuable to be given up. In December, 1603, he was
excused from being appointed alderman by the express
wish of the King, conveyed in a letter to the Lord Mayor
(December 23rd), "specially for that we are pleased to use his
contynuall care and travell in our service, according to the
trust wee both have and had." In the following year (1604)
he was on the same ground excused from serving as sheriff.
In 1606 he was foreman of the Jury at the Guildhall which
tried and convicted the Jesuit Father Garnet, executed some
days later in St. Paul's Churchyard. (fn. 7) In 1611 he was
actually elected alderman of Bread Street Ward, and
upon summons made his personal appearance in Court
(November 21st), "and did first take the oath of allegiance,
and then the oath of an alderman." He then again put
in the King's letter, to which the Court at first demurred,
"conceiving that he had wayued the benefit of his Majesties'
letter; but after consideration and the intimation that his
Majestie meanes not to write for any other hereafter, and
also in regard of the discreet and respectful behaviour of
the said Sir Baptist Hicks in making his appearance and
taking the oath" (and also, we may add, paying the fine of
£500), "the Court do freelie and lovinglie leave the said
Sir Baptist Hicks to his own free choice and election." In
1613 (November 8th) he was similarly and finally discharged
by the Common Council from the office of sheriff.
In 1614, from a different cause, the King again intervened
on behalf of his servant, "to stay the prosecution of Sir
Baptist Hicks on complaint of Sir Thomas Hayes, Alderman" (associated with Hicks in several loans to the King),
"of violence offered in a trial between them." Sir Baptist
Hicks being knight and servant of the King, the cause was
to be tried elsewhere, but we hear nothing more of it.
In 1585, Baptist Hicks had married Elizabeth, daughter
of Richard May, of a Sussex family, citizen, and a prominent member and sometime Master of the Merchant Taylors'
Company. (fn. 8) By her he had three sons—Arthur, a second
Arthur, and Baptist, who all died young and without issue—
and two daughters. Another of Richard May's daughters
married Willian Herrick, a goldsmith of Cheapside, also
knighted at the Coronation "for having made a hole in the
great diamond the King doth wear. The party little
expected such honour, but he did his work so well as won
the King to an extraordinary liking of it." The two
brothers-in-law are frequently mentioned as jointly concerned
in loans to the King. They also carried on for several years
a dispute as to precedency with the aldermen, who may well
have been jealous of the prosperous shopkeeping knight
commoner. The respective dames took an active part in
the fray; "Sir B. Hicks and his wife often bursteling about
this Ceremony," says Strype, (fn. 9) who tells the story at some
length. "This tedious, troublesome, and chargeable contest," says another writer, "was owing to the haughty
deportments of Hickes and Herrick, and their imperious
wives." The aldermen had carried the matter to the King,
by whom it was referred to the Lords Commissioners of the
office of Earl Marshal, and by them practically to the celebrated
antiquary, Sir Robert Cotton. Upon which Sir Baptist's
son-in-law, Lord Noel, wrote to Cotton appealing to him as a
judicious and honourable kinsman "to defende the dignitie
of knighthood," and to be the Hercules to redeem his fatherin-law from "this Hydra of many heads" (the Court of
Aldermen), who was "soe dangerous a serpent." (fn. 10) Hicks
himself sent Cotton "a smaule token" in the shapeof a piece of
some "commodity . . . . very extraordinary for the goodness," "specially made for me and my friends," begging his
"continued love and favour in a cause which I have in
hand." (fn. 10) At last they made what was a graceful surrender
or a scandalous retreat, according to point of view of the
writer, and the question was dropped.
If Sir Baptist Hicks knew how to amass money as a
merchant, he spent it like a prince. In 1612 he had either
bought or won at cards a few acres at Kensington from
Sir Walter Cope, who owned the greater part of the parish,
and who like himself had found the King's favour profitable. There he built the mansion known as Campden
House, of which a description may be found in Faulkner's
Kensington. "The Earl of Somerset" (writes Chamberlain
to Carleton, March 17th, 1614) "has borrowed Sir Baptist
Hicks House at Kensington, and there settled his lady."
The Earl was one of James's least reputable favourites
who had married the divorced Countess of Essex. On
June 12, 1626, a great burglary took place there. (fn. 11) After
some vicissitudes, told at length by Faulkner, the house,
which remained in the family till about 1720, when it
was sold, was burnt out in 1862, but was subsequently
restored, and though now shorn of its surroundings, retains
enough of the old building to preserve its identity.
In 1614 Hicks had purchased the manors of Exton,
Horn, and Whitwell, in Rutlandshire, with the mansion
of Exton Hall, from the heirs of Sir James Harrington,
first Lord Exton. To Lord Exton and his wife James I.
had entrusted the tuition of his only daughter, the unfortunate Princess Elizabeth, till her marriage with the
Count Palatine. This estate is still in possession of his
descendant, the Earl of Gainsborough.
