Sir Robert Hales | |
|---|---|
 The murder of Archbishop Simon Sudbury and Hales at the Tower of London | |
| Born | c. 1325 High Halden, Kent, England |
| Died | 14 June 1381 (aged 55–56) Tower Hill, London, England |
| Service years | 1372–1377 |
| Rank | Admiral of the West |
Sir Robert Hales (c. 1325 – 14 June 1381) was Grand Prior of the Knights Hospitaller of England, Lord High Treasurer, and Admiral of the West. He was killed in the Peasants' Revolt.
In 1372 Robert Hales became the Lord/Grand Prior of the Knights Hospitallers of England. Richard II appointed him Lord High Treasurer, [1] so he was responsible for collecting the hated poll tax. He was appointed Admiral of the West from 24 November 1376 – 24 November 1377. [2] He was beheaded on 14 June 1381 on Tower Hill during the Peasants Revolt. His estate and assets were inherited by his brother, Sir Nicholas de Hales, the progenitor of many prominent English Hales families. Robert Hales was present at many latter-day crusader expeditions and is recorded as leading a contingent of hospitaller knights at the sacking of Alexandria.
Hales was described by the chronicler Thomas Walsingham as a "Magnanimous knight, though the Commons loved him not".
He was the son of Nicholas Hales and his brother was Sir Nicholas de Hales, who inherited his father's estates in Kent. [1] [3]
Year 1381 (MCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.
The Peasants' Revolt, also named Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black Death in the 1340s, the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years' War, and instability within the local leadership of London.
Simon Sudbury was Bishop of London from 1361 to 1375, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1375 until his death, and in the last year of his life Lord Chancellor of England. He met a violent death during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.
Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester was the fifth surviving son and youngest child of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault.
WatTyler was a leader of the 1381 Peasants' Revolt in England. He led a group of rebels from Canterbury to London to oppose the institution of a poll tax and to demand economic and social reforms. While the brief rebellion enjoyed early success, Tyler was killed by officers loyal to King Richard II during negotiations at Smithfield, London.
Sir Edward Poynings KG was an English soldier, administrator and diplomat, and Lord Deputy of Ireland under King Henry VII of England.
Thomas Fitzalan, 5th Earl of Arundel, 10th Earl of SurreyKG was an English nobleman, one of the principals of the deposition of Richard II, and a major figure during the reign of Henry IV.
Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, of Audley End House, was a member of the House of Howard and a son of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk by his second wife Margaret Audley, Duchess of Norfolk, the daughter and heiress of the 1st Baron Audley of Walden.
Sir Simon de Burley, KG was holder of the offices of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle between 1384–88, and was a Knight of the Garter.
Sir Thomas Cheney KG of the Blackfriars, City of London and Shurland, Isle of Sheppey, Kent, was an English administrator and diplomat, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in south-east England from 1536 until his death.
Seymour, Semel or St. Maur, is the name of an English family in which several titles of nobility have from time to time been created, and of which the Duke of Somerset is the head.
Tunstall is a linear village and civil parish in Swale in Kent, England. It is about 2 km to the south-west of the centre of Sittingbourne, on a road towards Bredgar.
Events from the 1380s in England.
Sir Hugh Segrave or Seagrave was a Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and Treasurer of England under Richard II of England.
Sir Nicholas Brembre was a wealthy magnate and a chief ally of King Richard II in 14th-century England. He was Lord Mayor of London in 1377, and again from 1383–5. Named a "worthie and puissant man of the city" by Richard Grafton, he became a citizen and grocer of London, and in 1372-3 purchased from the Malmains family the estates of Mereworth, Maplescomb, and West Peckham, in Kent. His ties to Richard ultimately resulted in his downfall, as the anti-Richard Lords Appellant effectively took control of the government and imprisoned, exiled, or executed most of Richard's court. Despite Richard's efforts, Brembre was executed in 1388 for treason at the behest of the Lords Appellant.
Sir Maurice Denys (1516–1563) of Siston Court, near Bristol, Gloucestershire, and of St John's Street, Clerkenwell, Middlesex, was an English lawyer and property speculator during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, at which time he served as a "powerful figure at the Court of Augmentations". He served as a Member of Parliament for Malmesbury in Wiltshire and as Treasurer of Calais. He was the builder of Siston Court in Gloucestershire, which survives largely unaltered since his time. His excessive speculation and borrowing caused the ruination of the Siston branch of the Denys family.
John Rawson, 1st and only Viscount Clontarf was an English-born statesman in sixteenth-century Ireland, and was regarded as one of the mainstays of English rule in the Kingdom of Ireland. He was the last Prior of the Kilmainham house of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. The Knights Hospitaller, as they were usually known, were a fighting order of monks, and Rawson himself was an experienced soldier who took part in the Siege of Rhodes (1522). Despite taking holy orders, he was not celibate, and he fathered several illegitimate children. At the Reformation, with no apparent reluctance, he surrendered all his Order's properties to the English Crown in return for a pension and the title of viscount.
The Admiral of the West, also known as Admiral of the Western Seas or Admiral of the Western Fleet, was formerly an English Navy appointment. The postholder was chiefly responsible for the command of the English navy's fleet based at Portsmouth, which operated in the English Channel, Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean, from 1294 to 1412.
Admiral Sir William de Leybourne, was an English Knight and Military Commander.
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