Around 1325 Robert Hales was born at Hales Place, High Halden.
On 1st February 1381 Robert Hales [aged 56] was appointed Lord High Treasurer.
Westminster Chronicle. In this year, around the Purification of the Blessed Mary [2nd February 1381], a great part of Rochester Bridge was broken apart. There had indeed been immense ice, which afterwards, dissolved by warmer air, broke the bridge by the mass of its pieces pressing upon it. The Lord Latimer1, leaving his temporal life, bade farewell to the world. He, indeed, having been invited to a meal by Sir Robert Hales [aged 56], and wishing to dismount from his horse, was suddenly seized by paralysis, lost his speech, and found death [on 28th May 1381].
ISTO anno circa Purificationem beatæ Mariæ dirupta fuit magna pars pontis Roucestre ; fuerat quidem glacies immensa quæ postmodum tepido aere resoluta mole suarum partium ponti incumbentium pontem confregit. Dominus de Latymer vitam relinquens temporalem mundo valefecit; hic denique per dominum Robertum Halys invitatus ad epulas de equo volens descendere subita paralysi raptus sermonem perdidit et mortem invenit.
Note 1. William [aged 50], 1330-1381, 4th Baron Latimer, Knight Garter. Fought at the battles of Sluys, Crécy and Auray. Married Elizabeth [aged 61], daughter of Edmund Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. They had one daughter, Elizabeth [aged 24], who succeeded as Baroness Latimer, and who married 1. John Neville, Baron Raby, and 2. Robert, Baron Willoughby.
On 11th June 1381 King Richard II of England [aged 14] held council with his mother Joan "Fair Maid of Kent" Princess Wales [aged 52], Thomas Beauchamp 12th Earl Warwick [aged 43], William Montagu 2nd Earl Salisbury [aged 52], Richard Fitzalan 9th Earl of Surrey 4th or 11th Earl of Arundel [aged 35], Archbishop Simon Sudbury [aged 65] and Robert Hales [aged 56] at the Tower of London [Map].
On 14th June 1381 the rebels gained access to the Tower of London [Map] capturing Joan "Fair Maid of Kent" Princess Wales [aged 52], the future King Henry IV of England [aged 14], Joan Holland Duchess York [aged 1] and Archbishop Simon Sudbury [aged 65].
Archbishop Simon Sudbury was beheaded at Tower Hill [Map]. He was buried at Canterbury Cathedral [Map].
Lord Treasurer Robert Hales [aged 56], who had only been appointed on the 1st February 1381, was beheaded at Tower Hill [Map].
Chronicle of Adam of Usk [~1352-1430]. During this king Richard's reign great things were looked for. But he being of tender years, others, who had the care of him and his kingdom, did not cease to inflict on the land acts of wantonness, extortions, and unbearable wrongs. Whence sprang that unnatural deed, when the commons of the land, and specially those of Kent and Essex, under their wretched leader Jack Straw1, declaring that they could no longer bear such wrongs, and above all wrongs of taxes and subsidies, rose in overwhelming numbers against the lords and the king's officers, and, marching to London on the eve [12th June 1381] of Corpus Christi, in the year of Our Lord 1381 struck off the heads2 of Simon Sudbury [aged 65], archbishop of Canterbury, then the king's chancellor, sir Robert Hales [aged 56], the treasurer, and many others, hard by the Tower of London. And on the places where these lords were beheaded there are set up to this day two marble crosses, a lasting memorial of so monstrous a deed.
Note 1. Wat Tyler is quite lost sight of. Knighton (Rolls series, ij. 137), in like manner, confuses the two men: "their leader, by his proper name Wat Tyler, but now, with his name changed, he was called Jack Straw."
Note 2. Archbishop Simon of Sudbury was beheaded on 14th June 1381.
Patent Rolls. 15th June 1381. Commission of oyer and terminer to William Walleworth, mayor of London, Robert Bealknapp, Robert Knolles, Nicholas Brembre, John Philipot, Robert Launde, and William Cheyne, on information that great crowds of labourers and others have collected together, especially in the counties of Essex, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Middlesex, compelled their betters to go with them, killed many of the king's lieges, and burned many houses, entered the city of London, and burned the house of the king's uncle John, duke of Lancaster [aged 41], called the 'Sauveye [Map],' and the priory in Clerkenwelle of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England, and killed Simon, archbishop of Canterbury [deceased] and chancellor, and Robert de Hales [deceased], prior of the said Hospital. By К. June 15. London.