Sir Edward Hyde (Lord Chancellor)

Description

Biographies and Portraits

Edward Hyde the Earl of Clarendon (1609-1674), a dignified statesman and historian, as depicted here and from the National Portrait Gallery was the Lord High Chancellor during the early years of the Restoration of King Charles II. Several wonderful websites offer excellent and well detailed biographies and related background information on Lord Clarendon:1911 Encyclopedia;British Civil Wars and Wikipedia.

Clarendon in the Diary

Sam’s interactions with the Lord Chancellor were limited but favorable, including an affectionate walk where he took Lord Sandwich’s young son to meet the King, the Duke and Lord Chancellor. Sam witnessed the King granting Hyde his title and Earldom and often shared niceties while delivering a letter. Over time, amidst the political factions, Clarendon often found himself on the unpopular side of the licentious Court of Charles II. He was unfairly blamed by Lord Bristoll on a variety of fabricated charges which the Lords agreed did not constitute treason.

By 1667 he found himself blamed for the Second Dutch War and more sensitively to Charles II, the marriage of Frances Stuart to the Duke of Richmond. Charles dismissed him in 1667 and Clarendon lived out the final years of his life in exile. During that time he wrote his famous History of the Great Rebellion. Shamefully for the King, as Clarendon was old and very ill he twice wrote to the King asking to be allowed to return home to England to die with his children. The King never replied to his requests and Clarendon died at Rouen, with his younger son Lawrence Hyde present, on December 9, 1674.

Further Resources

Some of the biographies and related non-fiction written by or about Clarendon are listed below. These books tend to be rare and may be available through your local library (with the help of the research department) or are sometimes available through the used book search or your local country Amazon.com.

• Clarendon and His Friends by Richard Ollard
• Clarendon’s Four Portraits by Edward Hyde Earl of Clarendon
• The History of the Great Rebellion and Civil Wars in England in the Year 1641 by Edward Hyde Earl of Clarendon
• The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon by Edward Hyde Earl of Clarendon
• The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, Lord High Chancellor of England by Sir Henry Craik
• The Life and Administration of Edward First Earl of Clarendon with Original Correspondence with Authentic Papers never before published by T.H. Lister

Additional Background

• The Bedchamber
• The Pepys Sociogram
• Clarendon Code

Editor’s Note

This summary incorporates links provided by Matthew in 2003.

Last updated by Jeannine Kerwin on 29 November 2007

Wikipedia

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (18 February 1609–9 December 1674) was an English historian and statesman, and grandfather of two British monarchs, Mary II and Queen Anne.

Hyde was the third son of Henry Hyde of Dinton and Purton, Wiltshire, a member of a family for some time established at Norbury, Cheshire. He entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, (now Hertford College, Oxford, where his portrait hangs in the hall) in 1622, having been rejected by Magdalen College, 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. 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.

This time was not wasted. In later years Clarendon declared "next the immediate blessing and providence of God Almighty" that 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." These included Ben Jonson, Selden, Waller, Hales, and especially Lord Falkland; and from their influence and the wide reading in which he indulged, he doubtless drew the solid learning and literary talent which afterwards distinguished him.

Edward Hyde in 1626.

In 1629 he married his first wife, Anne, daughter of Sir George Ayliffe of Grittenham, who died six months afterwards; and secondly, in 1634, Frances, daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, Master of Requests. From this second marriage came a daughter, Anne. In 1633 he was called to the bar, and obtained quickly a good position and practice. His marriages had gained for him influential friends, and in December 1634 he was made keeper of the writs and rolls of the common pleas; while his able conduct of the petition of the London merchants against Portland earned Laud's approval.

In 1640 Hyde was returned to the Short Parliament and then again in the Long Parliament, he was at first a moderate critic of King Charles I, but 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.

During the Civil War, Hyde served in the King's council as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was one of the more moderate figures in the royalist camp. By 1645 his moderation had alienated him from the King, and he was made guardian to the Prince of Wales, with whom he fled to Jersey in 1646.

