Edward Hyde (1609 - 1674). Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon was an English statesman who served as Lord Chancellor to King Charles II from 1658, two years before the Restoration of the Monarchy, until 1667. He was loyal to the king, built up the royalist cause, and served as the chief minister after 1660. He was one of the most important historians of England, as author of the most influential contemporary history of the Civil War, The History of the Rebellion. He was the maternal grandfather of two monarchs, Queen Mary II and Queen Anne. Hyde was the third son of Henry Hyde of Dinton and Purton, both in Wiltshire, by his wife, Mary Langford, daughter and co-heiress of Edward Langford of Trowbridge. Henry's brother was Sir Lawrence Hyde, Attorney General. The family of Hyde was long established at Norbury in Cheshire. Hyde was fond of his mother and idolised his father, whom he called the best father, the best friend, and the wisest man I have known. Clarendon's two cousins, Richard Rigby, Secretary of Jamaica, and his son, Richard Rigby, Chief Secretary of Ireland and Paymaster of the Army, were successful politicians in the succeeding generations. He was educated at Gillingham School, and in 1622 entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, having been rejected by Magdalen College, Oxford, and graduated BA in 1626. Intended originally for holy orders in the Church of England, the death of two elder brothers made him his father's heir, and on 1 February 1625/26 he entered the Middle Temple to study law. His abilities were more conspicuous than his industry, and at the bar his time was devoted more to general reading and to the society of eminent scholars and writers than to the study of law treatises. This time was not wasted. In later years, Clarendon declared that next the immediate blessing and providence of God Almighty he owed all the little he knew and the little good that was in him to the friendships and conversation. of the most excellent men in their several kinds that lived in that age. These included Ben Jonson, John Selden, Edmund Waller, John Hales and especially Lord Falkland, who became his best friend.From their influence and the wide reading in which he indulged, he doubtless drew the solid learning and literary talent which afterwards distinguished him. The diarist Samuel Pepys wrote thirty years later that he never knew anyone who could speak as well as Hyde. He was one of the most prominent members of the famous Great Tew Circle, a group of intellectuals who gathered at Lord Falkland's country house Great Tew, Oxfordshire. On 22 November 1633 he was called to the bar and obtained quickly a good position and practice; you may have great joy of your son Ned his uncle the Attorney General assured his father. Both his marriages gained him influential friends, and in December 1634 he was made keeper of the writs and rolls of the Court of Common Pleas. His able conduct of the petition of the London merchants against Lord Treasurer Portland earned him the approval of Archbishop William Laud, with whom he developed a friendship; this was perhaps surprising on the face of it, as Laud did not have a gift for making friends easily and his religious views were very different from Hyde's.Hyde in his History explained that he admired Laud for his integrity and decency, and excused his notorious rudeness and bad temper, partly because of Laud's humble origins and partly because Hyde recognised the same weaknesses in himself. In April 1640, Hyde was elected Member of Parliament for both Shaftesbury and Wootton Bassett in the Short Parliament and chose to sit for Wootton Bassett. In November 1640 he was elected MP for Saltash in the Long Parliament, Hyde was at first a moderate critic of King Charles I, but became more supportive of the king after he began to accept reforming bills from Parliament. Hyde opposed legislation restricting the power of the King to appoint his own advisors, viewing it unnecessary and an affront to the royal prerogative. He gradually moved over towards the royalist side, championing the Church of England and opposing the execution of the Earl of Strafford, Charles's primary adviser. Following the Grand Remonstrance of 1641, Hyde became an informal adviser to the King. He left London about 20 May 1642 and rejoined the king at York. In February 1643, Hyde was knighted and was officially appointed to the Privy Council; the following month he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. Despite his own previous opposition to the King, he found it hard to forgive anyone, even a friend, who fought for Parliament, and he severed many personal friendships as a result.
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