Family and Education

b. 26 Jan. 1610, 1st s. of Sir Christopher Hildyard^† of Winestead by Elizabeth, da. and h. of Henry Welby of Goxhill, Lincs. educ. Trinity Coll. Camb. 1626; I. Temple 1628. m. settlement 19 Aug. 1635, Lady Anne Leke, da. of Francis Leke, 1st Earl of Scarsdale, 5s. 9da. suc. fa. 1634.1

Offices Held

J.p. Yorks. (E. Riding) 1634-?43, Lincs. (Lindsey) June 1660-d., Surr. 1666-d.; col. of militia ft. Yorks. to 1642; commr. of array, Yorks. 1642, assessment, Surr. Aug. 1660-d., (E. Riding) 1663-4; dep. lt. (E. Riding) c. Aug. 1660-d., sewers, Lincs. Aug. 1660, Yorks. (E. Riding) Oct. 1660.2

Chamberlain of Exchequer July 1660-d.; gent. of privy chamber 1670-d.3

Biography

Hildyard’s ancestors acquired Winestead by marriage about the middle of the 15th century, and began to sit for Hedon, ten miles away, under Elizabeth. Hildyard himself was appointed a commissioner of array in 1642, but, unlike his brother Robert, a prominent royalist cavalry officer, he took no part in the actual fighting, since his only appearance in arms was as a colonel of foot in the Yorkshire trained bands in attendance on the King for about two weeks in July 1642. He signed the Yorkshire engagement in 1643. After this he retired to a house in Surrey which he had recently bought, where he ‘lived peaceably’ for the rest of the war and became friendly with Evelyn, the diarist. He petitioned to compound for an estate of over £2,000 p.a. in 1646 and was fined £4,660, but this was eventually reduced to a nominal sum in consideration of his debts, on condition that he made over the family house in Hull, which had been used as a magazine, to the corporation. He paid a further £150 in 1652 as part of the £300 he had been assessed as his proportion of the Yorkshire engagement.4

Hilyard remained under suspicion during the Protectorate, and was ineligible at the general election of 1660, but he was returned for the family borough at a by-election. An inactive Member of the Convention, he was named only to the committee on the bill for encouraging fen drainage. Undoubtedly a court supporter, he was rewarded with a sinecure office in the Exchequer, while his younger brother was created a baronet. It seems probable that his principal concern was to exert some leverage to secure the return of his house, to which end, according to Andrew Marvell, he employed his interest in Parliament to continue Hull as a garrison. It was not until 21 Oct. 1661 that the corporation finally made over the house to him on payment of £300 which they had disbursed for repairs, but negotiations were far advanced by the dissolution of the Convention, and Hildyard did not stand again. He remained an active j.p. in Surrey, and when he died on 8 June 1674 he was buried at East Horsley. His estate was valued at £2,357 p.a., but his eldest son Henry, who had been converted to the Church of Rome by Obadiah Walker, was not mentioned in his will and was obliged to sever the entail by private Act and sell Winestead to the younger branch. The next member of the family to enter Parliament was the 3rd baronet, who sat for Bedwyn as a Tory from 1754 to 1761.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / Paula Watson

Notes

• 1. Clay, Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. iii. 331-6; Winestead Reg. (Yorks. Par. Reg. Soc. iv), 4; Royalist Comp. Pprs.(Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. xv), 104.
• 2. Royalist Comp. Pprs. 100; C181/7/44.
• 3. CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 138; Carlisle, Privy Chamber, 185.
• 4. G. Poulson, Holderness, ii. 467-72; Royalist Comp. Pprs. 98-99; Cal. Comm. Adv. Money, 902, 908; Evelyn Diary, ii. 551; VCH Surr. iii. 350; N.J. Miller, Winestead and its Lords, 74-76, 87.
• 5. Surr. Arch. Colls. xiv. 187; Miller, 141-2; Evelyn Diary, ii. 550; iv. 510; Marvell ed. Margoliouth, ii. 9, x i, 20, 334; CSP Dom. 1670, p. 299; 1675-6, p. 479; E. W. Brayley, Top. Hist. Surr. ii. 68.