Paul de Rapin and Reverend Nicolas Tindal
Paul de Rapin (25 March 1661 - 25 April 1725), sieur of Thoyras (and therefore styled Thoyras de Rapin), was a French historian writing under English patronage.
The son of Jacques de Rapin, an avocat at Castres (Tarn), he was educated at the Protestant Academy of Saumur, and in 1679 became an advocate but soon afterward joined the army.
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and the death of his father led him to move to England; but, unable to find work there, he went on to the Netherlands where he enlisted in a company of
French volunteers at Utrecht, commanded by his cousin, Daniel de Rapin.
He accompanied William III to England in 1688, and during the Williamite war in Ireland, he took part in the Siege of Carrickfergus and the Battle of the Boyne, and was wounded at the Siege of Limerick (1690).
Soon afterward he was promoted to captain; but in 1693 he resigned in order to become tutor to the Earl of Portland's son. After travelling with the boy, he settled with his family (he married Marie-Anne Testart in
1699) in Holland, first at the Hague, then, to save money, at Wesel, in 1707.
Though de Rapin was of a strong constitution, his seventeen years on the work ruined his health. The original version was almost the only English History available in France in the first half of the 18th century.
All volumes of his work were translated to English in 14 volumes in the early 18th century by the Reverend Nicolas Tindal.
Tindal was the nephew and heir of Dr. Matthew Tindal, the eminent deist.
Tindal began this great task while a chaplain to the Royal Navy, as attested in his foreword to an early volume. He added large numbers of informative notes throughout the volumes, which were illustrated with
engravings, maps and genealogical tables of great quality.
It was in his description of the reign of King Stephen of England that de Rapin made perhaps his most enduring contribution to English history: he was the first historian to describe the reign as an "anarchy": "In the
fatal anarchy, the barons acting as sovereigns grievously oppressed the people and were so presumptuous as to coin their own money."
Tindal also added a 'Continuation' to the History, covering the years from the accession of James VI and I to that of George I of Great Britain.
Rapin de Thoyras was also the author of a Dissertation sur les Whigs et les Torys (1717).