Edward Hyde, First Earl of Clarendon

The Clarendon Papers

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, who was knighted in 1643 and raised to the peerage in 1661, enjoyed some of the highest political offices in the realm, was trusted adviser to both Charles I and Charles II and was author of the celebrated History of the Rebellion. His papers, the majority concerning matters of state, have survived in considerable numbers.

Their history is, for the most part, fairly well documented. Although he died in France and, as an alien, might have been subject to the Droit d'Aubaine whereby his property became forfeit to the French Crown, Clarendon took steps earlier in 1670 to arrange for the exemption of his personal papers from this law and in 1674 he instructed his secretary, William Shaw, to safeguard them elsewhere. Thus, after his death on 9 December 1674, they came intact to his immediate heirs: viz. his two sons, Henry (second Earl of Clarendon) and Laurence (Earl of Rochester). The bulk of the papers was still retained by his descendants in 1759, when they were deposited with the University of Oxford by Catherine, Duchess of Queensberry, and her family. In accordance with the conditions which they stipulated, the proceeds from the publication of Clarendon's papers (which are held in perpetual copyright by the University of Oxford) were used to provide a building for the University (viz. Clarendon) Press. The collection had not, however, remained unscathed. Some measure of dispersal began after 1709 when Edward, third Earl of Clarendon, gave a number of letters and papers to Bryan Richards, a relative of his stepmother. Those manuscripts returned to the main collection at Oxford in 1767 from the estate of Dr Richard Powney. The third Earl's executor in 1723 was his godson, Joseph Radcliffe, who died in 1760 leaving many of Clarendon's papers among his effects, which were subsequently offered for sale by Samuel Baker, in 232 lots, on 9-10 April 1764. Many of these lots were bought by the Radcliffe trustees and consequently rejoined the main collection in the Bodleian although, as it happens, not all of the purchased lots can be accounted for (see further below).

Other losses are reported to have occurred earlier on 1 October 1721, when a certain number of Clarendon's papers were apparently destroyed in a fire at New Park, Petersham, home of his grandson, the second Earl of Rochester. In 1726-7 Clarendon's daughter, Lady Frances Keightley, sold some of his manuscripts to the bookseller Thomas Woodward, which he published as A Collection of Several Tracts of…Edward, Earl of Clarendon (London, 1727). Those manuscripts, presumably used as printer's copy, are not known to have survived. There were even a number of Clarendon's papers that were deliberately destroyed in 1849 by the family of Joseph Radcliffe, as being of no significance: see Francis R. Y. Radcliffe, ‘A Few Stuart Papers’, National Review, 11 (1888), 748-61.

Many, but by no means all, of the other dispersed manuscripts have been retrieved in subsequent years by donations and purchases — including a notable donation by the Marquess of Queensberry in 1785-9 — and yet others may come to light in due course. For a more detailed account of the history of the main collection, see Ian Green, ‘The Publication of Clarendon's Autobiography and the Acquisition of his Papers by the Bodleian Library’, BLR, 10 (1982), 349-67. Various letters concerning the Clarendon papers between 1737 and 1789 are also to be found in the British Library (Egerton MS 2183).

The Baker sale in 1764

The most notable of those manuscripts that were offered for sale in 1764 and bought by the Radcliffe trustees (see the annotated catalogue in the Bodleian, Mus. Bibl. III. 8°. 308^b) but which are now ‘lost’ may be listed as follows (none of these corresponding precisely to known Clarendon manuscripts, although in some cases this may be because of the vagueness or inaccuracy of the descriptions):

The bulk of Clarendon's surviving papers — many written in his own hand, many others in the hands of his secretaries William Edgeman and William Shaw — now comprise 159 manuscript volumes in the Bodleian. Other Clarendon Papers are preserved in the British Library; National Archives, Kew; Pierpont Morgan Library, and elsewhere. Most of the main collection is calendared in CCSP (where, however, specifically literary manuscripts are omitted). Additional manuscripts are described in Belford. A selection of miscellaneous State Papers collected by Edward, Earl of Clarendon was published in three volumes, edited by R. Scrope and T. Monkhouse (Oxford, 1767-86). Some documents have appeared in An Appendix to the History of the Grand Rebellion (London, 1724) and further documents have appeared in other publications. But, with certain obvious exceptions, the majority remain unpublished.