Some time after 1608 he acquired the manor of Chipping
Campden, in Gloucestershire, from which he afterwards took
his title. There he built another magnificent house, which
is said to have occupied with its offices eight acres of
ground, and to have cost £29,000. "A very capacious
dome issued from the roof, which was regularly illuminated
for the direction of travellers during the night." This costly
pile his grandson the third Lord Campden, (buried with his
lady at Exton, under a splendid monument by Grinling
Gibbons), deliberately sacrificed to his loyalty in the Civil
Wars, and ordered it to be burnt down lest it should be
garrisoned by the Parliamentary forces.
In 1620 he bought the manor of Hampstead of John
Wrothe, grandson of Sir Thomas Wrothe, to whom it
was granted 4 Edward VI. (fn. 12)
From knighthood Sir Baptist Hicks was advanced to a
baronetcy in 1620 (June 24th). In the same year he was
appointed by the King one of the Commissioners to inquire
into the condition of St. Paul's Cathedral. In 1620, too,
he was returned to Parliament for Tavistock, (he is called
in the Returns "Sir Baptist Hexte,") and for Tewkesbury
in 1624, '25, '26, and '28, when his nephew Sir William took
his place on Sir Baptist's elevation to the House of Lords.
He was made a peer on May 5th, 1628, by Charles I. by the
titles of Baron Hicks of Ilmington, (fn. 13) in the County of Warwick, and Viscount Campden of Campden, (fn. 13) in the county of
Gloucester, with remainder in default of male issue (he was
seventy-seven years of age) to his son-in-law, Edward Lord
Noel, Baron of Ridlington, in the county of Rutland. Lord
Noel, whose ancestor came in with the Conqueror, was the
son of Sir Andrew Noel, the accomplished and extravagant
favourite of Queen Elizabeth, who is said to have made
upon him the couplet:
"The word of denial, and letter of fifty,
Is that gentleman's name who will never be thrifty."
He had been made a knight banneret in his youth in the
Irish wars, and a baronet with James the First's first batch
in 1611, and was raised to the peerage in March 1616/17, He
died in the Royal Garrison at Oxford in 1643.
Lord Campden himself did not long survive his elevation,
but died October 16th, 1629, at the age of seventy-eight. He
left no son, but two daughters only, Juliana Lady Noel, and
Mary, who married Sir Charles Morrison of Cashiobury, Herts,
whom she survived, and to whom, "cum luctu et lachrymis,"
she erected a fine monument, bearing his effigy and hers by
Nicholas Stone, in Watford Church. She was twice married
afterwards however, first to Sir John Couper of Wimborne,
Dorset, and after his death to Sir Richard Alford. (fn. 14) To each
of his daughters Lord Campden is said to have left £100,000,
and through them be became an ancestor of a large number
of noble families. Lord Byron was among his descendants,
as are also the Dukes of Devonshire, Beaufort, Portland, and
Rutland, the Marquis of Northampton, the Earls of Gainsborough and Essex, and many others of the nobility.
If Baptist Hicks was princely in his own expenditure, he
was not unmindful of those less fortunate than himself, and
he left enduring memorials of his liberality in most of the
places associated with his name. In 1628 he purchased the
great tithes of the parish of Woodhorne in Northumberland,
one moiety of which he presented to the Mercers' Company
for annual scholarships from St. Paul's School at Trinity
College, Cambridge. He also enriched the company by
other large gifts.
The other moiety of the Woodhorne tithes he gave to
the parish of Hampstead "toward the maintenance of an
able preacher." (fn. 15) He also repaired and adorned the chapel
of Hampstead, which cost £76. In each of these cases,
and in others also, his widow largely supplemented his
benefits, making various large donations to the Mercers'
Company, and bequeathing to the poor of Hampstead the
sum of £200, which with a gift by her great-grandson, the
first Earl of Gainsborough, of six acres of land and a chalybeate well, now form the estate of the "Wells and Campden
Charity," with a present income of £2,500 managed by
trustees under the Charity Commissioners, and applied to
pensions, apprenticeships and outfits, scholarships, hospital
subscriptions, and artisans' dwellings, for the benefit of the
poor of the parish.
To Kensington Lord Campden also gave £200, and his
widow willed a like sum, the investments of which now yield
an annual income of nearly £3,000, which with the addition
of about £1,000 a year from another source form the Campden
Charities of Kensington, applied very similarly to those of
Hampstead. He also "caused a window to be set up in the
chancel of Kensington, and beautified it, which cost £30."
