 After the Restoration the then Earl of Clarendon, Edward Hyde, recorded that before the Civil War he and May had belonged to a close-knit circle of lawyers and writers grouped around the heavyweight figure of Ben Jonson.This group seems to have been closer and more serious than the 'tribe of Ben', a group of writers who simply styled themselves on Jonson without necessarily knowing him well.According to Hyde, the grouping also contained Carew, John Selden, the lawyer John Vaughan (who was later one of Selden's executors), Charles Cotton and the courtier Sir Kenelme Digby.