John Lingard

Born in the 1700s, John Lingard was an English historian. Most biographies about Lingard present a fairly standard portrait of the historian as an unbiased filter of primary historical sources that are somehow allowed to speak for themselves. Thereby it is argued in these works that Lingard was a balanced historian. This book, however, demonstrates that Lingard was a far more complicated author and character who worked tirelessly to promote the acceptableness of Roman Catholics in the politically reforming climate of the early 19th century - without appearing to do so.