Journals, xii. 178; Commons' Journals, ix. 40-3).
The rest of Clarendon's life was passed in exile. From Calais he went to Rouen (25 Dec.), and then back to Calais (21 Jan. 1668), intending by the advice of his friends to return to England and stand his trial. In April 1668 he made his way to the baths of Bourbon, and thence to Avignon (June 1668). For nearly three years he lived at Montpelier (July 1668-June 1671), removing to Moulins in June 1671, and finally to Rouen in May 1674 (Lister, ii. 478, 481, 487; Cont. p. 1238). During the first part of his exile his hardships and sufferings were very great. At Calais he lay for three months dangerously ill. At Evreux, on 23 April 1668, a company of English sailors in French service, holding Clarendon the cause of the non-payment of their English arrears, broke into his lodgings, plundered his baggage, wounded several of his attendants, and assaulted him with great violence. One of them stunned him by a blow with the flat of a sword, and they were dragging him into the courtyard to despatch him, when he was rescued by the town guard (ib. pp. 1215, 1225). In December 1667 Louis XIV, anxious to conciliate the English government, ordered Clarendon to leave France, and, in spite of his illness, repeated these orders with increasing harshness. After the conclusion of the Triple League had frustrated the hope of a close alliance with England, the French government became more hospitable, but Clarendon always lived in dread of fresh vexations (Cont. pp. 1202-1220, 1353). The Archbishop of Avignon, the governor and magistrates of Montpelier, and the governor of Languedoc, treated him with great civility, and he was cheered by the constant friendship of the Abbé Montague and Lady Mordaunt. His son, Laurence, was twice allowed to visit him, and Lord Cornbury was with him when he died (Correspondence of Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, ed. Singer, i. 645; Lister, iii. 488).
To find occupation, and to divert his mind from his misfortunes, Clarendon 'betook himself to his books,' and studied the French and Italian languages. Never was his pen more active than during these last seven years of his life. His most important task was the completion and revision of his ' History of the Rebellion ' together with the composition of his autobiography. In June 1671, and again in August 1674, he petitioned for leave to return to England, and begged the queen and the Duke of York to intercede for him (Clarendon State Papers, iii. App. xliv, xlv). These entreaties were unanswered, and he died at Rouen on 9 Dec. 1674 (Lister, ii. 488). He was buried in Westminster Abbey on 4 Jan. 1675, at the foot of the steps ascending to Henry VII's chapel, where his second wife had been interred on 17 Aug. 1667 (Chester, Westminster Abbey Register, pp. 167, 185). His two sons, Henry, earl of Clarendon (1638-1709), and Laurence, earl of Rochester (1642-1711), and his daughter, Anne, duchess of York (1637-1671), are separately noticed. A third son, Edward Hyde, baptised 1 April 1645, died on 10 Jan. 1665, and was also buried in Westminster Abbey (ib. p. 161). Clarendon's will is printed in Lister's 'Life of Clarendon' (ii. 489).
As a statesman, Clarendon's consistency and integrity were conspicuous through many vicissitudes and amid much corruption. He adhered faithfully to the principles he professed in 1641, but the circle of his ideas was fixed then, and it never widened afterwards. No man was fitter to guide a wavering master in constitutional ways, or to conduct a return to old laws and institutions; but he was incapable of dealing with the new forces and new conditions which twenty years of revolution had created.
Clarendon is remarkable as one of the first Englishmen who rose to office chiefly by his gifts as a writer and a speaker. Evelyn mentions his 'eloquent tongue,' and his 'dexterous and happy pen.' Some held that his literary style was not serious enough. Burnet finds a similar fault in his speaking. 'He spoke well; his style had no flow [flaw?] in it, but had a just mixture of wit and sense, only he spoke too copiously; he had a great pleasantness in his spirit, which carried him sometimes too far into raillery, in which he showed more wit than discretion.' Pepys admired his eloquence with less reserve. `I am mad in love with my lord chancellor, for he do comprehend and speak out well, and with the greatest ease and authority that ever I saw man in my life. … His manner and freedom of doing it as if he played with it, and was informing only all the rest of the company, was mighty pretty ' (cf. Warwick, Memoirs, p. 195; Evelyn, ii. 296; Pepys, Diary, 13 Oct. 1666).
Apart from his literary works, the mass of state papers and declarations drawn by his hand and his enormous correspondence testify to his unremitting industry. His handwriting is small, cramped, and indistinct. During his residence in Jersey 'he writ daily little less than one sheet of large paper with his own hand,' and seldom spent less than ten hours a day between his books and his papers (Life, v.5; Clarendon State Papers, ii. 375).
