ABSTRACT
Charles had no experience of government and was content to rely on Clarendon, who was twenty years his senior and belonged by temperament to an older generation. As Edward Hyde he had been born into a gentry family and chose the law as his profession. He opposed autocratic government and Arminianism, but he was committed to the monarchy and offered his services to Charles I at the same time as he marshalled the moderates in the Long Parliament. After the collapse of the royalist cause he joined the young Charles II in exile and became his principal adviser. Following the Restoration it fell to him to work out the shape of the political settlement, and in this he was guided by his belief that the ancient constitution or mixed monarchy should be reinstated. Charles was very conscious of the fact that he had returned to a deeply divided country, and he began by making his government as broad based possible.
