Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

The first part of this chapter will consider the work of the Roman Catholics
Lingard, Milner, John Gage and, in passing, Edward Willson, discussing the relationship
between their faith and their work and the relation of both to their critical reception. Sara
Losh, once again anomalous, provides a rare Anglican example of the quasi-mystical
conception of historic artefacts more often expressed by Catholics such as Milner and
Willson. The second part of the chapter returns to Walter Scott and the Sobieski Stuarts
who used an antiquarian interpretation of the material past to recreate Jacobite history in
a manner suitable, up to a point, for the Hanoverian present.
The Cabal: Milner, Lingard, Gage
John Milner, John Lingard and John Gage were all Roman Catholics, none of
them converts. Milner and Gage were fellows of the Society of Antiquaries, Milner and
Lingard were priests. Spanning between them one and a half generations they were all
known to one another and had many interests in common. Each could be and sometimes
was made to fit one of the popular Catholic stereotypes of the time; Milner the turbulent
priest, Lingard the smooth-tongued agent of Rome, Gage the romantic recusant. Behind
the caricatures lay significantly different approaches to the study of the past and its
remains which were, I suggest, intimately linked to the way that they were perceived as
Catholics and hence to the reception of their work. Before considering the differences in
detail, however, it is instructive to consider them as a (loose) group as they emerge from
the surviving correspondence of Gage.
Gage, who later took the name of Rokewode, was the son of Sir Thomas Gage,
sixth baronet, of Hengrave Hall in Suffolk. He became Director of the Society of
Antiquaries in 1829, the year of Catholic Emancipation, and retained the position until
his sudden death thirteen years later. While his election might have confirmed George
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