Rev. John, D.D., and LL.D., the Roman Catholic historian of England, was born at Winchester, 5th February 1771. His parents, who were in humble circumstances, belonged to the Church of Rome, and it was chiefly due to the notice taken of him by Dr Milner, that he was sent to study at Douay, in France. He continued to reside there till the revolutionary troubles dispersed the students; and after several changes he came with the staff of the college to settle at Ushaw, near Durham. His first publication was made in 1805, and consisted of a series of letters, written for the Newcastle Courant, and collected under the title of Catholic Loyalty Vindicated. He was soon afterwards engaged in an attack on Bishop Huntingford, Bishop Tomlin, and Lord Kenyon, in regard to opinions which they had published on the Catholic question, as it was called; and as his strictures called forth antagonists of inferior name, Lingard's replies multiplied into a volume, which was given to the world in 1813, with the title, A Review of certain Anti-Catholic Publications. Previously, however, to the collection of these detached pamphlets, he had published (in 1812), Documents to ascertain the sentiments of British Catholics in former Ages, in regard to the Power of the Popes; Strictures on Doctor Marsh's Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome in 1815; and Catechetical Instructions on the Doctrines and Worship of the Catholic Church. His History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, a work on which great part of Dr Lingard's fame will rest, was published in one volume in 1806; but in subsequent editions it has been enlarged to two volumes. His English translation of the New Testament was published anonymously in 1836.

But Dr Lingard's greatest work is the History of England, from the first Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of William and Mary in 1688. It was first published in 6 volumes 4to, in 1819-25, and has since passed through many editions, and been translated into several languages. The research displayed in this work, the remarkable impartiality on all controverted subjects, except that of his religion, the ease and spirited grace of the composition, the picturesqueness and graphic power of many of his descriptions, and the fresh materials dug out of regions previously unexplored, render this history an instructive and fascinating work. That it is a party history of very high merit, exhausts all that can with justice be said of it either in praise or blame. The author, of course, condemns Anne Boleyn, and defends Queen Katherine; and he instinctively prefers Bonner to Cranmer, and the short reign of Mary to the long annals of Elizabeth's power. In respect of civil and religious liberty, he is, with all his learning and research and genius, little better than a monk of the middle ages. All this, however, constitutes the peculiar value of his work, as furnishing one of a set of forces destined, each in its own place, to affect the resultant of public opinion. In the Edinburgh Review (vols. 42 and 44), two papers written by Dr John Allen, preferred a charge of untruthfulness against Dr Lingard, especially in regard to his quotations, which the reviewer held to be garbled for party purposes. This called forth a Vindication from Dr Lingard in 1826, and since that time there has been a much more favourable estimate of his merits even in the pages of that journal (vol. 53).

When his History of England was published, Dr Lingard visited Rome, and Pope Leo XII. proposed to make him a cardinal, but Dr Lingard declined the honour. He had a pension of L.300 a-year from Her Majesty during the closing years of his life, in acknowledgment of his literary talent. He died at Hornby, near Lancaster, on the 13th of July 1851, and bequeathed his library to St Cuthbert's College, at Ushaw, near Durham.