![Samuel Rawson Gardiner](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Samuel_Rawson_Gardiner.jpg)
Samuel Rawson Gardiner (4 March 1829 – 24 February 1902) was an English
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
, who specialized in 17th-century English history as a prominent foundational historian of the
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...
revolution and the
English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
.
Life
The son of Rawson Boddam Gardiner, he was born in
Ropley, Hampshire. He was educated at
Winchester College
Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...
and
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...
, where he obtained a first class in ''
Literae Humaniores''. He was subsequently elected to fellowships at
All Souls (1884) and
Merton (1892).
For some years he was professor of modern history at
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
, and devoted his life to the subject.
In 1896 he was elected to give the first series of
Ford Lectures
The Ford Lectures, technically the James Ford Lectures in British History, are an annual series of public lectures held at the University of Oxford on the subject of English or British history. They are usually devoted to a particular historical ...
at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
. He died in
Sevenoaks
Sevenoaks is a town in Kent with a population of 29,506 situated south-east of London, England. Also classified as a civil parishes in England, civil parish, Sevenoaks is served by a commuter South Eastern Main Line, main line railway into Lon ...
, aged 72.
Puritan Revolution
Gardiner published his history of the Puritan Revolution and English Civil War in three series of 19 volumes, originally published under different titles, beginning with the accession of King
James I of England
James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland as James I from the Union of the Crowns, union of the Scottish and Eng ...
. Following Gardiner's death, it was completed in two volumes by
Charles Harding Firth
Sir Charles Harding Firth (16 March 1857 – 19 February 1936) was a British historian. He was one of the founders of the Historical Association in 1906.
Career
Born in Sheffield, Firth was educated at Clifton College and at Balliol College, O ...
as ''The Last Years of the Protectorate'' (1909).
[
The series is ''History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War, 1603–1642'' (10 vols. 1883-4); ''History of the Great Civil War, 1642–1649'' (5 vols. 1893); and ''History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649–1660'' (4 vol. 1903). Gardiner's treatment of the subject is exhaustive and philosophical, taking in political and constitutional history, the changes in religion, thought and sentiment, their causes and their tendencies. Of his original sources, many exist only in manuscript, and his researches in public and private collections of manuscripts at home, and in the archives of ]Simancas
Simancas is a town and municipality of central Spain, located in the province of Valladolid, part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is situated approximately 10 km southwest of the provincial capital Valladolid, on the ro ...
, Venice, Rome, Brussels and Paris, were tireless and productive.[
Gardiner may have been drawn to the period by the fact that he was descended from ]Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...
and Henry Ireton
Henry Ireton ((baptised) 3 November 1611 – 26 November 1651) was an English general in the Parliamentarian army during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and the son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. He died of disease outside Limerick in November 16 ...
, but his judgments are unbiased, and his appreciations of character reveal fine perception and broad sympathies, as shown in his analyses of the characters of James I James I may refer to:
People
*James I of Aragon (1208–1276)
*James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327)
*James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu
*James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347)
*James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...
, Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
, William Laud
William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms, he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 ...
, and Thomas Wentworth, as well as Oliver Cromwell.[
On constitutional matters, Gardiner writes with an insight achieved by the study of political philosophy, discussing in a masterly fashion the dreams of idealists and the schemes of government proposed by statesmen. Throughout his work he gives a prominent place to everything which illustrates human progress in moral and religious, as well as political conceptions, and specially to the rise and development of the idea of religious toleration, finding much of his source material in the writings of obscure pamphleteers, whose essays indicate currents of public opinion. His record of the relations between England and other states proves his thorough knowledge of contemporary European history, and is rendered specially valuable by his researches among manuscript sources which have enabled him to expound for the first time some intricate pieces of diplomacy.][
Gardiner's work is long and minute. He is apt to attach an exaggerated importance to some of the authorities which he was the first to bring to light, to see a general tendency in what may only be the expression of an individual eccentricity, to rely too much on ambassadors' reports which may have been written for some special end, to enter too fully into the details of diplomatic correspondence. His style is clear and unadorned, with more than a hint of ]Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his t ...
