After the fashion of those days, which peopled both the universities with mere children, the boy was sent at the age of thirteen to Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and thereafter entered at the Middle Temple by his uncle, Nicholas Hyde, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench.[[4]]
[4]. “Autobiography of Sir John Bramston.”
In his early youth there came to Edward Hyde an experience which seems to us to embody a brief and sad romance. He married in 1629 the daughter of Sir George Ayliffe of Gretenham in his own county of Wilts, but before six months were past, the poor young bride was smitten by smallpox, that scourge of the seventeenth century, and died. He says of himself that “he bore her Loss with so great Passion and Confusion of spirit that it shook all the frame of his Resolutions.”
However, in 1632, when he was but twenty-four, the young widower repaired his loss by a second marriage with Frances, daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, a union which proved to be a very happy one. With reference to this marriage Sir Bernard Burke, in his “Romance of the Aristocracy,” gives a curious tradition respecting the descent of Frances Aylesbury.
Some time early in the seventeenth century, a barefooted and destitute girl arrived one day at a roadside tavern in the village of Chelsea, and being kindly welcomed there, told the landlord that she was tramping to London, hoping to take service there. As it happened, the situation of “pot-girl” was then vacant at the Blue Dragon, and “Anne” forthwith stepped into the place. A rich brewer was in the habit of coming every day for his evening draught, and being attracted by the girl’s manner and appearance, married her within three months. Before long he died, leaving “Anne” a wealthy widow, to whom came many suitors. From among these she chose Sir Thomas Aylesbury, Master of Requests and the Mint, who moreover possessed lands in Buckinghamshire.
After many years there arose a dispute as to the property of the late brewery, and Lady Aylesbury was recommended to employ a young barrister, by name Edward Hyde, who was destined thereafter to become her son-in-law.
From this tale was drawn the obvious conclusion that the two queens of England, Mary and Anne, were great-granddaughters of a beggar maid.
Fortunately Burke merely gives the romantic story for what it is worth, and suggests that very probably it was coined after the Restoration by some one of Hyde’s numerous enemies, who were envious of his steady ascent to rank and distinction, and found a theory of obscure connections very comforting to their own souls.
In February 1634 we find young Hyde appointed one of the managers of a masque presented before the King by the Inns of Court, as a protest against Prynne’s furious attack on the drama.
Thither came King Charles, stately and gracious, forgetting perhaps for a brief moment the heavy clouds now gathering low on his horizon to cover the sky as with a pall: with dreaming, melancholy eyes intent for a little space on the scene which the masquers unfolded before him; where, a little before, Ben Jonson had brought many beautiful and dainty fancies to such rare perfection—but on this occasion it was “The Triumph of Peace,” by James Shirley.