Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Lingard, John

5 February 1771 – 17 July 1851

He was a Catholic priest whose extremely successful 8-volume History of England, from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of Henry VIII, which was published in 1819 and in later editions, is said to have been the most popular work in print until the publication in 1874 of Richard Green’s Short History of the English People (Martyr). He is included here because he was born in Winchester (as marked by a plaque at 3 St Thomas’s Street) and he must have been aware of the work of another Catholic priest, John Milner, who in 1799-1802 published The History, Civil and Ecclesiastical, and Survey of Antiquities of Winchester. There is therefore an interesting question: to what extent was Lingard influenced by Milner, who served in Winchester from 1777 to 1800, and how similar were their approaches to history?

Lingard, who has been described as ‘largely unsung and unknown today’ (Martyr), has a legacy as someone who – rare for his day – insisted on using only primary sources. This was a guiding principle of some Catholic thinkers, who expected that, apart from being intellectually desirable, it would demonstrate unequivocally that the Reformation had, in crude terms, been the product of an immoral king and ambitious men fuelled by greed.  As such, their historical writings carried the subtext of a call for emancipation of Catholics from the Act of Uniformity, the Test Act and other penal laws.  They presumably helped to usher in the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829.

One study of his work (Cattermole) considered ‘the influence a historian's beliefs and prejudices may have upon his choice of subject for research, his general structuring of the narrative, and his peculiar emphases on events and persons’, but was unable to decide whether ‘Lingard himself remained content with the quite crude propaganda for Roman catholic tenets exhibited in his early pamphlet publications, or that he ever surrendered his first intent to demonstrate that Roman Catholics could be trusted with a larger share in the national life…’.

He was educated for the priesthood at the English College at Douai, France – where Milner had also studied before him –  and spent most of his life at a mission in Hornby, Lancashire. He was awarded three doctorates by the Vatican.

Sources

Wikipedia

Martyr, Philippa, 2006, http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/leaflets/lingard.htm

Vidmar, John, John Lingard’s history of the English reformation: history or apologetics, The Catholic Historical Review, 85:383-419

Portrait

Wikipedia Commons

Contribution to county’s history

None known, but more work is required.  

Relevant published works

• History of England, from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of Henry VIII, 1819 and multiple editions thereafter.

Critical Comments

Like any writer of history who has a mission, his works need interpreting in the light of political and religious events of the day.

Other Comments

The role of Winchester as a place that ‘turned a blind eye’ to acts of worship by Catholics that were strictly illegal, is of considerable historical interest, and may – by means of the work of Milner and Lingard – have influenced the practice of history nationally.

The plaque to John Lingard can be seen to the left of the door in St Thomas's Street, Winchester.

Contributor

Barry Shurlock, 29 04 24

Key Words

Catholicism, Reformation, Milner, Winchester

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