Calais (Rymer, Fœdera, vii. 844), and possibly, through this connection requiring his attendance at London, Haxey was chosen to attend the parliament summoned for 22 Jan. 1396–7. That he was (as Hallam maintains) a member of the house is altogether unlikely. It must rather be supposed, with Bishop Stubbs, that, as his name is absent from the returns of elections to this parliament, he was ‘a proctor of the clergy in attendance under the præmunientes clause.’ Haxey here made himself conspicuous by bringing forward an article in a bill of complaints reflecting upon the extravagance of the king's household; and on 2 Feb. Richard II, when he learned the purport of the bill, called upon the speaker to give up the name of the member responsible for the obnoxious article. When the bill was produced, Haxey's specific attack was found to be directed against the residence of the bishops at court away from their dioceses, and against a particular tax levied on the clergy; but the commons were frightened, and offered a humble apology. Haxey was made the scapegoat for a bill which they had accepted. He was tried in the White Chamber before the king, the lords temporal, and the commons on 7 Feb., and was condemned to death as a traitor. Archbishop Arundel, however, with the other bishops, succeeded in claiming him as a clergyman, and he was afterwards (27 May) pardoned. In the first parliament of Henry IV the judgment was reversed.
During his residence at York Haxey was active in watching over the repair and enlargement of the fabric of the minster. His work there is attested by the presence of his coat of arms (or, three buckets in fess, sable) on the windows of the library and elsewhere. He also presented some plate to the cathedral. During the vacancy of the see, in 1423–4, he was twice appointed by the dean and chapter to be keeper of the spiritualities. He died probably on 8 Jan. 1424–5, and was buried in York Minster.
[An exhaustive memoir by the Rev. J. Raine, canon of York, appears in the Fabric Rolls of York Minster (Surtees Soc.), 1859, pp. 203–6. Where the two differ, Mr. Raine's statements have usually been accepted in preference to those in Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglic. ed. Hardy. See also W. H. Jones's Fasti Eccl. Sarisb. 1879, p. 359. The proceedings relative to Haxey's parliamentary action are in Rot. Parl. iii. 338 f., 341; they are recited with additional details in the king's pardon, ib. 407 f. The commons' petition for the reversal of the judgment is printed, ib. 434. The case is discussed by Hallam, Middle Ages, ed. 1872, iii. 75 ff., and Stubbs, Const. Hist. of Engl., library edit. 1880, ii. 535 ff.]
HAY, ALEXANDER, Lord Easter Kennet (d. 1594), Scottish judge, belonged to the family of Hay of Park, Wigtonshire, and in March 1564 was nominated by Maitland of Lethington clerk to the privy council, with a salary of 150l. Scots. In 1568 he accompanied Murray and Lethington to York. In 1577 he became director of the chancery, and in October 1579, upon the death of M'Gill of Rankeillour, he was appointed clerk register, and on 20 Oct. of that year was admitted an ordinary senator of the College of Justice, with the title of Lord Easter Kennet. In the same year he became a member of the commission anent the jurisdiction of the kirk, and in 1581 a member of the commission for the visitation and reformation of hospitals, and also acted as arbitrator in the feud between the families of Gordon and Forbes. In November 1581, after the raid of Ruthven, he was employed to carry to Lennox the king's commands that he should quit the kingdom, and during the absence of Secretary Maitland with King James in Norway he acted as interim secretary for the Scottish language in October 1589. In 1592 he received grants of numerous charters for his good service, and on 19 Sept. 1594 he died.
A younger son, Alexander Hay, Lord Newton (d. 1616), was clerk of session till 1608, when he became secretary. On 3 Feb. 1610 he was admitted an ordinary lord; acted as royal commissioner at the Glasgow Assembly in 1610; and became clerk-register 30 July 1612. He was the author of ‘Manuscript Notes of Transactions of King James VI, written for the use of King Charles’ (Cat. David Laing's MSS. Univ. Libr. Edinb. p. 17). There are letters of Lord Easter Kennet in the same collection, p. 57, and in Thorpe's ‘Cal. State Papers,’ Scottish series, between 1573 and 1584.
[Brunton and Haig's Senators of the Royal College of Justice; Anderson's Scottish Nation; Acts Scots Parl. iii. 138, 219, 231, 626; Books of Sederunt; Keith's App. 174; Melville Mem. p. 205; Spotiswood, p. 379; Moyse, pp. 71, 72; Monteith's Theatre of Morality, p. 54.]
HAY, ALEXANDER (d. 1807?), topographer, was a master of arts of probably a Scottish university, who took orders in the English church. He settled at Chichester, Sussex, where he taught at a school; became chaplain of St. Mary's Chapel in that city, and by December 1798 was vicar of Wisborough Green, Sussex. He never resided at Wisborough. About 1784 he wrote a small pamphlet entitled ‘The Chichester
