English: English School

Portrait of Lord Chief Justice Nicholas Hyde (1572-1631)

three-quarter length, standing in robes of office, holding a manuscript in his right hand

inscribed m.r.; IVDGE HYDE

oil on canvas

123 by 101 cm., 48 1/2 by 39 3/4 in.

The sitter was born at Wardour Castle, Wiltshire, the fourth and youngest son of Laurence Hyde (d.1590) of Gussage St Michael, Dorset, and West Hatch, Wiltshire, and his second wife, Anne Sibell (d.1606). Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, he joined the Middle Temple on 14th July 1590, though he was not formally admitted to chambers there until 1593. In 1597 he gained the parliamentary seat for Old Sarum, and was called to the bar the following year.

Following a meteoric career Hyde was retained, in 1626, by the Duke of Buckingham to help draft responses to his articles of impeachment, a commission which led directly to his knighting and appointment as Chief Justice of the King's Bench on 5th February 1627.

In 1601 he married Mary, daughter of Arthur Swayne of Sarson, Hampshire, by whom he had three sons and a daughter. By the time of his death in May 1630 Hyde had accumulated manors in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Devon, as well as East India stock and shares in London waterworks.