(Fœdera, xi. 834, xii. 29). He attended Edward IV to France in 1475 (Nicolas, Proc. Privy Council, vi. Preface, p. cxi). Hatteclyffe retained his office of secretary till 1480, when a coadjutor was given him on account of his age; he died later in the same year (ib. vi. p. cvii). According to Tanner some medical prescriptions of his were preserved at Worsley.
Hatteclyffe was possibly a relative of another William Hatteclyffe (fl. 1500), who was appointed under-treasurer of Ireland on 26 April 1495, and who in 1497–8 was one of the commissioners appointed to pardon Warbeck's adherents in the western counties (Fœdera, xii. 696; Letters and Papers illustrative of Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII, ii. 335, 375). His accounts in the former capacity have been printed (ib. ii. 297–318). He married Isabel, daughter of Agnes Paston, and had issue (Paston Letters, iii. 471). A John Hatteclyffe served under him in Ireland as clerk of the ordnance.
[Rymer's Fœdera, original edit.; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. et Hib. p. 384; Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner. Some references to documents connected with Hatteclyffe's diplomatic missions will be found in Palgrave's Antient Kalendars and Public Inventories, iii. 11, 17, 23; other authorities as quoted.]
HATTON. [See also Finch-Hatton.]
HATTON, Sir CHRISTOPHER (1540–1591), lord chancellor, second son of William Hatton of Holdenby, Northamptonshire, who died in 1546, by Alice, daughter of Lawrence Saunders of Harrington in the same county, was born at Holdenby in 1540. The family was old, and claimed, though on doubtful evidence, to be of Norman lineage. Hatton was entered at St. Mary Hall, Oxford, probably about 1555, as a gentleman-commoner. He took no degree, and in November 1559 was admitted to the society of the Inner Temple, where, according to Fuller (Worthies, ‘Northamptonshire’), he ‘rather took a bait than a meal’ of legal study. There is no record of his call to the bar, but the register was not then exactly kept (Baker, Northamptonshire, i. 196; Ormerod, Cheshire, ed. Helsby, iii. 230; Wood, Fasti Oxon. i. 582). At the Inner Temple revels at Christmas 1561, when a splendid masque was performed, in which Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, figured as ‘Palaphilos, Prince of Sophie, High Constable Marshal of the Knights Templars,’ Hatton played the part of master of the game (Dugdale, Orig. pp. 150 et seq.). Tall, handsome, and throughout his life a very graceful dancer, he attracted the attention of the queen at a subsequent masque at court, and became one of her gentlemen pensioners in June 1564 (Camden, Ann. Eliz. ed. 1627, ii. 43; Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia, 27; Fuller, Worthies, ‘Northamptonshire;’ Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 242). On Sunday, 11 Nov. 1565, and the two following days he displayed his prowess in a tourney held before the queen at Westminster, in honour of the marriage of Ambrose Dudley, earl of Warwick, with Lady Anne Russell, and he jousted again before the queen at the same place in May 1571 (Strype, Cheke, p. 133; Nichols, Progr. Eliz. i. 276). Elizabeth gave him in 1565 the abbey and demesne lands of Sulby, nominally in exchange for his manor of Holdenby, which, however, was at the same time leased to him for forty years, and was two years later reconveyed to him in fee; she appointed him (29 July 1568) keeper of her parks at Eltham in Kent and Horne in Surrey; she granted him the reversion of the office of queen's remembrancer in the exchequer (1571), and estates in Yorkshire, Dorsetshire, Herefordshire, the reversion of the monastery De Pratis in Leicestershire, the stewardship of the manors of Wendlingborough in Northamptonshire, and the wardship of three minors (1571–2). She also made him one of the gentlemen of her privy chamber, though at what date is uncertain, and captain of her bodyguard (1572). It was the custom for the courtiers to make the queen new-year's presents, for which they received in return gifts of silver plate varying from fifty to two hundred ounces in weight. Hatton, however, always received four hundred ounces' weight of this plate.
Hatton's relations with the queen were very intimate. When he fell seriously ill in 1573, she visited him daily, was pensive when he left for Spa to recover his health, and sent her own physician, Julio, with him (Baker, Northamptonshire, i. 195; Strype, Ann. fol. ii. pt. i. 306, 337; Strype, Smith, p. 140; Lodge, Illustr. ii. 101; Nichols, Progr. Eliz. i. 295; Nicholas, pp. 5–8). His letters to her while on this journey are written in a very extravagant style; e.g. ‘My spirit, I feel, agreeth with my body and life that to serve you is a heaven, but to lack you is more than hell's torment unto them. … Would God I were with you but for one hour. My wits are overwrought with thoughts. I find myself amazed. Bear with me, my most dear sweet lady. Passion overcometh me. I can write no more. Love me, for I love you.’ He signs himself her ‘most happy bondman, Lyddes.’ She also called him her ‘mutton,’ her ‘bellwether,’ her ‘pecora campi.’ Malignant gossip said that he was her paramour,