; he appeals to the intellect rather than to the emotions, and is seldom picturesque, though in describing a few famous scenes, such as the execution of Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
, he writes with pathos and dignity.[
The minuteness of his narrative detracts from its interest; though his arrangement is generally good, here and there the reader finds the thread of a subject broken by the intrusion of incidents not immediately connected with it, and does not pick it up again without an effort. And Gardiner has the defects of his supreme qualities, of his fairness and critical ability as a judge of character; his work lacks enthusiasm, and leaves the reader cold and unmoved. Yet, apart from its sterling excellence, it is not without beauties, for it is marked by loftiness of thought, a love of purity and truth, and refinement in taste and feeling.][
Gardiner wrote other books, mostly on the same period, but his great history is that by which his name will live. It is a worthy result of a life of unremitting labor, a splendid monument of historical scholarship. His position as a historian was formally acknowledged. In 1882 he was given a civil list pension of £150 per annum, "in recognition of his valuable contributions to the history of England"; he was honorary D.C.L. of Oxford, LL.D. of Edinburgh, and Ph.D. of ]Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
, and honorary Student of Christ Church, Oxford; and in 1894 he declined the appointment of Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford
The Regius Professor of History at the University of Oxford is a long-established professorial position. Holders of the title have often been medieval historians. The first appointment was made in 1724. The term "Regius" reflects the origins of t ...
, lest its duties should interfere with the accomplishment of his history.[
Historian John Morrill said:
:Gardiner was a brilliant historian, who tested the veracity, accuracy, and biases of every source and picked his way through the evidence with a care and clarity of exposition which brooks no equal for this or any other period.
A standard modern study of Gardiner is Mark Nixon, ''Samuel Rawson Gardiner and the Idea of History'' (Royal Historical Society/Boydell Press, 2010).
In his paper the transplantation to Connaugh]
He is clearly excusing the racist language and tactics of English soldiers who were demanding more " native Irish are removed from Ireland" by drawing an analogy "between the Irish and equally loathsome Midianites".
Evaluation of Oliver Cromwell
As a foremost historian of the era, Gardiner's evaluation of Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...
is especially significant. No figure in English history has called forth a greater range of evaluations.
On the positive side Gardiner concluded:
:"The man—it is ever so with the noblest—was greater than his work. In his own heart lay the resolution to subordinate self to public ends, and to subordinate material to moral and spiritual objects of desire. He was limited by the defects which make imperfect the character and intellect even of the noblest and the wisest of mankind. He was limited still more by the unwillingness of his contemporaries to mould themselves after his ideas. The blows that he had struck against the older system had their enduring effects. Few wished for the revival of the absolute kingship, of the absolute authority of a single House of Parliament, or of the Laudian system of governing the Church....The living forces of England—forces making for the destruction of those barriers which he was himself breaking through, buoyed him up—as a strong and self-confident swimmer, he was carried onward by the flowing tide."
:"In the latter portion of the Protector's career it was far otherwise. His failure to establish a permanent Government was not due merely to his deficiency in constructive imagination. It was due rather to two causes: the umbrage taken at his position as head of an army whose interference in political affairs gave even more offence than the financial burdens it imposed on a people unaccustomed to regular taxation; and the reaction which set in against the spiritual claims of that Puritanism of which he had become the mouthpiece…. It was no reaction against the religious doctrines or ecclesiastical institutions upheld by the Protector that brought about the destruction of his system of government.... So far as the reaction was not directed against militarism, it was directed against the introduction into the political world of what appeared to be too high a standard of morality, a reaction which struck specially upon Puritanism, but which would have struck with as much force upon any other form of religion which, like that upheld by Laud, called in the power of the State to enforce its claims. Even though Oliver was in his own person no sour fanatic, as Royalist pamphleteers after the Restoration falsely asserted; it is impossible to deny that he strove by acts of government to lead men into the paths of morality and religion beyond the limit which average human nature had fixed for itself."
:"In dealing with foreign nations his mistake on this head was more conspicuous, because he had far less knowledge of the conditions of efficient action abroad than he had at home. It may fairly be said that he knew less of Scotland than of England, less of Ireland than of Great Britain, and less of the Continent than of any one of the three nations over which he ruled. It has sometimes been said that Oliver made England respected in Europe. It would be more in accordance with truth to say that he made her feared."
:"Oliver's claim to greatness can be tested by the undoubted fact that his character receives higher and wider appreciation as the centuries pass by. The limitations on his nature— the one-sidedness of his religious zeal, the mistakes of his policy — are thrust out of sight, the nobility of his motives, the strength of his character, and the breadth of his intellect, force themselves on the minds of generations for which the objects for which he strove have been for the most part attained, though often in a different fashion from that which he placed before himself. Even those who refuse to waste a thought on his spiritual aims remember with gratitude his constancy of effort to make England great by land and sea; and it would be well for them also to be reminded of his no less constant efforts to make England worthy of greatness."
