Tacistist and counter-Tacitist rhetoric in Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the use of some Tacitean key terms and techniques by Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon in his History of the Rebellion, on the English Civil War, and in his autobiographical account of his times, the Life. Tacitism is a broad term denoting sceptical and secular historical and political ideas, inspired by the works of Cornelius Tacitus. English Tacitism dates back to the last decades of the sixteenth century and gained special importance during the reign of Charles I, when it became a recognisable element of political debate. Clarendon had been connected with one influential Tacitist group, i.e. Ben Jonson's circle. The paper explores the ways in which Clarendon used this intellectual background in presenting a conservative, royalist and idealistic worldview. I analyse the use of two Tacitean keywords connected with the discourse of reason of state, prudence and dissimulation, and their synonyms introduced by Clarendon, skilfulness, seasonableness, dexterity and uningenuity, and Clarendon's portrayal of Cromwell. Clarendon uses these terms and Tacitean narrative techniques precisely to present a religious and ‘counter-Tacitist’ vision of history, influenced by late-humanist ideas, but also demonstrating the importance and persuasive power of the Tacitean discourse in seventeenth-century England.

KEYWORDS:

• Edward Hyde
• Clarendon
• Tacitism
• English Civil War
• restoration
• historiography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This paper was written as a part of the NCN project ‘Secularisation of the West: Tacitism from 16th to 18th Century’, project no. DEC-2019/35/B/HS1/04039.

2 Watson Brownley, Clarendon and the Rhetorics of Historical Form.

3 Parkin, ‘Clarendon against Hobbes?’.

4 Seaward, ‘Clarendon, Tacitism and the Civil Wars of Europe’.

5 Ibid., 297.

6 Ibid., 286.

7 Ibid., 287.

8 Toffanin, Machiavelli e il "Tacitismo".

9 Burke, ‘Tacitism’.

10 Seaward, ‘Clarendon, Tacitism and the Civil Wars of Europe’, 305–6.

11 Worden, ‘Ben Jonson, the Earl of Clarendon, and the Conspiracy of Catiline’, 621.

12 Ibid., 624, 627–9.

13 Ibid., 634–5.

14 Seaward, ‘Clarendon, Tacitism and the Civil Wars of Europe’, 302.

15 All passages from Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion are quoted after the 2009 edition by Paul Seaward (Edward Hyde), Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion: A New Selection, ed. Paul Seaward (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), unless noted otherwise.

16 Seaward, ‘Clarendon, Tacitism and the Civil Wars of Europe’, 302.

17 In the edition of selected fragments from History of the Rebellion and Life of Edward, Earl of Claredon prepared by Paul Seaward word dissimulation and its derivates are used 12 times, uningenuity 3 times.

18 Brownley, Clarendon and the Rhetoric pf Historical Form, 19–20.

19 For example, Hugo Grotius (whose historical work Clarendon had read before preparing the final version of the History of the Rebellion) ‘credits his key characters […] with thoughts and motives which must have made them look Machiavellian to many’. This element of the narration immediately recognised as Tacitean serves ‘Grotius’s intentions in speaking about the Revolt in this remarkable way must be explained against the political context of the Bestandstwisten in the Northern provinces, and must moreover be understood from within the Tacitean literary style of the work, which puts moral issues in a historical narrative in a special, relativistic, light’. (Waszink, ‘Lipsius and Grotius”, ). Clarendon presents a multidimensional portrayal of the antagonist of his historical work, which can be mistaken for the Tacitean characterisation, but which in fact is a tool for setting the story in the chosen context.

20 Seaward, ‘Clarendon, Tacitism and the Civil Wars of Europe’, 301.