Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon

(1609 - 1674)

Edward Hyde became lord chancellor to Charles II after the Restoration, but was dismissed from his chancellorship in August 1667. Three months later he was forced to flee to France. He wrote his Life and completed his History of the Rebellion while in exile. A month after his death in Rouen in 1674, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. “Clarendon,” said journalist and critic Murray Kempton, “was always on the losing side, but he was a towering spirit.”