Background
He was born at Worcester about 1620, a younger son of Richard Hall, clothier, of Worcester, by his wife, Elizabeth (Bonner), and was apparently educated at the King"s School, Worcester. Thomas Hall was his eldest brother.
He was born at Worcester about 1620, a younger son of Richard Hall, clothier, of Worcester, by his wife, Elizabeth (Bonner), and was apparently educated at the King"s School, Worcester. Thomas Hall was his eldest brother.
In 1636 he entered Pembroke College, Oxford, but left the university without a degree to take up arms for the parliament against Charles I. He took the Solemn League and Covenant, and became a captain in the parliamentary army. About 1647 he returned to Oxford, and was made a fellow of Pembroke College, proceeding Master of Arts on 11 March 1650. He was strongly in favour of monarchy, and wrote bitterly against Cromwell"s pretensions with.
About 1651 he was committed to prison by the council of state, and remained there for twelve months, still attacking the government in pamphlets.
Subsequently he preached in Oxford and the neighbourhood, and about 1657 became chaplain to Sir Edmund Bray, of Great Risington, Gloucestershire. Bray was a royalist, and tried unsuccessfully to present Hall to the rectory of Great Risington, of which he was patron.
In May 1661 he petitioned the government to remove Lewis Atterbury from the rectory of Great Risington, to which Bray had presented him, without effect. He secured, however, preferment at Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, where he was generally popular and taken serious by some but not all.
In 1680 he finally became rector of Great Risington on the presentation of Bray.
He died in August 1687, and was buried (5 August) in the chancel of his church.