Clarendon and Civil War Newspapers
Chapter 1 A royalist reads the news: Sir Edward Hyde and civil war journalism Jason Peacey I Writing to Charles I on 12 December 1647, Sir Edward Hyde grumbled that the king’s departure for the Isle of Wight, following his escape from Hampton Court, hindered the process of collecting material for what would become the History of the Rebellion, claiming that he was forced to rely upon his ‘ill memory’ and upon a ‘few pamphlets and diurnals’.1 Although noted by historians, the significance of this statement has arguably not been fully appreciated by scholars of Hyde’s great work, who have generally been preoccupied with his purpose, his style, his ideas and his accuracy, rather than with his method, at least since pioneering work by C.H. Firth.2 This is despite the fact that, at least during the first phase of writing (1646–8), Hyde’s correspondence contains numerous comments about his relationship with his sources, whether in terms of archival documents, oral and memorial testimony, written reports by other royalists or printed tracts and 1 Bodl., MS Clarendon, 30, fol. 208. 2 C.H. Firth, ‘Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion’, English Historical Review, 19.73 (1904), p. 45; Michael Finlayson, ‘Clarendon, providence and historical revolution’, Albion, 22 (1990), 607–32; Martine Watson Brownley, Clarendon and the Rhetoric of Historical Form (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), pp. 22–23; Ronald Hutton, ‘Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion’, English Historical Review, 97.382 (1982), 70–88; Christopher Hill, ‘Clarendon and the Civil War’, History Today, 3.10 (1953), 695–703; Hugh Trevor-Roper, ‘Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion’, History Today, 29.2 (1979), 73–79; R.C.
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