569J Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 1609-1674. (two works)
The history of the rebellion and civil wars in England, begun in the year 1641. With the precedent Passages, and Actions, that contributed thereunto, and the happy End, and Conclusion thereof by the King’s blessed restoration, and return upon the 29th of May, in the Year 1660. Written by the Right Honourable Edward Earl of Clarendon, Late Lord High Chancellor of England, Privy Counsellor in the Reigns of King Charles the First and the Second. Volume the third. [with]
The life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon, Lord high chancellor of England, and chancellor of the University of Oxford. : Containing, I. An account of the chancellor’s life from his birth to the restoration in 1660. II. A continuation of the same, and of his History of the grand rebellion, from the restoration to his banisment in 1667. (2 pts. in 1 vol.)
Oxford : printed at the Theater, An. Dom. MDCCIV. [1704] (1704-07.) [with] Oxford, : at the Clarendon Printing-house.,1759. Price $4,500
Four Folio volumes: 42 x 27 cm. Engraved frontispiece portrait of Clarendon in each volume they are is signed: P. Lely pinx., M. Burg. sculp; engraved head and tail pieces also signed: MB sculp. Four volumes uniformly bound, cracked hinges but the boards are holding.
The life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon was written by himself ; printed from his original manuscripts, given to the University of Oxford by the heirs of the late Earl of Clarendon. The profits from the publication of these work provided the funds for the establishment of the Clarendon Press. Edward Hyde, the first Earl of Clarendon was “the first great historian in the English language, Clarendon was the son of a country gentleman of Wiltshire. He was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and also studied law. He entered Parliament in 1640 and sat in the Commons throughout the Short and the Long Parliaments, first for Wootton Bassett and then for Saltash. His politics were at first in accord with the popular party who opposed the king’s policies, but he was soon out of sympathy with the tenor of the opposition and with the Presbyterians. In 1640 he was one of the king’s best advisers, giving him through his writings the image of a lawful king unlawfully warred against.
“When Charles I gave the Prince of Wales a council and court of his own in the West Country during the Civil War (1645) Hyde was appointed to this and he followed the prince into exile. While with him the Scilly Isles (1646) Hyde began to write his History.
“At the Restoration he became Lord Chancellor and at Charles II’s coronation was created Earl of Clarendon; he was Charles II’s chief minister until 1667. The mismanagement of the war with the Dutch (which Clarendon had opposed) gave his political enemies an opportunity to bring about his downfall. Because they feared his possible return to the political stage (his daughter Anne was married to James, Duke of York and heir-presumptive) Lord Arlington and the others moved his impeachment. Charles II did not lift a finger on behalf of the man who had served him so faithfully, and Clarendon went into exile, never to return. He lived for a time at Montpellier, and at Rouen, where he died. During these years he completed The True Historical Narrative of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England and his autobiography, much of which he later incorporated into the History. The History of the Irish Rebellion and Civil Wars in Ireland was first published separately but appear later as part of the main work.
“The most valuable of all the contemporary accounts of the Civil Wars. His characters are not simply bundles of characteristics, but consistent and full of life, sketched sometimes with affection, sometimes with light humor” (DNB).
“Since its publication at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Earl of Clarendon’s history of the English Civil War has remained one of the most important sources for our understanding of the events which changed the course of British history [It] chronicles in absorbing detail the intrigues and upheavals, the alliances and confrontations, the triumphs and the tragedies, of the 1640s and 1650s. In elegant and vital prose it brings to life the personalities who shaped the era, and the principles for which a nation was divided” (Oxford University Press). This work has “remained in the mind because of his literary achievement the fashioning of the most sophisticated and finely balanced history yet written in English (or written for a long time afterwards) and for an unmistakable rhetorical voice. Clarendon’s writings and his own life were steeped in the literary stoicism of the early seventeenth century; but in the History he created a distinctive work of art based on a highly wrought style, a forensic dissection of character and issue, and a sense of the depth of individuals’ moral responsibility for their action” (ODNB)
English Short Title Catalog,; ESTCT147810; OCLC: 723184492
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