Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T09:19:35.105Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rome and Lord Acton: A Reinterpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

E. D. Watt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The relations between Lord Acton and his ecclesiastical leaders did not pass without comment in his own lifetime, nor have they been neglected since. Yet the picture remains somewhat blurred. It is not that there are important items of information still missing; we may not yet know everything, but we do know a great deal, and have known it for several decades. The picture is not incomplete; rather, it is out of focus. Nor will this necessarily be cured by more research, for history does not write itself. A more detailed picture might still be out of focus.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , October 1966 , pp. 493 - 507
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 In the English Historical Review, LXI (1946), 413Google Scholar. New material is continually being published. The most important forthcoming work is Victor Conzemius' edition of Acton's correspondence with Döllinger, which will appear in four volumes. The first volume, Ignaz von Döllinger und Lord Acton: Briefwechsel 1850–1869 (Munich, 1963)Google Scholar, contains nothing to modify the view of Acton's religious orthodoxy which is set out here. Indeed, there has so far been no evidence of a “more real Acton,” to be discerned only through his unpublished, never through his published works; though, of course, commentators may as well be misled according to their preconceptions by the former as by the latter.

2 See Mathew, David, Acton: the Formative Years (London, 1946)Google Scholar.

3 See Butterfield, Herbert, “Journal of Lord Acton: Rome, 1857,” Cambridge Historical Journal, VIII (1946), 186–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the state of learning in Rome during the 1850's see Aubert, Roger, Le Pontificat de Pie IX (Paris, 1952), pp. 184–187Google Scholar, and on Döllinger's contempt for it, see p. 204. On the same page Aubert (who is not, of course, primarily concerned with Acton), describes him as “ardent partisan de l'unité italienne.” This is misleading; see particularly Acton's essay on “Nationality,” reprinted in his History of Freedom and Other Essays, edited by J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence (London, 1907), pp. 270–300.

4 Acton's, Essays on Church and State (London, 1952), p. 284Google Scholar. The collection is edited by Douglas Woodruff.

5 Mathew, , op. cit., pp. 116–122Google Scholar.

6 For an examination of Manning's and Ward's positions, see Leslie, Shane, Henry Edward Manning (London, 1921)Google Scholar.

7 Mathew, loc. cit.

8 Strachey, G. Lytton, Eminent Victorians (New York, 1918), p. 102Google Scholar.

9 Ward, Wilfrid, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman (London, 1912), I, 530Google Scholar.

10 Essays on Church and State, pp. 51–53.

11 See Acton's article on “The Munich Congress,” ibid., pp. 159–199.

12 Acton's, The History of Freedom and Other Essays, pp. 461–491Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., pp. 478, 488–489. The story of the Reviews has recently been retold by MacDougall, Hugh A. in The Acton-Newman Relations (New York, 1962)Google Scholar and by Altholz, Josef in The Liberal Catholic Movement in England (London, 1962)Google Scholar.

14 Ward, , op. cit., I, 510Google Scholar.

15 Essays on Church and State, p. 82.

16 Ibid., Introduction, p. 34. Woodruff, it may be added, is a kinsman of Acton!

17 In the Cambridge Journal, VI (1952), 183Google Scholar.

18 Letters of Lord Acton to Mary, Daughter of the Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone, edited by Paul, Herbert (London, 1904), p. 184Google Scholar.

19 Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, edited by Figgis, J. N. and Laurence, R. V. (London, 1917), p. 113Google Scholar.

20 For an examination of the scope and limits of the definition of papal infallibility, see Butler, B. C., The Church and Infallibility (London, 1954), particularly Chaps, ii and vGoogle Scholar.

21 Fasnacht, G. E., “Acton's Notes for a Romanes Lecture,” Contemporary Review, CLXXXII (1952), 349Google Scholar.

22 Essays on Church and State, p. 75.

23 The Whig Interpretation of History (London, 1931), p. 114Google Scholar.

24 Newman, J. H., A Letter Addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk on the Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation (London, 1875), pp. 104–105Google Scholar.

25 Engel-Janösi, F., “Reflections of Lord Acton on Historical Principles,” Catholic Historical Review, XXVII (1941), 177Google Scholar.

26 Butterfield, , op. cit., p. 65Google Scholar.

27 Himmelfarb, Gertrude, Lord Acton: a Study in Conscience and Politics (Chicago, 1952), pp. 105–106Google Scholar.

28 Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, pp. 90–114.

29 Hales, E. E. Y., Pio Nono (London, 1954), pp. 300–303Google Scholar.

30 Ibid., pp. 341–342, and Butler, op. cit., p. 88.

31 Butler, Cuthbert, The Vatican Council (London, 1930)Google Scholar.

32 Himmelfarb, , Lord Acton, pp. 99–100Google Scholar.

33 Butler, , The Vatican Council, pp. xiii–xixGoogle Scholar.

34 Himmelfarb, , Lord Acton, p. 100, n. 3Google Scholar.

35 Gladstone, W. E., The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance (New York, 1875). He traced the defeat of his ministry from the Irish members to the Irish bishops, and from the Irish bishops to the Pope, through the subterranean passages of “ultramontanism.”Google Scholar

36 Gasquet, F. A., Lord Acton and His Circle (London, 1906), p. 358Google Scholar.

37 Loc. cit.

38 Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, pp. 119–124.

39 Newman, op. cit.

40 Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, p. 152.

41 Ibid., p. 107.

42 Essays on Freedom and Power, edited by Himmelfarb, Gertrude (Boston, 1948), p. 356Google Scholar.

43 Loc. cit.

44 Butler, The Vatican Council, Chaps, viii, xxv. Aubert, , op. cit., pp. 363–364Google Scholar.

45 The History of Freedom and Other Essays, p. 477.

46 Selections from, the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, p. 153.

47 Leslie, , op. cit., p. 232Google Scholar.

48 Gasquet, , op. cit., pp. 360–361Google Scholar.

49 Ibid., p. 367.

50 Leslie, , op. cit., p. 233Google Scholar.

51 Kochan, Lionel, Acton on History (London, 1954), p. 26. My italicsGoogle Scholar.

52 Himmelfarb, , Lord Acton, p. 127Google Scholar. Aubert, who makes frequent mention of Acton, refers only briefly (pp. 364–5) to the events of 1874, making no reference to any referral of Acton's case to Rome.

53 Loc. cit.

54 Ibid., p. 113.

55 See Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton.

56 Himmelfarb, , Lord Acton, p. 114Google Scholar.

57 Ibid., pp. 115–116.

58 Ibid., pp. 115–127.

59 Ibid., p. 126.

60 Gasquet, , op. cit., p. 368Google Scholar.

61 Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, p. 155.

62 Butterfield, Herbert, “Lord Acton,” Cambridge Journal, VI (1953), 479Google Scholar.

63 Letters of Lord Acton to Mary … Gladstone, p. 184.

64 Butterfield, loc. cit.

65 Engel-Janösi, F., “Some Notes on Lord Acton Suggested by a Recent Book,” Catholic Historical Review, XXIX (1943), 359Google Scholar.

66 Fitzsimons, John, “Acton, the Wavy Line,” Blackfriars, XXXIII (1952), 410Google Scholar.

67 Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, p. 193.

68 Essays on Freedom and Power, p. 566.

69 Ibid., p. 367.

70 Ward, , op. cit., II, 167. Aubert gives us no fuller treatment of the Pope's personal attitude to Acton; but this question is irrelevant, in any case, to the thesis here defendedGoogle Scholar.