must have been appointed to Dorchester as a Mercian bishop in 679, and have died shortly afterwards; but it is by no means certain that Dorchester became Mercian so early. Heddi is said by William of Malmesbury to have been an abbot, which must mean abbot of Whitby, but there an abbess would seem more according to rule, and as he is described as not particularly learned, he is scarcely likely to have been one of St. Hilda's scholars. Although Theodore divided many of the English dioceses, he left the West-Saxon diocese untouched, and is said to have decreed that it should not be divided during the lifetime of Heddi, who was evidently opposed to such a step. In 704, however, the question of a division seems to have been revived, for Waldhere, bishop of London, wrote to Archbishop Brihtwald [q. v.], saying that it had been determined in a synod held in that year to refuse to communicate with the West-Saxons unless they obeyed Brihtwald's decree concerning the ordering of bishops, which can scarcely refer to anything else than a division of the diocese. In spite of this, however, Heddi's diocese was not divided until after his death, which took place in 705 (Flor. Wig., and by implication Bæda, who puts it after the accession of Osred in Northumbria, but Anglo-Saxon Chron. wrongly 703). He appears to have worked well with Ine, king of the West-Saxons, and was a friend of Archbishop Theodore. He was a man of much personal holiness, and was zealous in the discharge of his episcopal duties. A letter to him from Aldhelm is preserved by William of Malmesbury (Gesta Pontificum, v. 341). He is reckoned a saint, his day being 30 July. Many miracles were worked at his tomb, and Bæda was told that the West-Saxons were wont to carry away a little dust from it, to mix with water, and give it to the sick to drink; that this mixture had cured many, both men and beasts; and that the habit of taking away dust from the grave was so largely practised that a ditch of no small size had already been made round it. His name was on one of the pyramids said to have been discovered at Glastonbury. A large number of charters are subscribed with his name between 676 and 701.
[Bede's Hist. Eccl. iv. cc. 12, 23, v. c. 18; Anglo-Saxon Chron. ann. 676, 703; Florence of Worcester, ann. 676, 705; William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontificum, pp. 158, 159, 341, 375 (Rolls Ser.), and De Antiqq. Glaston., Gale's Scriptt. iii. 306; Thomas Rudborne, Anglia Sacra, i. 193; Haddan and Stubbs's Councils and Eccl. Docs. iii. 126, 130, 263, 267; Dict. Christ. Biog., art. ‘Hedda,’ by Bishop Stubbs.]
HEDDIUS, STEPHEN (fl. 669), chronicler. [See Eddi.]
HEDGES, Sir CHARLES (d. 1714), lawyer and politician, great-grandson of John Lacy of Wiltshire, was son of Henry Hedges of Wanborough in that county, who married Margaret, daughter of R. Pleydell of Childers, Berkshire; Sir William Hedges [q. v.] was his second cousin. He was educated at Oxford, taking the degrees of B.A. 29 Nov. 1670, when he was at Magdalen Hall; M.A. (of Magdalen College) on 31 May 1673, and D.C.L. on 26 June 1675. On 25 Oct. in the last year he was admitted to the Society of Advocates; he was created chancellor and vicar-general of the diocese of Rochester by patent for life in 1686, and master of the faculties and judge of the admiralty court, in place of Sir Richard Raines, on 1 June 1689, when he was also knighted. He was returned as M.P. for Orford in Suffolk in 1698, but counter-petitions for and against the return were presented. Hedges and his colleagues were unseated by an election committee (1 Feb. 1700), and the house confirmed the decision by a majority of one vote (10 Feb.). In the short-lived parliament of 1701 he sat for Dover, and at the election in November 1701 he was returned for Calne and Malmesbury. His opponents endeavoured to eject him from both places, and the election for Calne was declared void, but the petition against his return for Malmesbury failed. At the next election (August 1702) he was again returned for both Calne and Malmesbury, and in this instance elected to serve for the former borough. He contested the constituency of Calne again in 1705 and 1708, but was not successful. He nevertheless retained a seat in parliament, as he was thrice (1705, 1708, 1710) returned for West Looe, and once (1713) for East Looe. His political opinions were those of the tories, but he usually voted as his own individual interest prompted. Mainly through the influence of the Earl of Rochester he was sworn as secretary of state and a privy councillor on 5 Nov. 1700, when, according to Luttrell, he was allowed by special permission of the king to remain judge of the admiralty court, and he continued to be judge until 29 Dec. 1701. The Duchess of Marlborough said of him: ‘He has no capacity, no quality nor interest, nor ever could have been in that post [i.e. the secretaryship] but that everybody knows my Lord Rochester cares for nothing so much as a man that he thinks will depend upon him’ (Account of Conduct of Duchess of Marlborough, pp. 204–11). He attended the queen to Bath in August 1702, and for a short
