Sir Edward Hales, 3rd Baronet (28 September 1645 – October 1695) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons of England from 1679 to 1681.
He had not received the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England within three months of his commission in 1673, contrary to the statute 25 Charles II and had not taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.
Arthur Godden, Sir Edward's coachman, was instructed to bring a qui tam action against his master for the penalty of £500, due to the informer under the act of Charles II.
On 21 June 1686, Herbert, after consulting his colleagues on the bench, delivered judgment in favour of Hales, and asserted the dispensing power to be part of the king's prerogative.
When the seven bishops were discharged from his custody he demanded fees of them; but they refused, on the ground that their detention and Hales's commission were both illegal.
On 26 October 1689 he was brought up to the bar of the House of Commons, and ordered to be charged with high treason in being reconciled to the church of Rome.
On 31 January 1690 he and Obadiah Walker were brought by habeas corpus from the Tower to the bar of the king's bench, and were bailed on good security; but both were excepted out of the act of pardon dated 23 May following.
James rewarded his services by creating him Earl of Tenterden in Kent, Viscount Tunstall, and Baron Hales of Emley, by patent 3 May 1692.
[3] In 1694, Hales applied to the Earl of Shrewsbury for a licence to return to England, but he died, without obtaining it, in 1695, and was buried in the Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris.