Mandell Creighton

Cardinal Wolsey (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

ALL men are to be judged by what they do, and the way in which they do it. In the case of great statesmen there is a third consideration which challenges our judgment—what they choose to do. This consideration only presents itself in the case of great statesmen, and even then is not always recognised. For the average statesman does from day to day the business which has to be done, takes affairs as he finds them, and makes the best of them. Many who deliberately selected the questions with which they dealt have yet shrunk from the responsibility of their choice, and have preferred to represent their actions as inevitable. Few can claim the credit of choosing the sphere of their activity, of framing a connected policy with clear and definite ends, and of applying their ideas to every department of national organisation. In short, statesmen are generally opportunists, or choose to represent themselves as such; and this has been especially the case with English statesmen—amongst whom Wolsey stands out as a notable exception. For Wolsey claims recognition on grounds which apply to himself alone. His name is not associated with any great achievement, he worked out no great measure of reform, nor did he contribute any great political idea which was fruitful in after days. He was, above all things, a practical man, though he pursued a line of policy which few understood, and which he did not stop to make intelligible. No very definite results came of it immediately, and the results which came of it afterwards were not such as Wolsey had designed. Yet, if we consider his actual achievements, we are bound to admit that he was probably the greatest political genius whom England has ever produced; for at a great crisis of European history he impressed England with a sense of her own importance, and secured for her a leading position in European affairs, which since his days has seemed her natural right.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Mandell Creighton
• Erscheinungstermin: 15. November 2016
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9788822865182
• Artikelnr.: 47000716

Autorenporträt

Mandell Creighton (5 July 1843 - 14 January 1901) was a British historian and Church of England bishop. Creighton, a Renaissance papacy researcher, was the first holder of the Dixie Chair of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Cambridge, a chair founded about the time history was establishing itself as an autonomous academic subject. He was also the founding editor of the English Historical Review, the oldest English-language scholarly publication in history. Creighton had a second career as a Church of England cleric. He was a parish priest at Embleton, Northumberland, before becoming a Canon Residentiary of Worcester Cathedral, the Bishop of Peterborough, and the Bishop of London. His moderation and worldliness garnered Queen Victoria's approval and the attention of lawmakers. It was commonly assumed at the time that Creighton would have become Archbishop of Canterbury if his death at the age of 57 had not occurred. Creighton's historical work was met with conflicting reactions. He was lauded for his meticulous fairness, yet chastised for failing to speak out against previous excesses. He, for one, was adamant that public figures be evaluated for their public activities, not their private ones.