‘I am doing your Majesty some service here, whilst I am preparing the story of your sufferings; that posterity may know by whose default the nation was even overwhelmed with calamities, and by whose virtue it was redeemed.’
Clarendon’s massive History has since its first publication in 1702-4 dominated our images of the English Civil War. Written by a man who for over a quarter of a century was one of the closest advisers to Charles I and Charles II, it contains a remarkably frank account of the inadequacies of royalist policy-making as well as an astute analysis of the principles and practice of government.
Clarendon chronicles in absorbing detail the factions and intrigues, the rise of Cromwell and the death of Charles I, the bloody battles and the eventual Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 after the Interregnum.
He brings to life the key players in a series of brilliant character portraits, and his account is admired as much for its literary quality as its historical value.
This new selection conveys a strong sense of the narrative, and contains passages from Clarendon’s autobiography, The Life, including the important description of the intellectual coterie at Great Tew in the 1630s.
A Political Career
1. Edward Hyde was born in 1609, the younger son of a Wiltshire country gentleman. The Church, the law and the military were all possible careers he contemplated. Click here to hear Paul Seaward talking about the significant events of Hyde’s early life. [4:02]
2. The Civil War was the most significant political event of Hyde’s life. Paul Seaward here discusses how divisions over religion and the increasingly strained relationship between the monarch and his subjects throughout the 1630s contributed to the eventual confrontation between Charles I and parliament the following decade. [3:58]
3. Hyde’s began his political career by becoming an MP in the Short Parliament in 1640. He drifted slowly towards the Royalist camp and eventually became – in secret – Charles I chief propagandist. Learn more by clicking here. [2:11]
Writing the History
4. How did Hyde come to write the History of the Rebellion, begun in seclusion during his exile on Jersey after the collapse of the Royalist cause following the battle of Naseby? Find out more here. [2:22]
5. What were Hyde’s aims in writing the History? In part, it was to understand the Royalists’ defeat, and in part it was to stand as a Royalist war memorial. Click here to hear Paul Seaward discuss this as well as Clarendon’s (as he became in 1661) later political rise and fall under Charles II. [5:36]
6. By 1667 Clarendon, by now a very unpopular figure facing impeachment at home, decided to escape to exile in France. There he found a sort of release in writing polemics, meditations and his autobiography. He also, critically, returned to his history of the civil war. Click here to hear more. [2:41]
The history after Clarendon
7. Clarendon died in exile in 1674 but the History was not published till the start of the following century when Clarendon’s granddaughter, Queen Anne, came to the throne. Hear the story of its publication here. [6:20]
8. The History is a great literary work containing passages of great excitement as well as a work of history. Hear about some of its highlights here. [3:49]
Abridging the History
9. The complete History runs to around one-and-a-half million words. Listen to Paul Seaward describing his aims in preparing this abridgement here. [3:25]