This account of the English Civil Wars and their aftermath is of particular value for being written by a key participant. A lawyer and MP, Hyde was one of Charles I's closest advisers from 1641 until 1645. Thereafter he was with the Prince of Wales (Charles II from 1649) for much of the period leading up to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the year in which his daughter, Anne, married (as his first wife) the King's brother, the future James II. He was created Earl of Clarendon in 1661 but became increasingly unpopular as Lord Chancellor and his administration ended in exile for life in 1667. During this exile, he revised his History of the Rebellion, a chronicle of events down to 1644, originally written in 1646-8, continuing it to 1660.

This volume is from the first edition of the History, 1702-04, issued in three volumes, from the Sheldonian Theatre, which then housed Oxford University's Press. The book greatly benefited the university, of which Clarendon had been Chancellor from 1660 to 1667: the profits funded a new building for the press, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and completed in 1715. Since 1830 the Clarendon Building has housed the university's administration.

Binding information

Bound in red calfskin, in the cottage-roof style. Typical binding of this period with extremely complex pattern built up of small tools of carnations, tulips, grapes, acorns, stems, filigree scrolls, various small flowers and pointille dots, inside double dotted roll tool and double fillet frame border, with flower heads in roundels and palmette roll tool to the outer edge. Spine in 8 compartments, with HISTORY OF: THE REBELLION to the second, and VOL. I (or II or III, respectively) to the third compartment. Others decorated with alternating patterns, with a floral and foliate design to the first and eighth, small tools forming a floral arrangement to the fourth and sixth, and a lace panel design to the fifth and seventh. The spine also bears the same roll tool design as the boards, which is also replicated on the boards' outside edges and on the turn-ins.

The three volumes of the Royal Library copy of the History of the Rebellion are similarly, but not identically, bound, in the cottage-roof style, one of the best-known binding styles of the late seventeenth century, but which continued well into the eighteenth. They have the three-lobed break at the apex of the 'roof' and several of the characteristic Restoration-period tools, such as the tulip, poppy, and floral volutes, used for ground-cover in the central panel and elsewhere. The bunch of grapes tool came into use around 1700.

Printed in Oxford at the Theater [sic], comprising 650 pages and one plate.

Catalogue entry adapted from Royal Treasures, A Golden Jubilee Celebration, London 2002.