William Hale

William Hale ( – 1688) was an English politician.

Hale was the son of Rowland Hale of King's Walden, Hertfordshire (High Sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1647–48 ) and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Garraway (Lord Mayor of London in 1639–40).

He was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1649, and to Gray's Inn in 1651.

He was elected MP for Hertfordshire at a by-election in 1669, after Viscount Cranborne succeeded to the House of Lords as Earl of Salisbury. Hale supported the Earl of Shaftesbury in the Exclusion Crisis, voting for the Exclusion Bill. Despite wishing to stand down due to ill health, he was re-elected in March 1679 "contrary to his inclinations". However, in 1681 he agreed to stand and was re-elected. This Parliament, the Oxford Parliament, sat for only one week; Hale took no known part in it. ) They had ten sons and four daughters:

Richard Hale (1659–1689), married Elizabeth Meynell [parents of William Hale ; Elizabeth married secondly Robert Cecil ] Mary Hale (1660–1709), married John Plumer [parents of Walter Plumer , William Plumer and Richard Plumer ] Rowland Hale (1662–) William Hale (1663–) John Hale (1666–) Jeremiah Hale (1668–1734) Henry Hale (1670–1735) Elizabeth Hale (1670–1671) Katherine Hale (1673–1704), married John Hoskyns [parents of Catherine Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire] Geoffrey Hale (1676–) Sir Bernard Hale (1677–1729), Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, married Ann Thursby Thomas Hale (1678–) Geoffrey Hale (1680–) Elizabeth Hale (1682–1763), married Nicholas Bonfoy