HYDE, the name of an English family distinguished in the 17th century. Robert Hyde of Norbury, Cheshire, had several sons, of whom the third was Lawrence Hyde of Gussage St. Michael, Dorsetshire. Lawrence's son Henry was father of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon (q.v.), whose second son by his second wife was Lawrence, earl of Rochester (q.v.) ; another son was Sir Lawrence Hyde, attorney-general to Anne of Denmark, James I.'s consort; and a third son was Sir Nicholas Hyde (d. 1631), chief justice of England. Sir Nicholas entered parliament in I 6o I and soon became prominent as an opponent of the court, though he does not appear to have distinguished himself in the law. Before long, however, he deserted the popular party, and in 1626 he was employed by the duke of Buckingham in his de fence to impeachment by the Commons ; and in the following year he was appointed chief justice of the king's bench. In 1629 Hyde was one of the judges who condemned Eliot, Holles and Valentine for conspiracy in parliament to resist the king's orders ; refusing to admit their plea that they could not be called upon to answer out of parliament for acts done in parliament. He died in August 1631.
Robert (1595-1665), son of Lawrence, the attorney-general to Anne of Denmark, became recorder of Salisbury and repre sented that borough in the Long Parliament, in which he professed royalist principles, voting against the attainder of Strafford. He gave refuge to Charles II. on his flight from Worcester in 1651, and on the Restoration he was knighted and made a judge of the common pleas. He died in 1665.