(EDWARD HYDE)
(1609-1674)
[Illustration: EARL OF CLARENDON]
The statesman first known as Mr. Hyde of the Inner Temple, then as Sir
Edward Hyde, and finally as the Earl of Clarendon, belongs to the small
but most valuable and eminent band who have both made and written
history; a group which includes among others Caesar, Procopius, Sully,
and Baber, and on a smaller scale of active importance, Ammianus and
Finlay. Born in Dinton, Wiltshire, 1609, he was graduated at Oxford in
1626, and had attained a high standing in his profession when the civil
troubles began, and he determined to devote all his energies to his
public duties in Parliament. During the momentous period of the Long
Parliament he was strongly on the side of the people until the old
abuses had been swept away; but he would not go with them in paralyzing
the royal authority from distrust of Charles, and when the civil war
broke out he took the royal side, accompanying the King to Oxford, and
remaining his ablest adviser and loyal friend.
He was the guardian of Charles II. in exile and in 1661, after the
Restoration, was made Lord Chancellor and chief minister. Lord Macaulay
says of him:--"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 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 honor and interest of the
Crown." But his faults were conspicuous. One of his critics insists that
"his temper was arbitrary and vehement. His arrogance was immeasurable.
His gravity assumed the character of censoriousness."
He took part in important and dangerous negotiations, and eventually
alienated four parties at once: the royalists by his Bill of Indemnity;
the low-churchmen and dissenters by his Uniformity act; the many who
suffered the legal fine for private assemblages for religious worship;
and the whole nation by selling Dunkirk to France. By the court he was
hated because he censured the extravagance and looseness of the life led
there; and finally Charles, who had long resented his sermons, deprived
him of the great seal, accused him of high treason, and doomed him to
perpetual banishment. Thus, after being the confidential friend of two
kings (and the future grandfather of two sovereigns, Mary and Anne), he
was driven out of England, to die in poverty and neglect at Rouen in
1674. But these last days were perhaps the happiest and most useful of
his life. He now indulged his master passion for literature, and revised
his 'History of the Rebellion,' which he had begun while a fugitive from
the rebels in the Isle of Jersey. In this masterpiece, "one of the
greatest ornaments of the historical literature of England," he has
described not only the events in which he participated, but noted people
of the time whom he had personally known. The book is written in a style
of sober and stately dignity, with great acuteness of insight and
weightiness of comment; it incorporates part of an autobiography
afterwards published separately, and is rather out of proportion. His
other works are 'The Essay on an Active and Contemplative Life'; 'The
Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon'; 'Dialogues on Education and the Want
of Respect Paid to Age'; 'Miscellaneous Essays' and 'Contemplation of
the Psalms of David.'