HALES or HAYLES, JOHN (d. 1571), English writer and politician, was a son of Thomas Hales of Hales Place, Halden, Kent. He wrote his Highway to Nobility about and was the founder of a free school at Coventry for which he wrote Introductiones ad grammaticam. Hales, who was M.P. for Pres ton, was the most active of the commissioners appointed in 1548 to redress the evil of the enclosures of land; but he failed to carry his remedial proposals through parliament. When the protector, the duke of Somerset, was deprived of his authority in 15 5o, Hales left England and lived for some time in Stras bourg and Frankfort, returning to his own country on the ac cession of Elizabeth. He was imprisoned for a pamphlet, A Decla ration of the Succession of the Crowne Imperiall of Inglande, but was quickly released, and died on Dec. 28, 1571. The Dis course of the Common Wed (ed. E. Lamond, 1893), described as "one of the most informing documents of the age," and written about 1549, has been attributed to Hales.
Hales is often confused with another John Hales, who was clerk of the hanaper under Henry VIII. and his three immediate successors.