| Notes |
- READ HIS BIOGRAPHIES & DO NOT MERGE WITH OTHERS. Edward Hyde was the third son[2] of Henry Hyde (d. 1634) of Dinton and Purton, both in Wiltshire, by his wife, Mary Langford. Henry's brother was Lawrence Hyde, Attorney General. The family of Hyde was long established at Norbury in Cheshire. Hyde was fond of his mother and idolised his father, whom he called "the best father, the best friend, and the wisest man I have known." Clarendon's two cousins, Richard Rigby, Secretary of Jamaica, and his son, Richard Rigby, Chief Secretary of Ireland and Paymaster of the Army, were successful politicians in the succeeding generations.
Education[edit]
He was educated at Gillingham School,[3] and in 1622 entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, (now Hertford College, Oxford, where his portrait hangs in the hall), having been rejected by Magdalen College, Oxford, and graduated BA in 1626. Intended originally for holy orders in the Church of England, the death of two elder brothers made him his father's heir, and in 1625 he entered the Middle Temple to study law.[4] His abilities were more conspicuous than his industry, and at the bar his time was devoted more to general reading and to the society of eminent scholars and writers than to the study of law treatises.[5]
This time was not wasted. In later years, Clarendon declared that "next the immediate blessing and providence of God Almighty" he "owed all the little he knew and the little good that was in him to the friendships and conversation... of the most excellent men in their several kinds that lived in that age."[6] These included Ben Jonson, John Selden, Edmund Waller, John Hales and especially Lord Falkland. From their influence and the wide reading in which he indulged, he doubtless drew the solid learning and literary talent which afterwards distinguished him.[5] The diarist Samuel Pepys wrote thirty years later that he never knew anyone who could speak as well as Hyde. He was the most prominent member of the famous Great Tew Circle, a group of intellectuals who gathered at Falkland's country house Great Tew.
Edward Hyde in 1626, aged 17, portrait by Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen (1593–1661), UK Government art collection
Legal career[edit]
In 1633 he was called to the bar, and obtained quickly a good position and practice: "you may have great joy of your son Ned" his uncle the Attorney General assured his father. Both his marriages gained him influential friends, and in December 1634 he was made keeper of the writs and rolls of the Court of Common Pleas. His able conduct of the petition of the London merchants against Portland earned him the approval of William Laud, with whom he developed a friendship, surprising on the face of it as Laud did not have a gift for making friends and his religious views were very different from Hyde's.[4] Hyde in his History explained that he admired Laud for his integrity and decency, and excused his notorious rudeness and bad temper, partly because of Laud's humble origins, and partly because Hyde recognised the same weaknesses in himself.
Political career[edit]
In April 1640, Hyde was elected Member of Parliament for both Shaftesbury and Wootton Bassett in the Short Parliament and chose to sit for Wootton Bassett. In November 1640 he was elected MP for Saltash in the Long Parliament,[7] Hyde was at first a moderate critic of King Charles I, but became more supportive of the king after he began to accept reforming bills from Parliament. Hyde opposed legislation restricting the power of the king to appoint his own advisors, viewing it unnecessary and an affront to royal prerogative.[8] He gradually moved over towards the royalist side, championing the Church of England and opposing the execution of the Earl of Strafford, Charles's primary advisor. Following the Grand Remonstrance of 1641, Hyde became an informal advisor to the king. He left London about 20 May 1642, and rejoined the king at York.[4]
Edward Hyde by William Dobson, circa 1643
Civil War[edit]
Despite his own previous opposition to the king he found it hard to forgive anyone, even a close friend, who fought for Parliament, and severed many personal ties as a result. With the possible exception of John Pym, he detested the Parliamentary leaders, describing Oliver Cromwell as "a brave bad man" and John Hampden as a hypocrite, while the "foxes and wolves" speech by Oliver St. John, in favour of the attainder of Strafford, he considered the depth of barbarism. His view of the conflict was undoubtedly coloured by the death of his best friend Falkland at the First Battle of Newbury.