Hyde was not closely involved with Charles II's attempts to regain the throne in 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 the latter year, and soon became his chief advisor; Charles named him Lord Chancellor in 1658. 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, the heir-presumptive (who, after the death of his first wife, would succeed to the throne as James II of England & VII of Scotland). Their two daughters, Mary II and Queen Anne would each one day reign in their own right.

In 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.

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. However, he was not very heavily involved with the drafting and actually disapproved of much of its content. It was merely named after him, as he was a chief minister.

In 1663, the Earl of Clarendon was one of eight Lords Proprietors given title to a huge tract of land in North America which became the Province of Carolina. However, he began to fall out of favour with the king, and the military setbacks of the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665 to 1667 led to his downfall. Clarendon was impeached, in part, for blatant violations of habeas corpus; sending prisoners out of England to places like Jersey, and holding them there without the benefit of trial. He was impeached by the House of Commons, and forced to flee to France in November, 1667.

He spent the rest of his life in exile, working on the History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, his classic account of the English Civil War. (The proceeds from this book's publication were instrumental in building the Clarendon Building at Oxford.) He died in Rouen on 9 December 1674. Shortly after his death, his body was returned to England, and he is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Clarendon's sons, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, and Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, were major political figures in their own right. Clarendon's two cousins, Richard Rigby, Secretary of Jamaica and his son, Richard Rigby, Chief Secretary of Ireland and Paymaster of the Army, were also successful politicians in the succeeding generations.

[edit] Portrayals

In the 2003 BBC TV miniseries Charles II: The Power and The Passion, Clarendon was played by actor Ian McDiarmid. The series portrayed Clarendon (referred to as 'Sir Edward Hyde' throughout) as acting in a paternalistic fashion towards Charles II, something the King comes to dislike.

[edit] See also

• Clarendon House

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon

• Works by Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon at Project Gutenberg
• Essays by Edward Hyde at Quotidiana.org
• Volume 2 of The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon by Henry Craik from Project Gutenberg

This text was last fetched from this Wikipedia page (where you can edit it) on
12 May 2008, 8:05pm under the terms of the GFDL.

1893 text

This text was written as a footnote in the 1893 Wheatley transcription of the diary, the same one that is used for the diary entries on this site.

Annotations

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 21 Aug 2003, 03:08am

  Hyde was chairman of the Treasury Commission
  per L&M

• N steve h on Tue 28 Oct 2003, 03:13pm

  Macaulay’s portrait of Clarendon

  http://www.strecorsoc.org/macaulay/m02a.html#2a8

  “At the Restoration Hyde became chief minister. In a few months it was announced that he was closely related by affinity to the royal house. His daughter had become, by a secret marriage, Duchess of York. His grandchildren might perhaps wear the crown. He was raised by this illustrious connection over the heads of the old nobility of the land, and was for a time supposed to be allpowerful. In some respects he was well fitted for his great place. No man wrote abler state papers. No man spoke with more weight and dignity in Council and in Parliament. No man was better acquainted with general maxims of statecraft. No man observed the varieties of character with a more discriminating eye. It must be added that he had a strong sense of moral and religious obligation, a sincere reverence for the laws of his country, and a conscientious regard for the honour and interest of the Crown. But his temper was sour, arrogant, and impatient of opposition. Above all, he bad been long an exile; and this circumstance alone would have completely disqualified him for the supreme direction of affairs. I” …
  “To him England was still the England of his youth; and he sternly frowned down every theory and every practice which had sprung up during his own exile. Though he was far from meditating any attack on the ancient and undoubted power of the House of Commons, he saw with extreme uneasiness the growth of that power. The royal prerogative, for which he had long suffered, and by which he had at length been raised to wealth and dignity, was sacred in his eyes. The Roundheads he regarded both with political and with personal aversion. To the Anglican Church he had always been strongly attached, and had repeatedly, where her interests were concerned, separated himself with regret from his dearest friends. His zeal for Episcopacy and for the Book of Common Prayer was now more ardent than ever, and was mingled with a vindictive hatred of the Puritans, which did him little honour either as a statesman or as a Christian.”
  

• N dirk on Thu 8 Apr 2004, 02:42am

  More on Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon

  http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.asp?ContentID=200
  

• N Pedro. on Tue 4 May 2004, 05:35pm

  Hyde and Catarina de Braganca.