At Campden, according to a MS. list of his favours preserved there, he built a market house, which cost £90,
and an almshouse for six poor men and six poor women
at a cost of £1,000, maintaining the inmates during his
lifetime, and then settling £140 a year on the almshouse
for ever. He also bequeathed £500 to the poor of
Campden. He roofed the chancel, which cost £200,
built a gallery, which cost £80, made a window, which cost
£13, walled the churchyard, which cost £150, and gave a
bell, which cost £66. (fn. 16) He gave also a pulpit cloth and
cushion worth £22, a "brass faulcon," which cost £26,
two communion cups which cost £21, and made many
other benefactions.
He also purchased at various times tithes in three or
four other counties, and applied them for the benefit of
special places in which he was interested.
On the whole he shewed himself to be a shrewd, persevering, ambitious man, knowing how to combine the
suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re, ready to make
the most of every opportunity of advancement that offered,
but a man of warm attachments, with a soul capable of
higher things than money-getting, and not unmindful of
the responsibilities of wealth and position.
Lord Campden was buried in Campden Church, beneath
a stately monument erected by his widow, who survived
him some fourteen years, and now lies beside him. The
epitaph which she inscribed on it is truer than many when
it speaks of him as her "dearest and deceased Husband, Lord
Hickes, Viscount Campden, born of a worthy Family in the
City of London. Who by the Blessing of GOD on his
ingenuous Endeavours arose to an ample Estate and to the
foresaid degrees of Honour. And out of those Blessings
disposed to Charitable Uses, in his Lifetime, a large Portion,
to the value of 10,000£. Who lived religiously, virtuously,
and generously, to the Age of Seventy eight Years, and
died October the 18th, 1629."
There follows an epitaph upon Lady Campden, and these
lines, which, though often quoted, are worth quoting once
more.
Reader, know,
Whoe'er thou be,
Here lie Faith, Hope,
and Charitie;
Faith true, Hope firm,
Charity free;
Baptist Lord Campden
Was these Three.
Faith in GOD,
Charity to Brother,
Hope for Himself;
What ought He other?
Faith is no more;
Charity is crowned;
'Tis only Hope
Is under ground.
The chief point of contact between Sir Baptist Hicks and
the county of Middlesex arises of course out of the "Hall"
which he built for the use of the Justices, the story of which
has often been told, and will be found at p. xxiii. of the
editor's preface to our second volume. The date at which
his name first appears in the Records has not been noted,
but he was a Justice some time before 1612. (He was
made a Deputy Lieutenant March 23rd, 1625). Up to that
date the Justices had held their sessions at the Castle or
Windmill Tavern (for it seems to have been known by both
names,) on the east side of St. John Street, just outside
Smithfield Bars, and therefore at the nearest point in the
county of Middlesex to the City of London.
In the 19th year of Elizabeth a piece of waste land in
St. John Street had been granted to Christopher Saxton for
the purposes of a Sessions House, but nothing more appears
to have been done with it. But in 1610 James I. granted
by Letters Patent to Sir Thos. Lake and fourteen other
Justices and Esquires of the County of Middlesex "a plot of
land a hundred and twenty-eight feet of Assize from North
to South in length, thirty-two feet from East to West in
breadth, reserving twenty feet on each side thereof for a
carriage way, such ground to be for ever used and employed
as a Sessions House, and for keeping a prison or House of
Correction in the same County," and on this "Sir Baptist
Hicks," says the continuation of Stow's Chronicle, "builded
a very faire Sessions House of bricke and stone, with all
offices thereunto belonging, at his own proper charges,"
variously stated at from £600 to £900. "Upon Wednesday
the 13th of January (fn. 17) this year 1612, by which time the
house was fully finished, there assembled twenty-six Justices
of the County, being the first day of their meeting in the
place, where they were all feasted by Sir Baptist Hicks, and
then they all with one consent gave it a proper name, and
called it Hicks's Hall, after the name of the Founder, who
then freely gave the same house to them and their successors
for ever." This account is confirmed by the Records
(vol. ii. 84).
The "very faire Sessions House" was a plain building
after all, and its only embellishment was said to have been a
stone portico, which, however, does not appear in the only
extant representation of the place, which we reproduce.
"As far as we can recollect," says a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1827, "it was a shapeless
brick lump, containing a great warehouse in the centre for
the court, and houses for the officers all round and joined
on to it. The prison was not, for want of room, connected
with the court, but removed to another site." The hall
also contained a room where the bodies of criminals were
publicly dissected, as shown in the last plate of Hogarth's
series of the Progress of Cruelty. A plan in the Guildhall
Library shows the court of an oval shape, which was also
that of the dissecting room, probably beneath it.
