Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/97

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Gardiner
77
Gardiner


higher classes in schools (3 vols. 1890). He also selected and edited, for use in the Modern History School at Oxford, a volume of 'Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution' (1889 ; 3rd edit. 1906). These and other excellent textbooks enjoyed a wide circulation. 'The Puritan Revolution' was translated into Russian, and portions of the 'Outline' were edited as a reading book for German schools. In spite of the claims of his history and of his educational work, Gardiner contrived to take a leading part in all enterprises for the promotion of learning. From 1873 to 1878 he edited the historical department of the 'Academy.' To the 'Revue Historique' between 1876 and 1881 he supplied a series of 'bulletins' on the progress of historical literature in England. From the foundation of the 'English Historical Review ' in 1886 he was one of its chief contributors, and from 1891 to 1901 its editor. He was director of the Camden Society from 1869 to 1897, editing for it no fewer than twelve volumes besides numerous contributions to its miscellanies. He edited two volumes of documents for the Navy Records Society and one for the Scottish History Society, and was a member of the council of each of these bodies. To this Dictionary he contributed twenty-one lives, and he wrote numerous articles for the ninth edition of the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.' Nor was it only by his writings that he forwarded scholarship. He could always find time to help other historians, and no one was more quick to recognise the merits of a beginner or so ready to give him advice and encouragement.

Recognition came slowly to Gardiner, who, in spite of his eminence as an historian, long maintained himself mainly by teaching and literary work, neither holding any post worthy of his powers nor receiving any aid from the endowments designed to promote learning. In 1878 Lord Acton unsuccessfully pressed Sir George Jessel, the master of the rolls, to appoint Gardiner deputy keeper in succession to Sir T. D. Hardy. In 1882, at Acton's instigation, Gladstone conferred upon Gardiner a civil list pension of 150^ a year (Paul, Letters of Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone, 1904, pp. 129, 149). In 1884 All Souls College, Oxford, elected Gardiner to a research fellowship of the value of 200l. a year, in order to help him to continue his investigations. In 1892, when his tenure of that fellowship ended, he was elected by Merton College to a similar position, which he retained till his death. Many honorary distinctions were also conferred upon him at home and abroad. The academies or historical societies of various foreign countries elected him a member, as a recognition of the light his researches had thrown upon parts of their national history, viz. Bohemia (1870 ?), Massachusetts (1874), Copenhagen (1891), Upsala (1893), and Utrecht (1900). In 1887 the University of Gottingen gave him the degree of doctor of philosophy ; Edinburgh that of LL.D. in 1881, Oxford that of D.C.L. in 1895, and Cambridge that of Litt.D. in 1899.

In 1894, on the death of Froude, Lord Rosebery offered Gardiner the regius professorship of modern history. He refused it, because he wished to reserve his time and strength for the completion of his book, and was reluctant to leave London, which was the most convenient place for his work. He consented, however, to fill in 1896 the newly created post of Ford lecturer at Oxford, and delivered the single course of lectures which was required, on 'Cromwell's Place in History' (3rd edit. 1897). During the later years of his life he published only two works of importance apart from the continuation of his history — a monograph on Cromwell for Goupil's series of illustrated biographies (1899 ; translated into German in 1903, with a preface by Professor Alfred Stem of Zurich) and a critical examination of the history of the gunpowder plot (1897) in answer to Father Gerard's endeavour to prove that the plot was devised by the government for its own ends.

By this time Gardiner's health was beginning to fail. He had intended to carry his history down to the restoration of Charles II, but he finally resolved to end it with the death of Cromwell. The third volume of the 'Commonwealth and Protectorate,' which brought the story down to the summer of 1656, was published in January 1901 (new edit. 4 vols. 1903). In March Gardiner was stricken by partial paralysis, and though he rallied for a time was never able to work again. A chapter of the history, which he left in manuscript, was published in 1903, and in accordance with his desires the book was completed by the present writer in his 'Last Years of the Protectorate' (2 vols. 1909).

Gardiner died at Sevenoaks on 23 Feb. 1902, a few days before the conclusion of his seventy-third year. He married (1) in 1856 Isabella, youngest daughter of Edward