  According to Hilda Lewis in her biography of Catarina, Hyde seems to be the main person with whom Charles discusses the proposal of marriage. This proposal being put by the Portuguese Ambassador, Fransico de Mello, initially via Lord Manchester. This was probably during May 1661.
  The value of the dowry was obviously hard to refuse, but Charles wanted to know what Catarina looked like, and was assured she was very good looking. His Ambassador to Spain, Bristol, came to him just before he was about to sign and begged him not to commit. He told Charles that she was ugly, deformed and sterile. This held back the signing while Hyde investigated and could not find any faults. Luis XIV wrote to Charles saying she was a princess of great beauty, and thereby approving of the marriage. Catarina’s mother hearing of the problem sent a “miniatura” [miniature portrait] of her daughter and by all acounts Charles was impressed. The contract was in the end signed on 23rd June 1661.
  

• N Jeannine on Sun 31 Jul 2005, 02:34pm

  Books about Clarendon.
  A review of his autobiograhy and one of his biogrpahies have been added to the site at
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/2433.php

• N jeannine on Sun 8 Jan 2006, 06:46pm

  Grammont footnote on Hyde

  Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, “for his comprehensive knowledge of mankind, styled the chancellor of human nature. His character, at this distance of time, may, and ought to be impartially considered. His designing or blinded contemporaries heaped the most unjust abuse upon him. The subsequent age, when the partizans of prerogative were at least the loudest, if not the most numerous, smit with a work that deified their martyr, have been unbounded in their encomium.” — Catalogue of Noble Authors, vol. ii. p. 18. Lord Orford, who professes to steer a middle course, and separate his great virtues as a man from his faults as an historian, acknowledges that he possessed almost every virtue of a minister which could make his character venerable. He died in exile, in the year 1674.
  http://www.pseudopodium.org/repress/grammont/notes02.html see note 43

• N Pedro on Mon 5 Mar 2007, 08:54pm

  Clarendon Rocks.

  Trade needed good access to the sea and this required safe harbour entrances deep enough to allow larger and larger ships access. At Christchurch, for example, there were several attempts to manage the harbour mouth, the most notorious being the construction of the jetties through the spit. At the end of the seventeenth century, Andrew Yarranton, supported by Lord Clarendon, Lord of the Manor of Christchurch and Chancellor to Charles II, constructed a cut through Mudeford spit using ironstone boulders from nearby Hengistbury Head. Because he built the jetty on the downdrift side of the channel, the cut was constantly being blocked. Clarendon Rocks can be seen today and appear on many of the charts and maps of Christchurch.
  

• N Pedro on Mon 30 Apr 2007, 08:45pm

  Clarendon on the Second Dutch War.

  Clarendon was anti-war…

  “A peace with Holland would disappoint the Spaniards expectation of a rupture between us, and likewise that of the seditious and discontented party at home; it would compose the minds of men who do still apprehend new troubles, revive the deadness of trade, and encourage foreign investment.”

  (Felling, British Foreign Policy 1660-1672)
  

References in the diary

1660

May: 17
Jun: 11, 25
Jul: 8, 13, 24
Aug: 20
Oct: 7, 22, 23, 24, 26
Nov: 6
Dec: 10, 16, 21

1661

Jan: 1, 2
Feb: 23
Apr: 14, 20, 23
Jun: 10
Jul: 27
Aug: 19
Nov: 8, 13, 28

1662

Jan: 22
Feb: 20
Mar: 21
Apr: 7, 20
May: 23
Jun: 27
Aug: 19, 20
Nov: 3
Dec: 23, 24, 31

1663

Jan: 19
Feb: 17, 21, 27
Apr: 29
May: 4, 15, 25, 31
Jun: 4
Jul: 3, 7, 10, 13, 14
Aug: 11
Sep: 5
Oct: 29

1664

Feb: 1, 22
Mar: 14, 17, 26
Jul: 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 23
Aug: 1, 10
Nov: 9, 10, 11, 14, 22
Dec: 15

1665

Jan: 15
Feb: 20
Apr: 8, 10, 28