The History of the Rebellion

The most important manuscripts in the main collection are naturally those of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (see *ClE 13). The complex process of the composition of this work, in two main stages during his two periods of exile, is discussed in Belford and in Firth. Its first publication, in Oxford 1702-3, nearly thirty years after Clarendon's death, occasioned a considerable controversy. The edition was based upon a transcript of the secretarial copy made for Clarendon (ClE 15), this transcript (*ClE 20) being made by William Wogan (1678-1758) and one Low, then secretary to one of the editors, Thomas Sprat (1635-1713), Bishop of Rochester. The historian John Oldmixon (1673-1742) claimed, in his Critical History of England (2 vols, London, 1724-6) and in his Clarendon and Whitlock compar'd (London, 1727), that the published text was highly inaccurate as a result of both careless copying and editorial adulteration. Among those who replied to this charge were Francis Atterbury (1662-1732), Bishop of Rochester, in The Late Bishop of Rochester's Vindication (London, 1730), and the antiquary John Burton (1696?-1771), whose essays in the Weekly Miscellany were collected as The Genuineness of L^d. Clarendon's History of the Rebellion Printed at Oxford Vindicated (Oxford, 1744), as well as in a pirated edition, The Clarendon-Family Vindicated (London, 1732). Among other things, Burton was the first to print an affidavit which, at the request of the University of Oxford, William Wogan swore on 16 February 1743 as to the accuracy of his transcript. The two folio leaves of this affidavit were subsequently affixed to the secretarial copy from which he had worked (ClE 15). A duplicate of this affidavit, with Wogan's signature, is at Trinity College, Dublin (MS 1705, boxed at MS 543/2/4) and a contemporary copy is in the Bodleian (MS Eng. hist. b. 172, ff. 123r-4r). The controversy continued in a series of anonymously published pamphlets, but Burton's account of the matter was generally held to have satisfactorily refuted Oldmixon's accusations. Nevertheless, Bandinel's edition of The History of the Rebellion in 1826 was the first to make any use of the autograph manuscript itself (*ClE 13). The standard edition of the work remains that by Macray in 1888, although other drafts and notes relating to the History have since come to light among Clarendon's papers and are recorded in the entries below.

Other Works

Besides his History, the Clarendon Papers in the Bodleian include the autograph manuscript of his important autobiography, which has still never been published in its original form, being partly incorporated in the History, partly published in a three-volume edited version in 1759 (see *ClE 23 and Ian Green, op. cit.). The Clarendon Papers also include several political and religious tracts and reports which might, in the broadest sense, be classified as literary and which have consequently been given entries below. They are, namely, Clarendon's early comparison between the Duke of Buckingham and Earl of Essex (ClE 10-12); his pamphlet on the assassination in Madrid of the Parliamentary agent Anthony Ascham, Consideracons worthy to be weighed in the Case of the English Gentleman now in Prison of 1650 (ClE 2-8); his Shorte view of …Ireland of c.1652 (*ClE 25); his Letter from a True and Lawfull Member of Parliament relating to the King's Declaration in 1655 (ClE 21-22); his Succession of Popes of c.1668 (*ClE 45); four ‘Characters’ of c.1668-9 (*ClE 1); and his lengthy devotional works Contemplations and reflexions upon the Psalmes (ClE 9) and Religion and Policy (ClE 24), both written near the end of his life, as well as his prototype discussion of the Civil War, Transcendent and Multiplied Rebellion, of 1645 (*ClE 46). As is apparent from entries below, certain of these tracts — especially the Shorte view of …Ireland, which was not published until 1719/20 — had some degree of contemporary circulation in manuscript copies. Various notable compilations and commonplace books of Clarendon, including meditations on the execution of Charles I, have also been given entries below in a ‘Miscellaneous’ section (ClE 47-54).