During the Civil War, Hyde served in the king's council beginning 22 February 1645, and was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer on 3 March,[4] and was one of the more moderate figures in the royalist camp. By 1645 his moderation, and the enmity of Henrietta Maria of France, had alienated him from the king, and he was made guardian to the Prince of Wales, with whom he fled to Jersey in 1646.[4]
Despite their differences, he was horrified by the execution of the king, whom he always remembered with reverence. In his opinion the fatal flaw of Charles I, as with all the Stuart monarchs, was to let their own judgement, which was usually sound, become corrupted by the advice of their favourites, which was always disastrous.
Hyde was not closely involved with Charles II's attempts to regain the throne between 1649 to 1651. It was during this period that Hyde began to write his great history of the Civil War. Hyde rejoined the exiled king in 1651 and was sent by him on an unsuccessful diplomatic mission to the Court of Spain and soon became his chief advisor. Charles appointed him Lord Chancellor on 13 January 1658.[4]
Restoration[edit]
On the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, he returned to England with the king and became even closer to the royal family through the marriage of his daughter Anne to the king's brother James, Duke of York, later King James II. Anne Hyde's two daughters were the monarchs Queen Mary II (1688–1694) and Queen Anne (1702–1714). Contemporaries naturally assumed that Hyde had arranged the royal marriage of his daughter, but modern historians in general accept his repeated claims that it came as an unwelcome shock to him.[9] He may have hoped to arrange a marriage for James with a foreign princess, and was well aware that nobody regarded his daughter as a suitable royal match, a view he entirely shared. On a personal level he seems to have disliked James, whose impulsive attempt to repudiate the marriage can hardly have endeared him to his father-in-law. Above all, as Cardinal Mazarin remarked, the marriage was certain to damage Hyde's reputation as a politician, whether he was responsible for it or not.[10]
Hyde, circa 1648–1655. Portrait by Adriaen Hanneman (d. 1671), National Portrait Gallery, London, no 773
Chief Minister[edit]
On 3 November 1660, Hyde was raised to the peerage as Baron Hyde, of Hindon in the County of Wiltshire, and the next year was created Viscount Cornbury and Earl of Clarendon. He served as Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1660–1667.[4]
As effective Chief Minister in the early years of the reign, he accepted the need to fulfill most of what had been promised in the Declaration of Breda, which he had partly drafted. In particular he worked hard to fulfill the promise of mercy to all the king's enemies, except the regicides, and this was largely achieved in the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion. Most other problems he was content to leave to Parliament, in particular the restored House of Lords; his speech welcoming the Lords' return shows his ingrained dislike of democracy.[4]
He played a key role in Charles' marriage to Catherine of Braganza, with ultimately harmful consequences to himself. Clarendon liked and admired the Queen and openly disapproved of the king maintaining mistresses. The king however resented any interference with his private life. Catherine's failure to bear children was also damaging to Clarendon, given the nearness of his own grandchildren to the throne, although it is most unlikely, as was alleged, that Clarendon had planned deliberately for Charles to marry an infertile bride. They were always on friendly terms and one of his last letters is to the Queen thanking her for her kindness to his family.
As Lord Chancellor, it is commonly thought that Clarendon was the author of the "Clarendon Code", designed to preserve the supremacy of the Church of England. In reality he was not very heavily involved with its drafting and actually disapproved of much of its content. The "Great Tew Circle" of which he had been a leading member prided itself on tolerance and respect for religious differences. The code was thus merely named after him, as chief minister.[11]
Downfall[edit]
The Earl of Clarendon in a 1666 engraving by David Loggan.
In 1663, the Earl of Clarendon was one of eight Lords Proprietor given title to a huge tract of land in North America which became the Province of Carolina.[4]
Clarendon easily survived the first attempt to impeach him, in 1663. The charges made by George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol were so ludicrous that even Clarendon's worst enemies could not take them seriously. However, he began to fall out of favour with the king, whom he lectured frequently on his shortcomings, and was also increasingly unpopular with the public. Quite unjustly he was accused of arranging the king's marriage to a woman he knew to be barren to secure the throne for the children of his daughter Anne, while the building of his palatial new mansion, Clarendon House in Piccadilly, was taken, again unjustly, to be evidence of corruption. He was also blamed for the sale of Dunkirk. His open contempt for the king's leading mistress, Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, niece of his great friend Lady Morton, earned him her enmity, and she worked with the future members of the Cabal Ministry to destroy him. His authority was wea
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1609 - 1674 (65 years)
