Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 99/397

Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 99 (2021), 134-151

CLARENDON AND HISTORY: A CASE STUDY OF THE BATTLE OF CHALGROVE, 18TH JUNE 1643

D EREK L ESTER

The six (originally seven) volumes of The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England by Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon have an iconic status, so much so that a new selection of extracts chosen by Paul Seaward, the Director of the History of Parliament Trust, was published in the Oxford University Press ‘World Classics’ series in 2009. Classic though it is, the difficulties of the composition of Clarendon’s history have long been apparent, combining as it does his original narratives compiled between 1641 and 1646, an autobiographical account compiled between 1668 and 1670, and a combination of the two with some additions dating from 1671. Hyde’s daily journals, which he wrote between 1641 and 1646, were not intended as a history per se . He began writing them as events occurred from 1641 and started writing his history of the rebellion in 1646. Some, but not all, of the daily journals have been edited, but the complete set of manuscripts has never been published verbatim . Editions of the ‘history’ were constructed after Clarendon’s death in 1674 by his second son, Laurence, from the thousands of documents that his father had accumulated. It is not always clear how far the latter adapted what his father had written but, as will be evident from the published version of the Battle of Chalgrove on 18th June 1643, Laurence’s version of events bore scant resemblance to Clarendon’s original journal. Apart from Clarendon’s political agenda to vindicate the principles for which the Royalists had fought, there is, as Sir Charles Firth expressed it in 1904, the ‘treacherous foundation’ of his memory leading to ‘very varying degrees of trustworthiness’. 1 Even in cases where Firth accepted the accuracy of the narrative, however, it has been shown that Clarendon’s ‘history’ misrepresented events: for example, in his belief that the break between Charles I and Parliament was the result of the machinations of only a small group of ambitious malcontents. For Firth, Clarendon’s account of developments in early 1642 such as the ‘Army Plot’ and the attempted arrest of the five members ‘are disingenuous and inaccurate’, and Firth goes on to say that Clarendon ‘... cannot avoid relating these episodes, but he minimises their importance, mis-states their history, and conceals their connexion with the general policy of the king and the progress of the breach between king and parliament.’ 2 Another example is Clarendon’s version of Royalist military fortunes in the West in which he selected and distorted evidence about the nature of the Royalist forces and their achievements because of his hostility to Prince Maurice, Sir Richard Grenville and George, Lord

1 Sir Charles Firth, ‘Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion’, English Historical Review 19 (1904), pp. 26-54 at p. 26. 2 Idem, p. 37.

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