Documents

Among the miscellaneous documents in the Clarendon Papers in the Bodleian and elsewhere that have not been given separate entries below are political papers of considerable historical interest. They include copies or drafts of parliamentary speeches by Clarendon — such as one in April 1641 (MS Clarendon 20, ff. 82-7), which was published in that year and reprinted in John Rushworth, Historical Collections, IV (1721), 230-3, and elsewhere; and his speech on 8 May 1661 (MS Clarendon 74, ff. 373r-9r), which was published in 1661 and reprinted in, among other things, the Somers Tracts, VII (1812).

A small scattered group of other documents are of considerable interest in that they were prepared, drafted or revised by Clarendon for use by Charles II. These may briefly be listed as follows:

Charles II's letter to his friends in England, 12 August 1659 (British Library, Egerton MS 2536, f. 450r)

Charles II's Declaration sent to England in January 1659/60 (British Library, Egerton MS 2542, ff. 328r-9r)

Charles II's letter to the House of Lords, 14 April 1660 (British Library, Add. MS 37425, ff. 45r-6v)

Charles II's instructions to Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1663/4 (Bodleian, MS Tanner 47, ff. 56r-7v)

Charles II's Declaration to the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666 (Untraced: Sotheby's, 19 December 1932, lot 214, to Tregaskis)

Charles II's speech in the House of Lords, 13 May 1678 (Marquess of Bath, Longleat, PO/Vol. II, f. 390r)

Charles II's reply to the address of the House of Commons on 27 February 1662/3 on the subject of the Declaration of Indulgence (British Library, Sloane MS 4107, ff. 260r-4r)

The last document, a heavily revised draft which in fact was never used by the King, is discussed, with other relevant documents, in George R. Abernathy, Jr., ‘Clarendon and the Declaration of Indulgence’, JEH, 11 (1960), 55-73. Council notes which passed between Clarendon and the King in 1660-2 (MSS Clarendon 100-101) are edited and reproduced in facsimile in Notes which passed at Meetings of the Privy Council between Charles II and the Earl of Clarendon, 1660-1667, together with a few letters, reproduced in fac-simile from the Originals in the Bodleian Library, ed. W. D. Macray (Roxburghe Club, London, 1896). Macray observes in his preface to this edition (p.v) that these notes ‘are probably in the main the only papers of like character which have been preserved…Evidently the rule was then observed, which is still of obligation, prohibiting private oral conversation at the Council Board. And hence it was that fragmentary personal communications passing between the King and Clarendon were hastily jotted down on paper, and handed from one to the other, with confidential questions and answers and suggestions’.

Countless other miscellaneous papers of Clarendon, or official documents signed by him, are found in the Bodleian, British Library, National Archives, Kew, and elsewhere.

Letters

Naturally a substantial portion of Clarendon's surviving manuscripts comprises his personal correspondence — both letters received by him from numerous correspondents and his own letters, written or signed by him, whether drafts, retained copies, or the letters actually sent. Among many notable examples are his letters written in August 1646 to William, Lord Widdrington, and to Sir John Berkeley, announcing the beginnings of his History of the Rebellion (Bodleian, MS Clarendon 28, ff. 165r, 178r-9r), and the letter he wrote on 12 November 1646, to Sir Edward Nicholas, describing his plan for the work and stating that he had already completed sixty sheets of it (Bodleian, MS Clarendon 29, ff. 4r-6r). Some of his letters, particularly those dating from the Civil War period, are wholly or partly in cipher or make use of pseudonyms in both salutations and signatures. The codes to sixteen such ciphers used by the Royalists are written out in Bodleian, MS Clarendon 94, and see also British Library, Egerton MS 2550, ff. 42r, 74r.

