LINGARD, John (1771-1851), the Roman Catholic historian of England, was born of humble parentage at Winchester on February 5, 1771. His intellectual abilities began to manifest themselves at a very early age, and in 1782 he was sent to the English college at Douay, where he continued until shortly after the declaration of war by England (1793). For some time after his return to England he lived as tutor in the family of Lord Stourton, but in October 1794 he settled along with seven other former members of the old Douay college at Crook Hall near Durham, where on the completion of his theological course he became vice-president of the reorganized seminary. In 1795 he was ordained priest, and soon afterwards undertook the charge of the chairs of natural and moral philosophy. In 1808 he accompanied the community of Crook Hall to the new and more commodious buildings at Ushaw, Durham, but in 1811, after declining the presidency of the college at Maynooth, he withdrew to the secluded mission at Hornby in Lancashire, where for the rest of his life he found the leisure which his literary pursuits demanded. In 1817 he visited Rome, where he made some researches in the Vatican Library, and also negotiated some business connected with the English college. In 1821 Pope Pius VII. created him doctor of divinity and of canon and civil law; and in 1825 Leo XII. is said to have made him cardinal in petto. He died at Hornby on July 17, 1851....