Blair Worden - A Book of Friendship

PAUL SEAWARD

E DWARD HYDE’S FIRST , and perhaps most important, service to the royal cause was as publicist-in-chief for Charles I in the political crisis that led to the Civil War. From the Grand Remonstrance at the very end of 1641 to at least his more formal appointment as chancellor of the exchequer and to the privy council in February 1643, he, more than anyone else, was responsible for the series of declarations and responses issued on behalf of the king. In them he articulated an account of the arguments between parliament and the king, challenging the narrative that had been so effectively presented by the leaders of the parliamentary movement, the junto. Hyde’s alternative, a story of the junto’s overreach and the king’s commitment to the law, would become four or five years later the basis of his Historical Narration , the original element of what ultimately became The History of the Rebellion . Hyde’s activity was not limited, though, to these official statements. In the Life of himself which he (by then the Earl of Clarendon) wrote much later, he tells an anecdote about a conversation between the king (by this time in Oxford), and one of his two secretaries of state, Hyde’s friend Viscount Falkland, about Hyde’s very distinctive writing style. The king claimed to be able easily to identify Hyde’s distinctive style; Falkland demurred, saying that he was himself often taken in by Hyde’s writings – ‘things written by him, of which he could never have suspected him, upon the variety of arguments’. The king agreed to have a bet on the subject. Some time later, Falkland brought the king a package of printed and manuscript material that had just arrived from London: diurnals, speeches, pamphlets. Among them was a pamphlet containing two speeches supposedly made in the House of Lords, one by the Earl of Pembroke calling for a treaty with the king, the other by Lord Brooke opposing it and demanding that the war be carried on with greater vigour. The king read them both with attention, especially enjoying Pembroke’s, commenting to Falkland that ‘he did not think that Pembroke could speak so long together; though every word he said was so much his own, that nobody else could make it’. Falkland’s response was to ask him to pay up on the bet. The king was much amused. Clarendon added that the king ‘would often call upon Mr Hyde for a speech, or a letter, which he very often prepared upon several occasions; and the king

1 I was not – formally at any rate – one of Blair’s doctoral students, but The Rump Parliament was my principal inspiration for my thesis, a model of scholarship combined with insight, clarity and wit on which I tried feebly to base my own efforts at working out and writing about the events ten years after those he described. Blair’s advice and kindness, moreover, were among the greatest and most practical scholarly supports I received while doing so. Blair has continued to provide inspiration, advice and kindness ever since, and I am deeply honoured to be invited to contribute to this volume and delighted to acknowledge my debt.

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