The history man
Noel Malcolm
CLARENDON AND HIS FRIENDS by Richard 011ard Hamish Hamilton, There is', as a disgruntled Whig historian observed in 1827, 'no character to which history has been more indulgent than to that of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon.' But that is hardly surprising, given that Clarendon wrote so much of the history in the first place. With a fine biography of Pepys under his belt, Richard 011ard seems to be specialising in writing the lives of people who wrote at great length about themselves — a task beset with all the problems which are raised by the projection of hindsight, the refraction of memory and the reflection of a literary persona.
With Clarendon there is not just a double perspective to deal with, but a triple one. After an increasingly frustrating period as a political adviser to Charles I, he wrote much of his History of the Rebellion in the 1640s; in it he tried to set the contingencies of the recent past into a pattern which might not only bear the weight of divine providence, but also sus- tain and justify the policies to which he was now committed. Policy and providence reaped their harvest at last in 1660, and brought him back to England for seven years of power and growing unpopularity.
Driven into exile again, he spent his last years re-working his History and setting down the story of his own life. So there are two distinct phases of recollection to be put against the mass of contemporary records and correspondence.
The way in which Mr 011ard weighs and juggles these components together is ex- emplary, and he will force readers to go back to the Life and the History and see them in a new light. Clarendon tends to write, so to speak, from a great height, in a prose style which is one part Ciceronian to two parts civil servant. After reading Richard 011ard's book, it is impossible not to feel a deeper sympathy with the charac- ter behind the prose — thoughtful; resentful; patient; devoted to his friends; and doggedly self-justifying, for reasons which are ultimately ones of conscience rather than egomania.
Again and again, this worthy but far from instantly likeable man earns sym- pathy as well as respect. In 1645, entrusted with the young but already sexually active Prince Charles, he found himself, as 011ard puts it, in the role of 'a housemaster attempting to restrain the excesses of a lecherous pupil who was too important to sack'. In Paris his exile was a little bright- ened by a flirtatious friendship (sensitively discussed by 011ard) with Lady Morton; but at the same time he was writing affectionate letters to his wife, addressing her as 'Dear little rogue', and telling her that 'My Lady Browne, who was as leane as thou arte, and is now plump, sayes if thou wilt be cheerfull and drink soculate in the morninge, thou wilt be fatt.'
Perhaps hot chocolate contributed to Hyde's own increasing girth. He was cer- tainly an unappealingly fat and ugly figure by the time of his return to England, and was suffering badly from gout. (011ard thinks this may have been arthritis, but it sounds like gout to me; and 011ard seems unaware that gout is caused not by alcohol but by meat, above all the lean, muscular meat of game, which Hyde was especially fond of.) Fat, rich and powerful, the Lord Chan- cellor of the 1660s is a less obvious candi- date for sympathy than the stoical, de Gaulle-like figure of the Interregnum. 011ard is probably right to reject the charges of corruption which were laid against him, though Pepys was assured by Evelyn that 'my Lord Chancellor . . . never did nor will do any thing, but for money.' But he skims a little too lightly over the mania for material grandeur which Clarendon displayed during these years.
The fact is, I think, that Clarendon had a chip on his shoulder. Born into a gentry family which had to earn its advancement through government service and the law, he had always resented the established noble families with their military code of honour and their seigneurial estates. The bitterest criticism in the History is reserved for the Earls of Salisbury and Pembroke, who 'had rather the King and his posterity should be destroyed than that Wilton should be taken from the one or Hatfield from the other'. When Clarendon came to real power at last, he started building a palace of his own, Clarendon House on Piccadilly, which would outshine all the town houses of the aristocracy. It became a powerful focus for the popular resentment which was eventually to drive him from the country.
Amid the vexations and indignities of his later years, there is one moment which stands out with extraordinary vividness. While Clarendon was closeted with Charles II for his final stormy audience in 1667, courtiers gathered outside to gloat over his fall. His enemy, the lascivious Lady Castlemaine, rushed out en deshab- ille to catch the pleasure of seeing him dismissed. Old, tired and beaten at last, he turned to her and said: '0 madam, is it you? Pray remember that if you live, you will grow old.'
011ard certainly shows that Clarendon has earned our admiration. But in the end I think he is too soft on Clarendon in the area which matters most, that of the fundamental beliefs which gave his life its ultimate unity of purpose. We are told more than once that he was devoted to legality, history and the constitution. But many people, including many Parliamenta- rians in the Civil War, were devoted to these things; we need a closer analysis of what they meant by such terms in order to understand why they went their separate political ways.
The bedrock of 011ard's interpretation is his claim that Clarendon never abandoned the tolerant, liberal doctrines which he had learned from Lord Falkland's circle in the 1630s. Now, it is quite easy to be liberal and 'undogmatic' about other people's political or religious differences if you assume that the things over which they differ are unimportant. But that assump- tion is itself a dogma, and people who hold such dogmas are sooner or later obliged to enforce them on others; Clarendon's grow- ing willingness to treat religion simply as an organ of the state is a classic case in point. Clarendon the High Tory has had a good run in the history books. The Clarendon who is now emerging has, instead, all the personal appeal, and all the concealed intolerance, of a true liberal.
Previous page
