# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hatton, Christopher (1632-1706)

​HATTON, CHRISTOPHER, first Viscount Hatton (1632–1706), born in 1632, was elder son of Christopher, lord Hatton (1605?–1670) [q. v.] He became steward of Higham Ferrers and of several manors in Northamptonshire in 1660; gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles II in 1662; and captain of foot (Guernsey) in 1664. On 22 Oct. 1664 he made a report to Colonel William Legge on the state of Guernsey (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. pt. v. p. 11); and was governor of Guernsey during the absence of his father in February 1665. On 13 June 1667 he was made captain in the ‘Lord Chamberlain's’ regiment of foot; was appointed deputy-lieutenant of Northamptonshire in March 1670, and on the following 4 July succeeded his father as second Baron Hatton and governor of Guernsey. His ‘unparalleled prudence and application [at the time] repaired the shattered estate’ of his family, and his kindly care of his mother, brother, and sisters is highly commended by Roger North (Lives, ii. 293). He was custos rotulorum of Northamptonshire from 30 Nov. 1681 until February 1689, and was created D.C.L. of Oxford on 22 May 1683 (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 389). On 11 Dec. 1683 he was advanced to be Viscount Hatton of Gretton, Northamptonshire, and became captain of grenadiers in the Earl of Huntingdon's regiment of foot on 28 July 1688 (Hatton Correspondence, Camd. Soc., ii. 89). He was the only one of Lord Huntingdon's officers who refused to join his commander in an attempt to secure Plymouth for James II at the end of November 1688 (ib. ii. 117). On 27 Aug. 1688 he writes to Lord Dartmouth that he is ill, and hopes he may be excused from repairing to his command (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. pt. v. p. 137). On 30 Sept. 1689 he ​was reappointed custos rotulorum of Northamptonshire, and held various offices in connection with the bailiwick and forest of Rockingham in the same county. Hatton was removed from the stewardship of Higham Ferrers by Thomas Grey, earl of Stamford, when chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1698. In November 1702 he petitioned for its restoration to him (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. App. p. 188). He died in September 1706. In 1667 he married his first wife, Cecilia (1648–1672), fourth, but third surviving, daughter of John Tufton, second earl of Thanet. By her he had three daughters, two of whom died in infancy; the third, Anne, became the second wife of Daniel Finch, second earl of Nottingham [q. v.] Lady Hatton was killed in the explosion of the powder magazine at Cornet Castle in Guernsey, which was struck by lightning on the night of 29–30 Dec. 1672. Hatton himself had a marvellous escape, having been blown in his bed on to the battlements without suffering injury. His mother perished, together with some of the servants; while two of his children who were in the castle were uninjured (Jacob, Annals of Bailliwick of Guernsey, i. 116; Chester, Registers of Westminster Abbey, p. 178). In 1676 Hatton married his second wife, Frances (d. 1684), only daughter of Sir Henry Yelverton, bart., of Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, who bore him several children, all of whom died in infancy except one daughter. Hatton, in August 1685, married a third wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Haslewood, knt., of Maidwell, Northamptonshire, and had by her also a large family, including a son and heir, William (1690–1760), who, dying unmarried, was succeeded by his brother Henry Charles (1700?–1760), in whom the title expired.
In 1675 Hatton presented to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, four volumes of Anglo-Saxon Homilies, formerly numbered 22, 23, 24, and 99 in the Junian MSS.; he was probably the donor of 112 valuable manuscripts, in part Anglo-Saxon, which are styled ‘Codices Hattonianæ.’ To Hatton belonged the bulk of the Hatton Papers now in the British Museum. A selection has been edited for the Camden Society by Dr. Edward Maunde Thompson, and is entitled ‘Correspondence of the Family of Hatton, being chiefly Letters addressed to Christopher, first Viscount Hatton, A.D. 1601–1704,’ 2 vols., 1878.
[Doyle's Official Baronage, ii. 156–7; Macray's Annals of the Bodleian Library, 1st ed. pp. 99–100; E. M. Thompson's Introduction to Hatton Correspondence (Camd. Soc.). See also App. to 1st Rep. of the Hist. MSS. Comm. and App. to 11th Rep. pt. v. pp. 11, 20, 124, 134, 137.]
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