As with his miscellaneous documents, there are some hundreds of extant letters and memoranda by Clarendon. Although too numerous to be given separate entries, examples of letters by him may be listed, according to repository, as follows:

Over the past two hundred years or so — and in addition to the second day of the Radcliffe sale on 10 April 1764, which was entirely devoted to letters — many scores of letters by Clarendon have been offered for sale at auction or in booksellers' catalogues. Examples of relevant sale catalogues, many of which contain facsimile reproductions, include:

Maggs's catalogues No. 551 (1930), item 1933; No. 579 (1932), item 1399; No. 593 (1934), item 36; No. 608 (1935), item 296; No. 641 (1937), item 47

Sotheby's, 23 July 1979, lot 3 (correspondence concerning the Treaty of Breda, 1667: now Bodleian, MS Clarendon 159); 21 July 1980, lot 44, to Hofmann & Freeman; 11 December 1993, lot 463; 13 December 1994, lot 400 (unsold); 17 July 1997, lot 17 (unsold); 11 December 1997, lot 83, to John Wilson; and numerous previous sales, especially in the period 1902-1932

Christie's, 29 April 1981, lot 25, to Quaritch.

Other facsimile examples of autograph letters by Clarendon may be found in The Autograph Portfolio; A Collection of Fac-simile Letters from Eminent Persons (London, 1837); in Joseph Netherclift, A Collection of a Hundred Characteristic and Interesting Autograph Letters, written by Royal and Distinguished Persons of Great Britain (London, 1849), p. 75; in Catalogue of the Collection of …Alfred Morrison, I (1883), 212-13; in Garnett and Gosse (1903), III, 36; and in Giles E. Dawson and Laetitia Kennedy-Skipton, Elizabethan Handwriting 1500-1650 (London, 1968), No. 45.

There is no collected edition of Clarendon's voluminous correspondence, but a number of his letters have been printed in such publications as, inter alia: Sir Richard Fanshawe, Original Letters of His Excellency Sir Richard Fanshaw, during his Embassies in Spain and Portugal (London, 1702); The Life of the Reverend Dr John Barwick, D.D., ed. Peter Barwick (London, 1724), Appendix; John Evelyn, Memoirs, ed. W. Bray, 2 vols (London, 1818), II, 173-280; Christopher Wordsworth, Documentary Supplement to ‘Who Wrote ΈΙΚΩΝ ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ’ including recently discovered letters and papers of Lord Chancellor Hyde and of the Gauden Family (London, 1825); A Narrative by John Ashburnham of his Attendance on King Charles the First…to which is prefixed a Vindication of his Character and Conduct, from the Misrepresentations of Lord Clarendon, [ed. George, third Earl of Ashburnham], 2 vols (London, 1830); T. H. Lister, Life and Administration of Clarendon, 3 vols (London, 1837-8); Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers including their private correspondence, ed. Bartholomew Warburton, 3 vols (London, 1849); The Nicholas Papers. Correspondence of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State, ed. George F. Warner, Camden Society, NS 40, 50, 57; 3rd Ser. 31 (London, 1886-1920); Amelia M. Gunnere, ‘Oxford and the Quakers’, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 23 (1899), 237-89; K.H. Feiling, ‘A Letter of Clarendon during the Elections of 1661’, EHR, 42 (1917), 407-8; F. J. Routledge, ‘A Letter from Sir Edward Hyde to John Nicholas, 28 August, 1658’, BQR, 4 (1925), 274-6; K.H. Feiling, ‘Clarendon and the Act of Uniformity, 1662-3’, EHR, 44 (1929), 289-91; P. H. Hardacre, ‘Clarendon and the University of Oxford, 1660-1667’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 9 (1961), 117-31; P.H. Hardacre, ‘Clarendon, Sir Robert Howard, and Chancery Office-Holding at the Restoration’, HLQ, 38 (1975), 207-14; and W. G. Roebuck, ‘Charles II: The Missing Portrait’, HLQ, 38 (1975), 215-24.

Letters to the Duke of York and the Duchess of York

Two of Clarendon's letters which received particular attention by his contemporaries because of their subject matter are those to his daughter Anne and to her husband, the Duke of York (later James II), sometimes dated c.1668-70 or April 1671, on the occasion of her conversion to Roman Catholicism. (In fact she died on 31 March 1671 before the letter, sent by Clarendon from France, reached her in England). These were widely circulated in manuscript before their publication, probably in 1680, and known extant copies are recorded in the entries below (ClE 125-155).

