Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/302

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He was succeeded in the family estates by his son, Thomas Hesilrige. Sir Arthur Grey Hesilrige, the eleventh baronet, altered the spelling of his surname to Hazlerigg by license dated 8 July 1818 (Foster, Baronetage, 1883).

[Nichols's History of Leicestershire, pt. ii.; Ludlow's Memoirs, ed. 1751, folio; Diary of Thomas Burton, ed. J. T. Rutt, 1828; authorities cited above.]

C. H. F.

HESKETH, HARRIET, Lady (1733–1807), friend of Cowper, baptised at Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire, on 12 July 1733, was the daughter and coheiress of Ashley Cowper (1701–1788), clerk of the parliaments, third son of Spencer Cowper (1669–1727) [q. v.] the judge. Her mother was Dorothy, daughter of John Oakes (Clutterbuck, Hertfordshire, ii. 195). She married Thomas Hesketh of Rufford, Lancashire, who was created a baronet on 5 May 1761, and died without issue on 4 March 1778, aged 51. Lady Hesketh was the friend and favourite correspondent of her cousin William Cowper (1731–1800) [q. v.] the poet. She supplied William Hayley [q. v.] with most of the materials for his life of Cowper. Hayley's correspondence with her is now in the British Museum, Addit. MS. 30803 A, B. Lady Hesketh died at Clifton, near Bristol, on 15 Jan. 1807 (Gent. Mag. 1807, pt. i. p. 94).

[Betham's Baronetage, iii. 298; Burke's Peerage, 1889, p. 708. See also art. Cowper, William (1731–1800), the poet.]

G. G.

HESKETH, HENRY (1637?–1710), divine, was born in Cheshire about 1637. In June 1653 he was admitted a commoner of Brasenose College, Oxford, and proceeded B.A. on 13 Oct. 1656 (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 192). He was rector of Charlwood, Surrey, and chaplain in ordinary to Charles II when on 11 Nov. 1678 he was chosen vicar of St. Helen, Bishopsgate. Manning and Bray wrongly give the date of his institution to Charlwood as 1685 (Surrey, ii. 193). He also became chaplain to William III. He was a popular preacher, and published numerous sermons. In 1689–90 he was nominated bishop of Killala, but was not consecrated, and in January 1694 he resigned the vicarage of St. Helen (J. E. Cox, Annals of St. Helen's, p. 55). He appears to have died in December 1710. He married, first, in 1662, Sarah, daughter of Thomas Mulcaster, rector of Charlwood; and secondly, in 1687, Mary Pillet of St. Helen, Bishopsgate (Chester, London Marriage Licenses, ed. Foster, col. 672).

He was author of: 1. ‘Piety the best Rule of Orthodoxy: or an Essay upon this proposition, that the conduciveness of doctrines to holiness, or vice, is the best rule for private Christians to judge the truth or falsehood of them by, in a letter to his honoured friend, H. M.,’ 8vo, London, 1680. 2. ‘The Charge of Scandal and giving offence by Conformity refelled and reflected back upon Separation,’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1683; also in vol. i. of ‘A Collection of Cases … written to recover Dissenters to the Communion of the Church of England,’ 4to, London, 1685. 3. ‘An Exhortation to frequent receiving the Holy Sacrament … being the substance of several sermons preached in St. Hellens Church, London,’ 12mo, London, 1684. The work cited by Wood (Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 604–5) as ‘The Case of Eating and Drinking unworthily stated, and the Scruples of coming to the Holy Sacrament upon the danger of unworthiness satisfied,’ &c., 8vo, London, 1689, is apparently another edition.

[Manning and Bray's Surrey, ii. 275; Newcourt's Repertorium, ii. 365.]

G. G.

HESKETH, Sir PETER (1801–1866), founder of the town of Fleetwood. [See Fleetwood, Sir Peter Hesketh.]

HESKETH, RICHARD (1562–1593), Roman catholic exile, third son of Sir Thomas Hesketh of Rufford and Martholme, by Alice, daughter of Sir John Holcroft of Holcroft, was baptised at Great Harwood, near Blackburn, Lancashire, on 28 July 1562, and brought up in the catholic religion. He joined the English refugees on the continent, and probably served in Sir William Stanley's regiment in Flanders. On the death of Henry Stanley, fourth earl of Derby [q. v.], in September 1592, Hesketh was commissioned by Sir William Stanley and the jesuit Father Holt to encourage the earl's son and successor, Ferdinando, lord Strange, to lay claim to the succession to the crown after the death of Elizabeth, on the ground that the Stanleys ‘were next in propinquity of blood’ to the queen. Hesketh was directed to promise Spanish aid. The new Earl of Derby refused to entertain Hesketh's proposals, and delivered him to justice. He was executed at St. Albans on 29 Nov. 1593, and when on the scaffold, ‘naming Sir William Stanley and others, cursed the time he had ever known anie of them’ (Sadler, State Papers, iii. 20, Appendix). Dodd denounces as a calumny Hesketh's assertion that the catholic exiles had set him upon the project (Church Hist. ii. 160).

[See art. Stanley, Ferdinando, fifth Earl of Derby; Strype's Annals, iv. 103, 148, fol.; Collier's Eccl. Hist. (Barham), vii. 253; Cardinal Allen's Defence of Sir W. Stanley, ed. Heywood