Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 99/397

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acquired what have become known as the Clarendon State Papers from 1759 onwards. 9 Thomas Villiers, who married the 4th Earl’s daughter, compiled The Continuation of the Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon , commonly known as ‘The Life’, first published in 1759. The title page bore the inscription: Being a CONTINUATION of His History of the Grand Rebellion from the Restoration to his Banishment in 1667. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. Printed from the Original Manuscripts, given to the University of Oxford by the Heirs of the late Earl of CLARENDON. In reality, Thomas Villiers copied or adapted parts of the text from the edition of 1702-1704. A new edition of The History of the Rebellion was published by The Clarendon Press in 1826 with, reportedly, earlier ‘suppressed’ passages restored, although it has never been clear precisely what ‘suppressed passages’ is meant to convey. It is largely the 1702 edition. In 1888 W. Dunn Macray edited a new six-volume edition, which incorporated both the narrative and also the autobiography. It was stated as being re-edited from ‘a fresh collation of the original MS. in the Bodleian Library, with marginal dates and occasional notes’. Macray’s is regarded as the definitive edition. The narrative of the fighting at Chalgrove indicates that it follows Hyde’s original manuscript referenced in the footnotes of the 1888 edition, but this is only true to a degree. In fact, the narrative of the 1888 edition is mainly taken from the 1826 edition, including the references to the manuscript in the footnotes and the 1826 edition copied exactly pages of text from the first edition of 1702. Macray’s 1888 version is, effectively, therefore the account composed by Laurence Hyde and is not Edward Hyde’s own account. It was this 1888 edition that was reprinted in 1958 and, again, in 1992. The distortions and misunderstandings of Laurence’s version of the action have therefore been perpetuated into modern times. Despite the fact that the Clarendon papers have been available for study for 260 years, the Bodleian collection of his manuscripts is so large that many have remained untouched. 10

II

Turning to Chalgrove, the prelude was the defection of John Urry, then Sergeant Major of Horse to Sir William Balfour in the Earl of Essex’s Parliamentary Army, which was loosely concentrated around Thame, 12 miles east of the Royalist

19 Ian Green, ‘The Publication of Clarendon’s Autobiography and the Acquisition of His Papers by the Bodleian Library’, Bodleian Library Record 97 (1982), pp. 70-88. 10 W. Dunn Macray (ed.), The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888), Vol. III, p. 53, fn 3; Bodleian Library, Manuscript of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, ‘The History of the Rebellion’, MS Clar.112 Folio 366 (1643).