Maitland to Acton

Abstract

These nine letters written by Maitland to Acton over the years 1896–98 are part of a large number of letters received by Acton from potential contributors to the Cambridge Modern History which Acton was planning and to which Maitland eventually contributed a chapter on “The Anglican Settlement and the Scottish Reformation.” When in 1895 Acton had been appointed Regius Professor of Modern History, Maitland had had his doubts. “Glad as I am that he should come here, I fancy that Oxford was the place for him,” he wrote privately to Lane Poole at Oxford, and he continued to have his doubts as to Acton's talents as an academic politician. As a background to the first letter Maitland had remarked to H. A. L. Fisher in a letter earlier that year: “That History Board still consumes endless time and after all I do not think that I can sign their proposals. At present Acton=0. I wish he would bless or curse or do something.” But for Acton the historian Maitland's regard was unqualified. When Acton died, the loss to Cambridge, Maitland wrote to Leslie Stephen, was “irreparable,” and writing to Lane Poole in 1902 he spoke more fully: “For myself I learnt to admire A. enormously—and on his merits, for I was not by any means prejudiced in his favour.”