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''The History of the Rebellion'' by
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (18 February 16099 December 1674), was an English statesman, lawyer, diplomat and historian who served as chief advisor to Charles I during the First English Civil War, and Lord Chancellor to Charles II fro ...
and former advisor to
Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...
and Charles II, is his account of the
Wars of the Three Kingdoms The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of related conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, then separate entities united in a personal union under Charles I. They include the 1639 to 1640 B ...
. Originally published between 1702 and 1704 as ''The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England'', it was the first detailed account from a key player in the events it covered.


Background and contents

Clarendon wrote the original ''History'' between 1646 and 1648, which only recorded events to March 1644. After his banishment, he wrote his autobiographical ''Life'' between 1668 and 1670. In 1671 he then revised the ''History'' by incorporating the ''Life'' into it and writing new sections covering events after March 1644. The title itself reflects the contemporary dispute over the nature and origins of the war. For Parliamentarians, the conflict was an attempt to restore the political balance between king and
Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
disrupted by the 1629 to 1640
Personal Rule The Personal Rule (also known as the Eleven Years' Tyranny) was the period from 1629 to 1640, when King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland ruled without recourse to Parliament. The King claimed that he was entitled to do this under the Roya ...
.
Royalists A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governm ...
considered it an unlawful rebellion against their sovereign; in 1669, diarist and naval civil servant Samuel Pepys was asked by Duke of York to change a reference to "the late disruption between king and Parliament" to 'rebellion". The ''History'' is influenced by Clarendon's politics and subtly supports his own views of Royalist strategy. For example, he opposed those Royalists in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
headed by the
Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
, who urged Charles to agree to compromises over the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
to win support from the Presbyterian Scots Covenanters against Parliament. Clarendon argued that in so doing, Charles' advisers were destroying the cause for which they were fighting. He denigrates the logic for accepting such compromise by attributing widespread support for
Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
reforms to the church as simple disaffection by a wicked faction. While his descriptions of the participants are often insightful, they can also be heavily biased.


Reception

The original publication of the ''History'' was sparked by the sensational success of Republican exile
Edmund Ludlow Edmund Ludlow (c. 1617–1692) was an English parliamentarian, best known for his involvement in the execution of Charles I, and for his ''Memoirs'', which were published posthumously in a rewritten form and which have become a major source ...
's ''Memoirs'' in 1698–1699, which led to a spate of Civil War memoirs from the Whig perspective, especially from the printer John Darby. The
Tories A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
responded in 1701 with those of the Royalist Sir
Philip Warwick Sir Philip Warwick (24 December 160915 January 1683), English writer and politician, born in Westminster, was the son of Thomas Warwick, or Warrick, a musician. Life He was educated at Eton, he travelled abroad for some time and in 1636 became ...
, followed in 1702 by those of Sir Thomas Herbert and the first volume of Clarendon's ''History''. In the preface to the first volume of his father's work, Laurence Hyde referred to his time as "an age when so many memoirs, narratives, and pieces of history come out as it were on purpose to justify the taking up arms against that king, and to blacken, revile, and ridicule the sacred majesty of an anointed head in distress; and when so much of the sense of religion to God, and of allegiance and duty to the crown is so defaced". The second volume was published during the 1702 Tory push for the Occasional Conformity Bill that sought to undermine the Whigs by barring Nonconformists from office. This allowed individuals to comply with the
Test Acts The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and nonconformists. The underlying principle was that only people taking communion in ...
by attending Church of England service once or twice a year, a practice that persisted in both England and Ireland well into the mid-18th century. In the preface addressed to his niece Queen Anne, Hyde warned the "Monarchy of England is not now capable of being supported but upon the principles of the Church of England". Like his father before him, he claimed the Dissenters were simply the latest "propagation of the rebellious principles of the last age". He went on to suggest that only by adhering to the Tories could she avoid the same fate as her grandfather Charles I. On 21 October 1703, Anne wrote to her friend,
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, Princess of Mindelheim, Countess of Nellenburg (née Jenyns, spelt Jennings in most modern references; 5 June 1660 (Old Style) – 18 October 1744), was an English courtier who rose to be one of th ...
;
Sir B. Bathurst sent me Ld Clarendons history last week, but haveing not quite made an end of ye first part, I did not unpack it, but I shall have that Curiosety now, to See this extraordinary dedication, which I should never have looked for in ye Second part of a book, & me thinks it is very wonderfull that people that dont want sense in some things, should be soe rediculous as to shew theire vanity.
David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
, in his '' The History of Great Britain'' (1756), provided a mixed assessment of Clarendon:
This age affords great materials for history; but did not produce any accomplished historian. Clarendon, however, will always be esteemed an entertaining writer, even independent of our curiosity to know the facts, which he relates. His style is prolix and redundant, and suffocates us by the length of its periods: But it discovers imagination and sentiment, and pleases us at the same time that we disapprove of it. He is more partial in appearance than in reality: For he seems perpetually anxious to apologize for the king; but his apologies are often well grounded. He is less partial in his relation of facts, than in his account of characters: He was too honest a man to falsify the former; his affections were easily capable, unknown to himself, of disguising the latter. An air of probity and goodness runs through the whole work; as these qualities did in reality embellish the whole life of the author.
The republican Whig historian
Catharine Macaulay Catharine Macaulay (née Sawbridge, later Graham; 23 March 1731 – 22 June 1791), was an English Whig republican historian. Early life Catharine Macaulay was a daughter of John Sawbridge (1699–1762) and his wife Elizabeth Wanley (died 1733 ...
believed the ''History'' to be "as faithful an account of facts as any to be found in those times. … The characters are described in strong if not just colours, but the style is disagreeably pompous". She also added that "the author's conclusions are so much at war with his facts that he is apt to disgust a candid reader with his prejudices and partiality". The debate over the Civil War continued into the 18th century, with Tory defences of the ''History'' against Whig criticisms appearing in 1716 by Henry Cantrell, in 1731 by Francis Atterbury, in 1732 by William Shippen and in 1739 by John Davys. In 1757, the former Whig Secretary of State Thomas Robinson claimed "the creed of those gentlemen was in the preface to Clarendon's ''History''", i.e. that written by Laurence Hyde in 1701.


