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CLARENDON 



Clare Island, an island of Ireland, belonging 

 to County Mayo, situated in the Atlantic, at 

 the entrance of Clew Bay. It has a length of 5 

 miles, with a breadth of 3 miles. On its north-east 

 extremity there is a lighthouse. 



Clare, JOHN, English peasant poet, the son of a 

 poor labourer, was born at Helpstone, near Peter- 

 borough, July 13, 1793. After some scanty school- 

 ing, he began to do outdoor work in his seventh 

 year, and for eleven months was an under-gardener 

 at Burghley Park ; meanwhile he studied Thomson's 

 Seasons, and began to cultivate verse-writing. He 

 enlisted in the militia (1812), associated with 

 gypsies, in 1817 worked at a lime-kiln, but was 

 discharged for wasting his time in scribbling, and 

 had to apply for parish relief. His Poems, descrip- 

 tive of Rural Life and Scenery ( 1821 ), had a good 

 reception from critics and the public. Though the 

 Marquis of Exeter and other patrons secured him 

 45 a year, he continued poor and unfortunate. 

 His Shepherd's Calendar (1827) was unsuccessful. 

 His Rural Muse (1835) brought him 40, and he 

 received 50 from the Literary Fund. Broken 

 down in body and mind, he died in the county 

 lunatic asylum, Northampton, 20th May 1864. See 

 Martin's Life ( 1865), and Cherry's Life and Remains 

 (1873). 



Clare, ST, born in 1193, of a noble family of 

 Assisi, in 1212 retired to the Portiuncula of St 

 Francis, and in the same year founded the order of 

 Franciscan nuns, which spread rapidly through 

 Europe. She died August 11, 1253. Two years 

 afterwards, she was canonised by Alexander IV. ; 

 her festival falls on August 12. The Nuns of the 

 Order of St Clara (also called the Poor Clares) at 

 first observed the strictest Benedictine rule, but 

 the austerity of this rule was mitigated by St 

 Francis in 1224, and further modified by Urban IV. 

 in 1265. Several convents adhered to the first and 

 strictest rule ; but the large proportion of the nuns 

 adopted Urban's rule, and are distinguished as 

 Urbanists. The existing convents are chiefly de- 

 voted to the education of girls. 



Clareiliont, a mansion at Esher, Surrey, 14^ 

 miles SW. of London, originally built for himself 

 by Sir John Vanbrugh. The present house was 

 built in 1768 by Lord Clive for 100,000, from 

 designs by ' Capability ' Brown. When the Prin- 

 cess Charlotte was married to Prince Leopold of 

 Saxe-Coburg, Claremont was assigned as their 

 residence, and here in 1817 she died. In 1848 

 Leopold, then king of Belgium, placed it at the 

 disposal of his father-in-law, ex-king Louis- 

 Philippe, who inhabited it till his death in 

 August 1850. At the death of Leopold in 1865, 

 an act was passed granting it to the Queen for 

 life, after which it was to revert to the country. 

 The Queen in 1882 bought the reversion of Clare- 

 mont (for 73,000), and it became her private 

 property. 



" Clarence, an English ducal title, conferred for 

 the first time in 1362 on Lionel, second son of 

 Edward III. and Philippa. Its origin has by some 

 been traced to Clarence, a French name of the 

 Greek Klarenza or Glarentsa (Ital. Chiarenza), a 

 decayed port on the west coast of the Peloponnesus, 

 50 miles SW. of Patras. Before the invasion of the 

 Turks it was an important place, and gave the 

 title of duke to the eldest son of the prince of 

 Achaia. That title is said to have come into 

 England through Philippa, daughter of the Count 

 of Hainault, and wife or Edward III. Other authori- 

 ties derive it from the ancient Suffolk town of Clare 

 (q.v.). The most notable Dukes of Clarence, all 

 royal, are the second son of Henry IV. , who fell at the 

 battle of Beauge ( 1421 ) ; the third son of Richard 

 of York, and brother of King Edward IV. ( Shake- 



speare's Clarence), who perished in the Tower in 

 1478 in a butt of Malmsey, according to three 

 contemporary writers ; William IV. , who was Duke 

 of Clarence before his accession ; and Prince Albert- 

 Victor of Wales, who was born 8th January 1864, 

 and died 14th January 1892. 



