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Sir Christopher Hatton Biography

Sir Christopher Hatton Image

HATTON, Sir Christopher (1540–91). An English statesman and jurist, born at Holdenby. He studied at St. Mary Hall, Oxford, became a member of the Inner Temple (1559), sat in Parliament from 1571 to 1587, and showed himself a bitter enemy of the Jesuits. Parry, who defended them in Commons, Hatton accused, and finally had him condemned to death. He was a commissioner at the trial of Babington, of the conspirators against Elizabeth, and of Mary Stuart, and in general showed himself a clever courtier of the Queen. In 1587 she made him Lord Chancellor—the "dancing Chancellor," as he was called, in allusion to the story that the Queen first looked on him with favor when she saw him dancing. In literary history Hatton is best known as the patron of Spenser, who dedicated to him The Faerie Queene. Consult Nicolas, Memoirs of the Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton (London, 1847).