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The Restoration > Literary reactions to the political climate > Writings of the royalists

Royalists also resorted to biography and autobiography to record their experiences of defeat and restoration. Three of the most intriguing are by women: the life written by Margaret, duchess of Newcastle, of her husband (1667) and the memoirs of Ann, Lady Fanshawe, and of Anne, Lady Halkett. The latter two were both written in the late 1670s but as private texts, with no apparent thought of publication. (They were not published in any complete form until, respectively, 1829 and 1875.) But incomparably the richest account of those years is The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England by Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon. The work was begun in exile during the late 1640s and was revised and completed in renewed exile after Clarendon's fall from royal favour in 1667. Clarendon was a close adviser to two kings, and his intimacy with many of the key events is unrivaled. Though his narrative is inevitably partisan, the ambitious range of his analysis and his mastery of character portraiture make the History an extraordinary accomplishment. His autobiography, which he also wrote during his last exile, gravely chronicles the transformations of the gentry world between the 1630s and '60s.

In 1660, feeling in the country ran strongly in favour of the Church of England, persecution having confirmed in many a deep affection for Anglican rites and ceremonies. The reestablished church, accepting for itself the role of staunch defender of kingly authority, tended to eschew the exploration of ambitious and controversial theological issues and devoted itself instead to expounding codes of sound moral conduct. It was an age of eminent preachers (including Robert South, Isaac Barrow, Edward Stillingfleet, and John Tillotson) and of keen interest in the art of preaching. It was also an age in which representatives of the established church were often suspicious of the power of preaching, fearing its power to arouse “enthusiasm.” This was the power that had helped excite the sectarians who had rebelled against their king. It was the power wielded by men such as Bunyan, who was imprisoned for preaching without a license. In conscious reaction against the obscurantist dialects judged typical of the sects, a plain and direct style of sermon oratory was favoured. Thus, in his funeral sermon on Tillotson in 1694, Gilbert Burnet praised the archbishop because he “said what was just necessary to give clear Ideas of things, and no more” and “laid aside all long and affected Periods.” Sermons continued to be published and to sell in large numbers throughout the late 17th and the 18th centuries.

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