Clarenceux, or CLARENCIEUX, the first of the 

 two provincial Kings-of-Arms, in England, whose 

 jurisdiction of Clarenceux extends to all England 

 south of the Trent, that of Norroy (q.v.) compre- 

 hending the portion to the north. See HERALD. 



Clarendon, CONSTITUTIONS OF, were laws 

 made by a council of the nobility and prelates held 

 at the hunting lodge of Clarendon, 2 miles SE. of 

 Salisbury, in 1164, whereby King Henry II. checked 

 the power of the church, and greatly narrowed the 

 total exemption which the clergy had claimed from 

 the jurisdiction of the secular magistrate. These 

 famous ordinances, sixteen in number, defined the 

 limits of the patronage, as well as of the jurisdiction, 

 of the pope in England, and provided that the crown 

 should be entitled to interfere in the election to all 

 vacant offices and dignities in the church. The 

 constitutions were unanimously adopted, and 

 Becket, the primate, reluctantly signed them. His 

 subsequent withdrawal of his consent, when Pope 

 Alexander III. declined to ratify them, led to the 

 memorable disputes between Becket and the king 

 (see BECKET). Notwithstanding the personal 

 humiliation to which Henry submitted after 

 Becket's death, most of the provisions of the con- 

 stitutions of Clarendon, which were part of a great 

 scheme of administrative reform, continued to be 

 a permanent gain to the civil power. See Stubbs, 

 Constitutional History, and his Select Charters. 



Clarendon, EDWARD HYDE, EARL OF, his- 

 torian and statesman, was born 18th February 1608 

 at Dinton, near Salisbury, the third son of a Wilt- 

 shire squire. Destined for the church, he went up 

 to Magdalen Hall in 1622 ; but the death of his 

 elder brothers left him heir to the property, so in 

 1625 he quitted Oxford for the Middle Temple, of 

 which his uncle, Sir Nicholas Hyde, the chief- 

 justice, then was treasurer. Though he rose in his 

 profession, he loved letters better than law ; for 

 his friends he chose such brilliant spirits as Falk- 

 land, Ben Jonson, and Chillingworth, and, in his 

 own words, ' was never so proud, or thought himself 

 so good a man, as when lie was the worst in the 

 company.' He married twice in 1629, Ann, 

 daughter of Sir George Aylift'e, whose death six 

 months afterwards ' shook all the frame of his re- 

 solutions ; ' next, in 1632, Frances, daughter of Sir 

 Thomas Aylesbury, Master of Requests and of the 

 Mint. She bore him four sons and two daughters ; 

 and with her, till her death in 1667, he ' lived very 

 comfortably in the most uncomfortable times, and 

 very joyfully in those times when matter of joy was 

 administered. ' 



In 1640 he was returned for Wootton-Bassett to 

 the Short Parliament, for Saltash to the Long ; and 

 up to the summer of 1641 he acted heartily with 

 the popular party. Then he drew back. Enough, 

 he deemed, had been done ; a victorious oligarchy 

 might prove more formidable than a humbled 

 king ; nor could he conceive ' a religion without 

 bishops.' Charles's answer to the Grand Remon- 

 strance was of Hyde's composing, so were most 

 of the subsequent able manifestoes; and though 

 in a midnight interview with the king he declined 

 to take St John's post of solicitor-general, thence- 

 forward, with Falkland and Colepeper, he formed a 

 veritable privy-council. If only they had known 

 everything, if only their advice had always been 

 followed ! but no, the attempted arrest of the five 

 members had neither their privity nor their ap- 

 proval. Still, Hyde headed the royalist oppositio/i 



