The original manuscripts, now also in the possession of the University of which Clarendon's family were such generous benefactors, enable us to fix the dates of composition. We know whether a part belongs originally to the 'Manuscript History' or the 'Manuscript Life', or whether it was pieced in later. More than this, Clarendon every now and again inserts the month and the day on which he began or ended a section. We can thus trace the stages by which his great work was built up, and learn how his art developed. We can also judge how closely the printed texts represent what Clarendon had written. The old controversy on the authenticity of the first edition has long been settled.[2] The original editors did their work faithfully according to the editorial standards of their day; and they were well within the latitude allowed them by the terms of Clarendon's instructions when they occasionally omitted a passage, or when they exercised their somewhat prim and cautious taste in altering and polishing phrases that Clarendon had dashed down as quickly as his pen could move.[3] Later editors have restored the omitted passages and scrupulously reproduced Clarendon's own words. But no edition has yet reproduced his spelling. In the characters printed in this volume the attempt is made, for the first time it is believed, to represent the original manuscripts accurately to the letter.[4] On the defeat of the last Royalist army in Cornwall in February 1646 it was necessary to provide for the safety of Prince Charles, and Clarendon, in these days Sir Edward Hyde, accompanied him when on the night of March 2 he set sail for Scilly. They arrived in Scilly on March 4, and there they remained till April 16, when the danger of capture by the Parliamentary fleet compelled them to make good their escape to Jersey. It is a remarkable testimony to the vigour of Clarendon's mind that even in the midst of this crisis he should have been able to begin his _History_. He began it in Scilly on March 18, 1646--the date is at the head of his manuscript; and once he was settled in Jersey he immediately resumed it. But in writing his _History_ he did not, in these days, think of himself only as an historian. He was a trusted adviser of the defeated party, and he planned his faithful narrative of what he knew so well not solely to vindicate the character and conduct of the King, but also with the immediate purpose of showing how the disasters had been brought out, and, by implication, how further disaster might be avoided. The proof of this is to be found not in the _History_ itself, where he seems to have his eye only on 'posterity' and 'a better age', but in his correspondence. In a letter written to Sir Edward Nicholas, the King's secretary, on November 15, 1646, Clarendon spoke of his _History_ at some length: