OR
BUCKINGHAM REGIMENT
OF
FOOT.
Sir Edward Hales, Baronet.
Appointed 22nd June, 1685.
This officer was the son of Sir Edward Hales, of Woodchurch, in the county of Kent, who was a distinguished loyalist in the reigns of Charles I. and Charles II., and being forced to flee from England for his loyal attempts during the rebellion, he died in France a few years after the restoration in 1660.
Edward Hales succeeded, on the decease of his father, to the family estate at Woodchurch, and to the dignity of a Baronet; and when the Court began to evince a disposition to favour Papacy, he changed his religion from Protestant to Roman Catholic. He was in great favour with King James II., and having raised a company of foot for the service of that monarch, in June, 1685, he was appointed colonel of a regiment, which is now the Fourteenth Foot. He was also constituted a member of the privy council, one of the lords of the Admiralty, deputy governor of the cinque ports, and lieutenant-governor of the Tower of London. Being unable, from his religion, to take the required oaths on appointment to the colonelcy of his regiment, he was prosecuted and convicted at Rochester assizes; but he moved the case to the Court of King's Bench, pleaded the King's dispensation and had judgment in his behalf:—eleven out of the twelve judges being of opinion that the King might dispense in that case.
Sir Edward Hales was in the King's confidence; and at the Revolution, in 1688, he was employed to make arrangements for His Majesty's flight to France. On the night of the 10th of December, Sir Edward, with the quarter-master of his regiment, Edward Syng[18], quitted Whitehall Palace with the King—proceeded in a hackney coach to Horse-ferry, crossed the Thames in a boat, and continued their flight in disguise to Feversham, where they went on board of the Custom-House hoy, designing to cross the channel to France; but they were suspected of being Popish priests, and were apprehended on board the vessel by the country people. The King being afterwards recognised, he was induced to return to London; but he subsequently escaped from Rochester and proceeded to France. Sir Edward Hales attempted to conceal himself, to escape the fury of the populace, who were enraged against him for changing his religion, and at the time he was apprehended at Feversham the country people were plundering his house, killing his deer, and wantonly destroying his property in Kent.