The Life and Thought of Herbert Butterfield

Abstract

Once recalled only for The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) and Christianity and History (1949), Sir Herbert Butterfield's contribution to western culture has undergone an astonishing revaluation over the past twenty years. What has been left out of this reappraisal is the man himself. Yet the force of Butterfield's writings is weakened without some knowledge of the man behind them: his temperament, contexts and personal torments. Previous authors have been unable to supply a rounded portrait for lack of available material, particularly a dearth of sources for the crucial period before the outbreak of war in 1939. Michael Bentley's original, startling 2011 biography draws on sources never seen before. They enable him to present a new Butterfield, one deeply troubled by self-doubt, driven by an urgent sexuality and plagued by an unending tension between history, science and God in a mind as hard and cynical as it was loving and charitable.

Conflicts, 1956–60

“…For many years Butterfield had been committed to preparing a biography of Charles James Fox, and was squatting on Fox's papers, which had been handed over to him by G. M. Trevelyan. 117 His approach to the period was very different from Namier's. Despite being the author of a short attack on The Whig interpretation of history (1931), a brisk denunciation of teleological history writing, which praised methodical research 'through the microscope' without citing individuals, Butterfield was himself something of a Whig, or at least a liberal, in his understanding of eighteenth-century politics.…”

Herbert Butterfield: Christian Historian, Liberal Internationalist and Son of Oxenhope

“…and compel[ling]' significance. 13 Finally, it demonstrates the value of independent study in the philosophy of history. 14 Triumphantly reasserting the importance of that subject, it furnishes excellent reasons, expressed in limpid prose, why even those historians hitherto content with what passes for 'a happy life' might purposefully be directed towards the 'intellectual challenge' implicit in the examined alternative.…”

“…Few subjects aroused his scorn quite so instinctively as the emerging discipline of political theory, which he regarded as little more than an exercise in self-deceiving veneration of the modern, secular, State. 86 At the same time, he felt unable to accept Ranke's view of generationally limited moral judgement, that, in effect, one generation could never judge another. This, he believed, was a view of the world that crept just a bit too close to relativism.…”

“…the past) could not, and nor indeed could 'the corporate effort of the historical community' (God forbid). 88 However, whilst such moral judgement was indeed individual of expression, its true value lay in the degree to which it derived from a body of belief beyond the individual mind, in effect, to teaching derived from some 'ultimate, or non-negotiable quality'. 89 This was where Christianity and History came in.…”

“…The importance of his work in this subject abides still. 101 That was for the simplest of reasons. This kind of study allowed Butterfield's deep thinking and broad reading to shine through.…”