James Hales

For the soldier who served as treasurer of the 1589 expedition to Portugal, see James Hales (died 1589).

Sir James Hales
Arms of Hales: Gules, three arrows or feathered and barbed argent
Bornc. 1500
Died1554 (aged 53–54)
Thanington, Kent
Spouses
  • Mary Hales
  • Margaret Wood
Parent(s)John Hales, Isabel Harry
Canterbury city walls, just outside which Sir James Hales' manor of The Dungeon was situated

Sir James Hales (c. 1500–1554) was an English judge from Kent, the son of the politician and judge John Hales. Though a Protestant, he refused to seal the document settling the crown on the Protestant claimant Lady Jane Grey in 1553, and during the following reign of the Catholic Queen Mary opposed the relaxation of the laws against religious nonconformity. Imprisoned for his lack of sympathy to Catholicism and subjected to intense pressure to convert, in a disturbed state of mind he committed suicide by drowning. The resulting lawsuit of Hales v. Petit is considered to be a source of the gravediggers' dialogue after Ophelia drowns herself in Shakespeare's play Hamlet.[1]

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