able and well-informed writer,’ said that his ‘fundamental rule of judging seems to be that the popular opinion on an historical question cannot possibly be correct.’
The ‘History’ passed through many editions, and Lingard spared himself no pains in revising his information in the light of recently published authorities. The original edition, ‘A History of England, from the first Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of William and Mary in 1688,’ London, 1819–30, 4to, appeared in 8 vols.; the 2nd edit. in 14 vols. London, 1823–31, 8vo; the 3rd edit. in 14 vols. London, 1825, 8vo; the 4th edit. in 13 vols. London, 1839; 5th edit. 10 vols. London, 1849–51 (the last edit. revised by the author); 6th edit. 10 vols. London, 1854–5. Several abridgments and American reprints have appeared, and the work has been translated into French, Italian, and German.
As regards the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods the ‘History’ has been superseded by more recent investigation, but his accounts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are still useful, and the work remains an authority for the period of the Reformation, as representing the views of an enlightened catholic priest concerning the events which led to the abolition of the papal jurisdiction in this country.
In recognition of the author's merits Pius VII on 24 Aug. 1821 caused a brief to be issued, conferring upon him the triple academical laurel, and creating him doctor of divinity and of the canon and civil law. Pope Leo XII was as much attached to him as his predecessor. When in 1825 Lingard paid his second visit to Rome, the pontiff saw him frequently and tried to persuade him to take up his residence there. Leo gave him the gold medal which etiquette then generally confined to cardinals and princes, and at the creation of cardinals in 1826 the pope informed the consistory that among those whom he had reserved in petto for the same dignity one was ‘a man of great talents, an accomplished scholar, whose writings, drawn ex authenticis fontibus, had not only rendered great service to religion, but had delighted and astonished Europe.’ In Rome, according to Canon Tierney, this was generally understood to refer to Lingard. Cardinal Wiseman, however, held the opinion that the person thus reserved was not Lingard, but the Abbé de Lamennais (Recollections of the last four Popes, 1858, p. 328); and an able writer in the ‘Rambler’ for November 1859 (ii. 75–83) came to the conclusion that Leo intended to raise both Lingard and Lamennais to the purple and that both received a verbal promise of the cardinal's hat. A summary of this controversy, by Mr. Joseph Gillow, appeared in the ‘Catholic News’ (Preston), 9 April 1892.
Lingard returned from Rome in October 1825. In 1839 Lord Melbourne, at the request of Lord and Lady Holland, granted him 300l. from the privy purse of the queen (Athenæum, 1 July 1871). He had previously received for the first two editions of his ‘History’ a gross sum of 4,133l., and with this money and other proceeds of his pen he established several burses for the education of ecclesiastical students at Ushaw. In the preface to the last edition of his ‘History’ (1849) he informed the public that ‘a long and painful malady, joined with the infirmities of age, had already admonished him to bid final adieu to those studies with which he had been so long familiar.’ He survived, however, more than two years, suffering intensely from an accumulation of maladies, and died at Hornby on 17 July 1851 in his eighty-first year. His body was interred in the cloister of the college cemetery at Ushaw.
In his personal character and demeanour he was most gentle, kind, and obliging, and in the quiet village and neighbourhood to which he had retired he was a universal favourite. At assize time several leaders of the northern circuit, including Scarlett, Pollock, and Brougham, were in the habit of visiting Hornby on a Sunday or other vacant day, in order to have the pleasure of his society. Although he never aspired to ecclesiastical honours he had a great share in the direction of the affairs of the Roman church in England, and was frequently consulted by the bishops on matters of importance.
Besides his ‘History’ his works are: 1. ‘Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church,’ 2 vols. Newcastle, 1806, and again 1810, 8vo; Philadelphia, 1841, 12mo. A so-called third edition, bearing the title ‘The History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church,’ 2 vols. London, 1845, is really a new work, although the substance of the old work is incorporated in it. Another edit. 2 vols. London, 1858, 8vo. 2. ‘Remarks on a Charge delivered to the Clergy of theDiocese of Durham by Shute [Barrington], Bishop of Durham,’ 1807; a reply to strictures on this pamphlet by Thomas Le Mesurier, G. S. Faber, and others, with ‘some observations on the more fashionable methods of interpreting the Apocalypse,’ was issued by Lingard in 1808. 3. ‘Documents to ascertain the Sentiments of British Catholics in former ages respecting the Power of the Popes,’ 1812, 8vo. 4. ‘A Review of certain Anti-Catholic Publications, viz. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the