Clarendon's Impeachment and Petition

Throughout his career in office, Clarendon was the object of various plots against him. The first really serious attempt to overthrow him was the charge of high treason levelled against him in 1663 by George Digby, second Earl of Bristol. The Articles of High Treason and other hainous misdemeanours ag^st Edward, Earle of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor, exhibited by Earl of Bristol, 10 July 1663 were widely disseminated in manuscript copies, a number of which are recorded below (ClE 56-71).

Although Digby failed to have Clarendon convicted in 1663, more successful charges were brought against him four years later after the King had already dismissed him from office. An impeachment was first presented to the House of Lords by a committee on 12 November 1667. Clarendon's flight to Calais on 29 November was taken as evidence of his guilt. The Articles of Treason exhibited in Parliament against Clarendon, 14 November 1667 were published immediately afterwards and The Proceedings in the House of Commons touching the Impeachment of Clarendon 1667 were later published in 1700. Both articles and proceedings were widely copied, extant examples including those recorded below (ClE 93-124).

Clarendon attempted to defend himself and to procure the right to return to England in a petition on 3 December 1667, which was printed as To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled: The Humble Petition and Address of Clarendon ([London, 1667?]). This was subsequently reprinted widely, sometimes under the title News from Dunkirk-house: or, Clarendon's Farewell to England Dec 3 1667. Again numerous manuscript copies have survived, including those recorded below (ClE 72-92).

Clarendon's Library

Clarendon was a great bibliophile — to whom, for instance, Evelyn dedicated his translation of Gabriel Naudé's treatise Instructions concerning Erecting of a Library (London, 1661). His library, which was expanded by his son and is said to have numbered 6,350 volumes, is discussed in P. H. Hardacre, ‘Portrait of a Bibliophile I’, BC, 7 (Winter 1958), 361-8. The Bibliotheca Clarendoniana was dispersed in a sale conducted by Thomas Wilcox of the Strand, in 1,786 lots, beginning on 26 August 1756 (an exemplum of the 62-page catalogue is at Christ Church, Oxford, Z. G. 8. 15). Only one of Wilcox's items (lot 1054: Littleton's Tenures (1588)) is recorded as containing autograph annotations.

Occasional volumes from the Clarendon Library still come to light today: for instance, his exemplum of Reliquiae Wottonianae (1651) which was offered for sale in Quaritch's Bulletin 28, English Books before 1701 (1985), item 75. An exemplum of John Evelyn's Numismata (London, 1697) which the author inscribed and presented to his friend the second Lord Clarendon was offered for sale in Blackwell's catalogue A 20 (1981), item 62. An exemplum of Clarendon's A Brief View and Survey of the Dangerous and Pernicious Errors to Church and State, in Mr. Hobbes's Book entitled Leviathan (Oxford, 1676), which, according to the recipient's ‘Ex dono’ inscription, was presented to Evelyn by the second Lord Clarendon, was sold at Christie's, 23 June 1977, lot 372, to Drury. Yet another exemplum of this edition owned by the second Lord Clarendon is in Cambridge University Library (Sir Geoffrey Keynes's Bibliotheca Bibliographici No. 2829). The same library possesses (No. 2074) the Clarendon Library exemplum of Pierre Nicole, The Pernicious Consequences of the New Heresies of the Jesuites (London, 1666). Also from the Clarendon Library is an exemplum of Reliquiae Wottoniae (London, 1651) offered in Quaritch's ‘Bulletin 28’ (1985), item 75.

Miscellaneous

An acknowledgement by William Sancroft of his receipt of the manuscript copy of Clarendon's History from Clarendon's son, the second Earl, with Sancroft's textual emendations, is in Bodleian, MS Tanner 314, f. 96r et seq.

Notes on Clarendon's History and other works by him, including A shorte view of…Ireland, as well as notes on his life, prepared by and for the historian Thomas Birch (1705-66), though not given entries below, are in the British Library (Add. MSS 4222, f. 211r; 4253, ff. 165r-79r; 4326, f. 216r; and 4471, ff. 158r-96r).

A digest of Bandinel's edition of the History of the Rebellion (London, 1826) made by W.E. Gladstone is in the British Library (Add. MS 44802C, ff. 2r-13r).

Peter Beal