2010/11/16 by Grant Tapsell · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #American Constitutional Law and Politics #Reformation and Early Modern Christianity #Historical Economic and Social Studies #Reign #Politics #Protestantism #Brother #Sister #Spanish Civil War #Religious studies #Public life #History #Law #Sociology #Classics #Political science #Philosophy
paper · doi:10.1093/ehr/ceq344
openalex publication_date 2010/11/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/04
Religion has been increasingly reintegrated into the study of later seventeenth-century English politics. Nevertheless, historians of the later Stuart period have not displayed the same gusto for case studies of individuals’ careers as their colleagues working on the pre-civil war era. This article looks at the important role of religion within the career of Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester (1642-1711), a very significant but under-studied politician whose long career in public life stretched from the Restoration to the latter part of Anne’s reign. It is argued that a vital dimension of Hyde’s religious beliefs can be supplied by a detailed consideration of his family life. His father’s example, his sister’s conversion, a series of early deaths, and his relationships with his brother-in-law – James II – and nieces – Mary II and Anne – all combined to define Hyde’s public status. The interplay of these factors would lead to acute crisis in the winter of 1686/7, when his position as the protestant chief minister of a catholic king became untenable, and chronic discontent thereafter until his death in 1711.