Editions

*Edward, Earl of Clarendon, ''The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, to which is now Added an Historical View of the Affairs of Ireland'', 6 vols., Oxford University Press (1816). *Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 1609–1674:
The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, To Which is Added an Historical View of the Affairs of Ireland
' (8 volumes; Oxford, At the Clarendon Press, 1826), contrib. by William Warburton. *Lord Clarendon, ''The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England'', edited by W. D. Macray, 6 vols. Clarendon Press (1888); repr. (1958); repr. (1992). The standard, scholarly edition. *Gertrude Huehns (ed.), ''Clarendon: Selections from The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars and the Life By Himself'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955). * Paul Seaward (ed.), ''Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon: The History of the Rebellion. A New Selection'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* Brownley, Martine Watson. ''Clarendon & the Rhetoric of Historical Form'' (1985) * Craik, Henry. ''The life of Edward, earl of Clarendon, lord high chancellor of England.'' (2 vol 1911
online
* Eustace, Timothy. "Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon," in Timothy Eustace, ed., ''Statesmen and Politicians of the Stuart Age'' (London, 1985). * Finlayson, Michael G. "Clarendon, Providence, and the Historical Revolution," ''Albion'' (1990) 22#4 pp 607–63
in JSTOR
* Firth, Charles H. "Clarendon's 'History of the Rebellion,"' Parts 1, II, III, ''English Historical Review'' vol 19, nos. 73-75 (1904) * Harris, R. W. ''Clarendon and the English Revolution'' (London, 1983). * Hill, Christopher. "Clarendon and Civil the War." ''History Today'' (1953) 3#10 pp 695–703. * * Miller, G. E. ''Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon'' (Boston, 1983), as writer * Ollard, Richard. ''Clarendon and his friends'' (Oxford University Press, 1988) * Trevor-Roper, Hugh. "Clarendon's 'History of the Rebellion'" ''History Today'' (1979) 29#2 p73-79 * Wormald, B. H. G. ''Clarendon. Politics, Historiography and Religion. 1640-1660'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964). {{DEFAULTSORT:History of the Rebellion, The English Civil War