ABSTRACT
Date and publication. To My Lord Chancellor, Presented on New-years-day was published by Herringman in 1662, and reprinted in the 1688 edition o f AM .
Context. Edward Hyde (1609-74) was one o f Charles I’s chief counsellors during the Civil War, and was particularly entrusted with the care o f the Prince o f Wales. From 1646 to 1660 he was in exile, and suffered financial hardship. For most o f this period he was Charles II’s close adviser, though not without opposition from Queen Henrietta Maria and other courtiers. In 1658 he was appointed Charles’s Lord Chancellor, a post which he continued to hold after the Restoration, when he was effectively head o f the government. He was created Earl o f Clarendon at the coronation. The initially secret marriage o f his daughter Anne to the Duke o f York on 3 September 1660 was one o f several factors which contributed to his unpopularity. ‘Clarendon’s decline may be dated from the summer o f 1661, when the implications o f the Restoration Settlement had become revealed; for by Catholic and Non conformist alike he was held responsible for the denial o f toleration; by the Courtiers, he was thought to be the agent whereby parliament had made insufficient financial provision for the crown; by the Cavaliers, he was blamed for the land settlement, and for the insufficient reward to loyalists’ (Ogg 205). He survived an attempt to impeach him in July 1663, but on 30 August 1667 he was dismissed and on 29 November went into exile. He spent his last years on his literary masterpiece, published as History of the Rebellion (1702-4) and Life . . . Written by Himself (1759). He rightly said o f himself: ‘His Integrity was ever without Blemish; and believed to be above Temptation. He was firm and unshaken in his Friendships’ (Life 35).
