Matthew Hale (jurist)

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Sir Matthew Hale SL
Portrait of Hale by John Michael Wright, 1670
Chief Justice of the King's Bench
In office 18 May 1671 – 20 February 1676
Preceded by	John Kelynge
Succeeded by	Richard Raynsford
Chief Baron of the Exchequer
In office 7 November 1660 – 1671
Preceded by	Orlando Bridgeman
Succeeded by	Edward Turnour
Justice of the Common Pleas
In office 31 January 1653 – 15 May 1659
Preceded by	John Puleston
Succeeded by	John Archer
Personal details
Born	(1609-11-01)1 November 1609 West End House (now The Grange or Alderley Grange), Alderley, Gloucestershire, England
Died	25 December 1676(1676-12-25) (aged 67) The Lower House (see Alderley House)
Spouse(s)	Anne Moore Anne Bishop
Residence	The Lower House (see Alderley House)
Alma mater	Magdalen Hall, Oxford (now Hertford College)

Sir Matthew Hale SL (1 November 1609 – 25 December 1676) was an influential English barrister, judge and jurist most noted for his treatise Historia Placitorum Coronæ, or The History of the Pleas of the Crown.

Born to a barrister and his wife, who had both died by the time he was 5, Hale was raised by his father's relative, a strict Puritan, and inherited his faith. In 1626 he matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford^[1][2] (now Hertford College), intending to become a priest, but after a series of distractions was persuaded to become a barrister like his father, thanks to an encounter with a Serjeant-at-Law in a dispute over his estate. On 8 November 1628, he joined Lincoln's Inn, where he was called to the Bar on 17 May 1636. As a barrister, Hale represented a variety of Royalist figures during the prelude and duration of the English Civil War, including Thomas Wentworth and William Laud; it has been hypothesised that Hale was to represent Charles I at his state trial, and conceived the defence Charles used.

Despite the Royalist loss, Hale's reputation for integrity and his political neutrality saved him from any repercussions, and under the Commonwealth of England he was made Chairman of the Hale Commission, which investigated law reform. Following the Commission's dissolution, Oliver Cromwell made him a Justice of the Common Pleas.

Hale sat in Parliament, either in the Commons or the Upper House, in every Parliament from the First Protectorate Parliament to the Convention Parliament, and following the Declaration of Breda was the Member of Parliament who moved to consider Charles II's reinstatement as monarch, sparking the English Restoration. Under Charles, Hale was made first Chief Baron of the Exchequer and then Chief Justice of the King's Bench. In both positions, he was again noted for his integrity, although not as a particularly innovative judge. Following a bout of illness he retired on 20 February 1676, dying ten months later on 25 December 1676.

Hale's published works were particularly influential in the development of English common law. His Historia Placitorum Coronæ, dealing with capital offences against the Crown, is considered "of the highest authority",^[3] while his Analysis of the Common Law is noted as the first published history of English law and a strong influence on William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. Hale's jurisprudence struck a middle-ground between Edward Coke's "appeal to reason" and John Selden's "appeal to contract", while refuting elements of Thomas Hobbes's theory of natural law. Hale wrote that a man could not be charged with marital rape, and that view was widely held until the 1990s. However, he eliminated the previous rape defence that existed in English law for an unmarried man cohabiting with a woman.

Modern scholars also offer criticism of Hale for his execution of at least two women for witchcraft in the Bury St Edmunds witch trials and his belief that capital punishment should extend to those as young as fourteen.^[4]