Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hassall, Edward
HASSALL or HALSALL, EDWARD (fl. 1667), royalist, born about 1627, was probably a member of an old family seated at Halsall, near Ormskirk, Lancashire. He fought in the defence of Lathom House in 1644, and was wounded. A diary which he kept of the siege, extending from 28 Feb. to 27 May 1644, is preserved among Wood's manuscripts in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Another copy in the British Museum (Harleian MS. 2074) has been printed in a modernised form in Draper's ‘House of Stanley.’ The authorship of the diary has, however, been also ascribed to both Colonel Edward Chisenhale [q. v.] and to Ralph Brideoake [q. v.], then one of Lord Derby's chaplains. Hassall, who attained the rank of major, was one of the four cavaliers who, on 5 June 1650, assassinated Anthony Ascham [q. v.] at Madrid (Cal. Clarendon State Papers, ii. 63, 220, 343). He was imprisoned there for four months, but in October was released, and went to England to act as a spy on the leaders of the commonwealth (ib. ii. 260). From a letter of his brother James to the king, dated 12 Feb. 1655, it would seem that he had planned to surprise and secure Liverpool for Charles (ib. iii. 16). He accompanied his brother to Flanders in June of that year, and in the following November engaged in a plot to kill Cromwell (iii. 43, 68). On 13 July 1663 he was appointed equerry to the queen (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1663–4 pp. 202, 613, 1664–5 pp. 339, 379).
His brother, James Hassall (fl. 1667), also styled a major, arrived at Antwerp in February 1655, and gave Ormonde much information about affairs in England (Cal. Clarendon State Papers, iii. 13). In July following he received a letter from the king desiring him to return to England to collect any sums of money that the generosity of friends might supply (ib. iii. 44). At the end of the year he was concerned in the plot to assassinate Cromwell, but was betrayed, arrested on 16 Nov., and committed a close prisoner to the Tower (ib. pp. 87, 134). There he remained until the Restoration (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1655–60). According to his fellow-conspirators, the plot failed through his delay (Cal. Clarendon State Papers, iii. 81). At this examination he refused to disclose anything (ib. iii. 90). Charles made him his cupbearer and captain of a company (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, pp. 244, 453), and in October 1660 granted him a patent for ‘sea wreck, minerals, gravel, sand, etc., usually taken up for ballast at low water-mark’ (ib. Dom. 1660–1 pp. 244, 326, 1663–4, p. 409). During 1666–7 he corresponded with Aphra Behn [q. v.], then at Antwerp, but she often complained of his silence and delay (ib. Dom. 1666–7). Pepys, who often met him, describes him as ‘a great creature of the Duke of Albemarle's’ (Diary, 24 June 1666). On 27 Sept. 1667 he was made captain of the foot company employed in Portsmouth garrison (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1667, p. 487). The name occurs in the state papers as Halse, Halsey, Halsall, and Hallsall.
[Draper's House of Stanley, pp. 99, 111.]