Family
He married Isabell Irving daughter of Rev Edward Irving
Edward Irving (4 August 17927 December 1834) was a Scottish clergyman, generally regarded as the main figure behind the foundation of the Catholic Apostolic Church.
Early life
Edward Irving was born at Annan, Annandale the second son of Ga ...
.
Works
* ''History of England from the Accession of James I to the Disgrace of Chief-justice Coke. 1602–1616'' (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1863
read online
* ''Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage, 1617–1623'' (2 vols.) (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1869
read online
* ''The Thirty Years' War, 1618–1648'' (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1874
read online
* ''History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War, 1603–1642'' (10 vols.) (London: Longmans, Green and Company) (1883–1884, 1896–1901, 1904–1908
read online
* ''History of the Great Civil War, 1642–1649'' (3 vols.) (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1886–1891; 4 vols., 1893-4, 1904–1905
read online
* ''The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1628–1660'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889, 1906, 1951
read online
* ''A Student's History of England, from the Earliest Times to 1885'' (2 vols.) (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1890–1891, 1895–1897)
read online
* ''The Hanoverian Period'' (London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1891
read online
* ''Outline of English History B.C. 55 – A.D. 1886'' (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1891
read online
* ''A School Atlas of English History'' (ed.) (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1892
read online
* ''History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649–1660'' (4 vols.) (London: Longman, Green and Company, 1897–1901, 1894–1903)
read online
* ''What Gunpowder Plot Was'' (London, Longmans, Green and Company, 1897
read online
* ''Letters and papers relating to the First Dutch War, 1652–1654'' Publications of the Navy Records Society
The Navy Records Society was established in 1893 as a scholarly text publication society to publish historical documents relating to the history of the Royal Navy. Professor Sir John Knox Laughton and Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge were the key lea ...
. 6 vols. (London: Navy Records Society, 1898–1930). ols 1–2 edited by Samuel Rawson Gardiner. Volume 3 edited by Samuel Rawson Gardiner and C. T. Atkinson; vols 4–6 by C. T. Atkinson.]
* ''Oliver Cromwell'' (London, Goupil and Company, 1899, 1901, 1903
read online
* ''Prince Rupert at Lisbon'' (ed.) (London: Royal Historical Society, 1902
read online
* ''Outline of English History B.C. 55 – A.D. 1902'' (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1903, 1905
read online
He edited collections of papers for the Camden Society
The Camden Society was a text publication society founded in London in 1838 to publish early historical and literary materials, both unpublished manuscripts and new editions of rare printed books. It was named after the 16th-century antiquary an ...
, and in 1891- was editor of the ''English Historical Review''.
References
Further reading
* Adamson, J. S. A. "Eminent Victorians: S.R. Gardiner and the Liberal as Hero." ''Historical Journal'' (1990) 33#3: 641-657. Online
* Nixon, Mark. ''Samuel Rawson Gardiner and the Idea of History'' (Royal Historical Society/Boydell Press, 2010).
* Noonkester, Myron C. "Gardiner, Samuel Rawson" in Kelly Boyd, ed., ''Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing'' (1999) 1: 436-37
* Roots, Ivan. "Gardiner, Samuel Rawson (1829–1902)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford University Press, 2004); online edn, May 200
accessed 10 Nov 2014
doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33325
* Powell, F. York. "Samuel Rawson Gardiner." ''English Historical Review'' 17#66 (1902): 276-279
in JSTOR
External links
*
*
*''The Fall of the Monarchy of Charles I, 1637–1649'' by Samuel Rawson Gardiner (1882)
Volume I (1637–1640)
Volume II (1640–1642)
**
*''History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War, 1603–1642'' by Samuel Rawson Gardiner (1883)
Volume I (1603–1607)
Volume II (1607–1616)
Volume III (1616–1621)
Volume IV (1621–1623)
Volume V (1623–1625)
Volume VI (1625–1629)
Volume VII (1629–1635)
Volume VIII (1635–1639)
Volume IX (1639–1641)
Volume X (1641–1642)
*''History of the Great Civil War, 1642–1649'' by Samuel Rawson Gardiner (1886–1901)
Volume I (1642–1644)
Volume II (1644–1647)
Volume III (1645–1647)
Volume IV (1647–1649)
*
Oliver Cromwell
' by Samuel Rawson Gardiner (1901)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gardiner, Samuel Rawson
19th-century English historians
Academics of King's College London
1829 births
1902 deaths
People from Ropley
Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford
Fellows of Merton College, Oxford
Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
People educated at Winchester College