EARL OF CLARENDON. CLARENDON (EDWARD HYDE), EARL OF, an English statesman and historian; born at Dinton, Wiltshire, February 18, 1608; died at Rouen, France, December 9, 1674. Being the third son of a wealthy father, he was destined for the Church, and at the age of thirteen was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, to study for the clerical profession. But the death of his two elder brothers left him, at the age of sixteen, the heir of the family estates; and it was thought that the bar was for him a more befitting profession than the pulpit. He went up to London, and entered the Middle Temple as a student of law. He became intimate with Ben Jonson, Waller, Carew, Selden, Chillingworth, Hales, and the other literary celebrities of the day. He took a high place in his profession, and at thirty was among the leading members of the bar. In 1640 he entered Parliament, siding mainly with the reforming party, and vigorously opposing the arbitrary measures of the Crown. But when the disputes between King and Parliament came to the point of open war, Hyde embraced the Royal cause, and was one of the ablest supporters of Charles I., by whom he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Royal cause was definitively lost by the defeat at Naseby (June 14, 1645). Hyde not long after took up his residence in Jersey, where he resided nearly two years, studying the Psalms and writing the early chapters of his "History of the Rebellion." In the spring of 1648 he drew up an answer to the ordinance which had been issued by Parliament, declaring the King guilty of the civil war, and forbidding all future addresses to him. Charles I. having been executed, and his son, Charles II., having nominally acceded to the throne, Hyde joined him on the Continent and became his chief adviser, drawing up all the state papers, and conducting the voluminous correspondence with the English Royalists; and in 1658 the dignity of Lord Chancellor was conferred upon him by the as yet crownless and landless King. He himself was in the meantime often reduced to the sorest pecuniary straits. In 1652 he writes: "I have neither clothes nor fire to preserve me from the sharpness of the season;" and not long after, "I have not had a livre of my own for the last three months." Charles was at length restored to his kingdom in May, 1660. |