As the Sessions House of the county of Middlesex for a
hundred and seventy years, Hicks' Hall is of course the
subject of numerous references not only in the County
Records, but in the Domestic State Papers, and in current
literature of the time. (fn. 18) Standing close to the City boundary
it was a starting point for distances on the North Road, and
until comparatively recently, milestones were to be seen
marked with the number of miles "from Hicks' Hall," or
"from where Hicks' Hall formerly stood." A few years
ago one such existed between Highgate and Finchley,
but like many other things it has been "improved"
away.
In 1777 Hicks' Hall had fallen into very bad condition,
and application was made to Parliament for power to rebuild
it. The site, however, was becoming more and more inconvenient as traffic increased, and instead of rebuilding it the
justices erected the present Sessions House on Clerkenwell
Green. The first stone of the new building was laid on
the 29th August, 1779, by the Duke of Northumberland,
Lord Lieutenant of the county, of whom two portraits,
by Reynolds and Gainsborough respectively, removed
from the new Sessions House, now hang in the Guildhall
Westminster. The Sessions were removed in 1782,
and the old Hall pulled down. It was proposed to
erect a column on the spot, but it was never done, and the
site is now marked by a modern erection which, if more
useful, is less dignified. There is also an old tablet on a
public house, the Queen's Head, on the west side of the
street, which states that "Opposite this place Hicks' Hall
formerly stood."
Hicks' Hall has not passed altogether without leaving
its memorials. The fine old chimney-piece, now in the
magistrates' room at the Sessions House, a photograph of
which is annexed, was removed from the dining-room of
the old structure. (fn. 19) The portrait reproduced in our frontispiece was one of its ornaments. Mr. Charles Wright, the
veteran keeper of the Sessions House, now in his eightyninth year, remembers seeing in his youth John Martin,
the old porter from Hicks' Hall, who lived to a very
advanced age, and almost to the end of his life (about the
year 1818) used to occupy the porter's chair at the new
Sessions House.
Our Middlesex County Record Society is in some degree
an outcome of Sir Baptist Hicks' work, since it was in the
search for additional information respecting him that the
ruinous and perishing condition of the Records was brought
to light, and interest awakened which led to their preservation
and to the formation of the Society for their publication.
We have also a more tangible result of his good deed. In
former days it was the practice during the sessions to provide
dinner for the justices in attendance at a cost of half-a-crown
a head, and if any justice had violated the unwritten law
of the court, as for instance by bailing a prisoner whom
another justice had refused to bail, or granting a licence out
of his own division or to a non-juror or papist, or offending
in any other way, he was formally reprimanded, and the
reprimand duly recorded. It might be thought that such
a postprandial rebuke carried no great terrors, but if the
offence was of a more aggravated nature, or was repeated,
a representation might be and in some cases was made to the
Lord Chancellor, who took more serious steps. When the
habits of society altered, and mid-day dinner was no longer
in vogue, a Magistrates' Club was formed, the members of
which paid an entrance fee (subsequently abolished) and an
annual subscription, and also the old fee of half a crown a
dinner, and dined together on the eight county days of
the year. The Local Government Act of 1888, however,
which broke up the historic county of Middlesex, broke
up also many pleasant and useful associations of the justices,
and among them their social gatherings. The club was
wound up, its property, consisting of a small cellar of wine
and a small quantity of plate bearing the name of Hicks'
Hall, and dating from the middle of the last century, was
sold, and the produce, amounting to £187 2s. 11d.,
generously handed over to the Middlesex County Record
Society towards the production of their third volume.
NOTES.
Note A, p. 329.—Since these pages have been in type Mr. George
Scharf, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, has kindly examined
the portrait in question, and attributes it to Paul Van Somer, a Flemish
painter who spent some years in England in the reign of James I., and
portraits by whom are extant of that Monarch and his Queen, as well as
of Buckingham, Bacon, Raleigh, and other celebrities of the day.
Note B, p. 330.—By Clapbam, co. Somerset (the substitution of
"Surrey" for "Somerset" is a pure invention), is no doubt intended
Clapton in Gordano, near Clevedon, which was in the possession of the
Arthurs from the time of Henry I. till about 1600. But there was no heiress
in the family at the time required, nor does the name either of William
or Juliana occur then, though the latter does a generation or two earlier.
The Pedigrees differ hopelessly. One in the Harleian MSS. interposes
another generation between John Hicks and Robert, making Robert the
grandson of John and the son of "Thomas Hicks of Bristow" and "Elizabeth
daughter of Leonard Yate of Whitney." "Clement Hicks of Chester"
is in the same Pedigree said to have married first a wife named Ball,
and then "Anne, daughter and heiress of the Holte Recever General of
North Wales."
Note C.—Lady Hicks' brother, Sir Humphrey May, became
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and a man of great influence with
James I. "Sir Hum. May can make any suitor, be they never so honest,
disliked by the King." (Cusack to Winwood, State Papers, Domestic
Series.)