chancellor,’ joined the dancers. It was probably this incident, coupled with the fact that Sir William Hatton resided in the house at Stoke Poges, celebrated by Gray in his ‘Long Story,’ that gave rise to the tradition that the house had once belonged to the lord chancellor, a tradition quite unfounded (Hunter, Hallamshire, i. 91; Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, i. 56; Nicolas, p. 479). As Hatton was suspected of secretly favouring the Roman catholics, it is curious to observe that he exerted himself on behalf of Udal [q. v.], the puritan minister, charged with plotting against the queen's life in 1591. In truth he appears to have favoured neither of the extreme parties, but to have held that, in Camden's words, ‘in religionis causa non urendum, non secandum.’ He died at Ely House on 20 Nov. 1591 of a diabetes, aggravated, it is said, by vexation at the exaction by the queen of payment of a large sum of money, representing arrears of tenths and first-fruits for which he was accountable (Strype, Whitgift, ii. 97; Camden, Ann. ed. 1615, ii. 43; Fuller, Worthies, ‘Northamptonshire’). He was buried on 16 Dec. in St. Paul's Cathedral, between the lady chapel and the south aisle, where an elaborate monument was placed by his nephew, Sir William Hatton. The corpse was preceded to the grave by one hundred poor people in gowns and caps provided for them by the executors, and followed by four hundred gentlemen and yeomen, the lords of the council, and eighty gentlemen pensioners (Stow, Ann. ed. 1615, p. 763; Dugdale, Hist. of St. Paul's, ed. Ellis, pp. 33, 56).
Hatton had been a friend and to some extent a patron of men of letters, in particular of Spenser, who gave him a copy of the ‘Faery Queen,’ with a dedicatory sonnet (see Spenser, Works, ed. Gilfillan, i. 7); of Thomas Churchyard, who dedicated to him his account of the reception of the queen by the mayor and corporation of Bristol (14 Aug. 1574), his ‘Chippes’ and his ‘Choise’ (Nichols, Progr. Eliz. i. 393); and of Christopher Ockland, who in his ‘Eἰρηναρχία’ (1582) describes him as ‘Splendidus Hatton,’ and in his ‘Elizabetheis’ (1589) lauds him for his part in the detection of Babington's conspiracy. After his death appeared ‘A Commemoration of the Life and Death of Sir Christopher Hatton, Knight, Lord Chancellor of England, with an Epistle dedicatory to Sir William Hatton,’ by J. Philips, London, 1591 (a poem more eulogistic than meritorious, reprinted for the Roxburghe Club in ‘A Lamport Garland,’ 1881); ‘The Maiden's Dream upon the Death of the Right Honourable Sir Christopher Hatton, Knight, late Lord Chancellor of England,’ by Robert Greene, London, 1591, 4to; ‘A Lamentable Discourse of the Death of the Right Honourable Sir Christopher Hatton,’ &c., London, 1591 (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. i. 142). Hatton's death was also bewailed in a volume of verse entitled ‘Musarum Plangores,’ mentioned by Wood, ‘Athenæ Oxon.,’ Bliss, i. 583. There is also a high-pitched eulogy of him in ‘Polimanteia; or the Meanes Lawful and Unlawful to judge of the Fate of a Commonwealth against the frivolous and foolish Conjectures of this Age,’ by W. C. (William Clerke), Cambridge, 1595. He died unmarried, and left no will. His estates he had settled by deed in tail male first on his nephew, Sir William Newport, and then on his cousin, Sir Christopher Hatton. Sir William Newport, who assumed the name of Hatton, succeeded to the estates, but died without male issue on 12 March 1596–7. Sir William's successor, Sir Christopher Hatton, was father of Christopher, baron Hatton of Kirby [q. v.]
Hatton wrote the fourth act of the tragedy of ‘Tancred and Gismund,’ performed before the queen at the Inner Temple in 1568 (Warton, Hist. of Poetry, iii. 305). His name appears on the title-page of a little book entitled ‘A Treatise concerning Statutes or Acts of Parliament, and the Exposition thereof,’ London, 1677, 12mo, but there is no evidence external or internal by which the authenticity of the work, which is a very slight production, can be determined. His correspondence, portions of which had previously been printed in Murdin's ‘State Papers’ and Wright's ‘Queen Elizabeth and her Times,’ London, 1838, was published in its entirety by Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas in his ‘Memoirs of Hatton,’ London, 1847, to which is prefixed a fine engraving of his portrait by Ketel.
[Nicolas's Memoir; Foss's Lives of the Judges; authorities cited.]
HATTON, CHRISTOPHER, first Lord Hatton (1605?–1670), born according to some authorities in December 1602, but baptised at Barking, Essex, on 11 July 1605 (Lysons, Environs, iv. 101), was the eldest surviving son of Sir Christopher Hatton, K.B. (d. 1619), sometime of Clay Hall, Barking, and afterwards of Kirby, Northamptonshire, a cousin of Sir Christopher Hatton [q. v.], lord chancellor. His mother was Alice, eldest daughter of Thomas Fanshawe of Dronfield, Derbyshire, and of Ware Park, Hertfordshire (Clutterbuck. Hertfordshire). He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, and created K.B. at the coronation of Charles I on 2 Feb. 1626 (Metcalfe, Book of Knights,
