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Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton (15 January 1914 – 26 January 2003) was an English historian. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
. Trevor-Roper was a
polemic Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topic ...
ist and essayist on a range of historical topics, but particularly England in the 16th and 17th centuries and
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. In the view of John Kenyon, "some of revor-Roper'sshort essays have affected the way we think about the past more than other men's books". This is echoed by Richard Davenport-Hines and Adam Sisman in the introduction to ''One Hundred Letters from Hugh Trevor-Roper'' (2014): "The bulk of his publications is formidable... Some of his essays are of Victorian length. All of them reduce large subjects to their essence. Many of them... have lastingly transformed their fields." On the other hand, his biographer Adam Sisman also writes that "the mark of a great historian is that he writes great books, on the subject which he has made his own. By this exacting standard Hugh failed." Trevor-Roper's most widely read and financially rewarding book was titled ''The Last Days of Hitler'' (1947). It emerged from his assignment as a British intelligence officer in 1945 to discover what happened in the last days of
Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
's bunker. From his interviews with a range of witnesses and study of surviving documents he demonstrated that Hitler was dead and had not escaped from Berlin. He also showed that Hitler's dictatorship was not an efficient unified machine but a hodge-podge of overlapping rivalries. Trevor-Roper's reputation was "severely damaged" in 1983 when he authenticated the
Hitler Diaries The Hitler Diaries (german: Hitler-Tagebücher) were a series of sixty volumes of journals purportedly written by Adolf Hitler, but forged by Konrad Kujau between 1981 and 1983. The diaries were purchased in 1983 for 9.3 million Deutsche ...
shortly before they were shown to be forgeries.


Early life and education

Trevor-Roper was born at Glanton,
Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land ...
, England, the son of Kathleen Elizabeth Davidson (died 1964) and Bertie William Edward Trevor-Roper (1885–1978), a doctor, descended from Henry Roper, 8th
Baron Teynham Baron Teynham, of Teynham in the County of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of England and the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1616 for Sir John Roper. His great-great-grandson, the fifth Baron, served as Lord Lieutenant of Kent. ...
, who married, Anne, (her second husband) 16th
Baroness Dacre Baron Dacre is a title that has been created three times in the Peerage of England, every time by Hereditary peer#Writs of summons, writ. History The first creation came in 1321 when Ralph Dacre, 1st Baron Dacre, Ralph Dacre was Hereditary peer# ...
. Trevor-Roper "enjoyed (but not too seriously)... that he was a collateral descendant of William Roper, the son-in-law and biographer of Sir
Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...
... as a boy he was aware that only a dozen lives (several of them those of elderly bachelors) separated him from inheriting the Teynham peerage." Trevor-Roper's brother, Patrick, became a leading eye surgeon and
gay rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, , ...
activist. Trevor-Roper was educated at Belhaven Hill School, Charterhouse, and
Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniq ...
, where he read first
Classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
(Literae Humaniores) and then
Modern History The term modern period or modern era (sometimes also called modern history or modern times) is the period of history that succeeds the Middle Ages (which ended approximately 1500 AD). This terminology is a historical periodization that is appli ...
, later moving to
Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ...
, to become a Research Fellow. Whilst at Oxford, he was a member of the exclusive Stubbs Society and was initiated as a
Freemason Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
in the
Apollo University Lodge Apollo University Lodge No 357 is a Masonic Lodge based at the University of Oxford aimed at past and present members of the university. It was consecrated in 1819, and its members have met continuously since then. University of Oxford Membershi ...
. Trevor-Roper took a first in
Classical Moderations Honour Moderations (or ''Mods'') are a set of examinations at the University of Oxford at the end of the first part of some degree courses (e.g., Greats or '' Literae Humaniores''). Honour Moderations candidates have a class awarded (hence the ' ...
in 1934 and won the Craven, the Ireland, and the Hertford scholarships in Classics. Initially, he intended to make his career in the Classics but became bored with what he regarded as the pedantic technical aspects of the classics course at Oxford and switched to History, where he obtained first-class honours in 1936. Trevor-Roper's first book was a 1940 biography of
Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdio ...
William Laud William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms, he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 ...
, in which he challenged many of the prevailing perceptions surrounding Laud.


Military service in World War II

During
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, Trevor-Roper served as an officer in the Radio Security Service of the
Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intellige ...
, and then on the interception of messages from the German intelligence service, the ''
Abwehr The ''Abwehr'' ( German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the '' Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. ...
''.P. R. J. Winter, "A Higher Form of Intelligence: Hugh Trevor-Roper and Wartime British Secret Service," ''Intelligence & National Security'' (Dec 2007), 22#6 pp 847–880, In early 1940, Trevor-Roper and E. W. B. Gill decrypted some of these intercepts, demonstrating the relevance of the material and spurring
Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
efforts to decrypt the traffic. Intelligence from ''Abwehr'' traffic later played an important part in many operations including the Double-Cross System. He formed a low opinion of most pre-war professional intelligence agents, but a higher one of some of the post-1939 recruits. In ''The Philby Affair'' (1968) Trevor-Roper argues that the Soviet spy
Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British s ...
was never in a position to undermine efforts by the chief of the ''Abwehr'', German Military Intelligence,
Admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet ...
Wilhelm Canaris Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and the chief of the ''Abwehr'' (the German military-intelligence service) from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi re ...
, to overthrow the Nazi regime and negotiate with the British government.


Investigating Hitler's last days

In November 1945, Trevor-Roper was ordered by
Dick White Sir Dick Goldsmith White, (20 December 1906 – 21 February 1993) was a British intelligence officer. He was Director General (DG) of MI5 from 1953 to 1956, and Head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1956 to 1968. Early life Whi ...
, then head of counter-intelligence in the British sector of
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
, to investigate the circumstances of
Adolf Hitler's death Adolf Hitler, chancellor and dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, died by suicide via gunshot on 30 April 1945 in the in Berlin after it became clear that Germany would lose the Battle of Berlin, which led to the end of World War II in Eu ...
, and to rebut the Soviet propaganda that Hitler was alive and living in the West. Using the alias of "Major Oughton", Trevor-Roper interviewed or prepared questions for several officials, high and low, who had been present in the ''
Führerbunker The ''Führerbunker'' () was an air raid shelter located near the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. It was part of a subterranean bunker complex constructed in two phases in 1936 and 1944. It was the last of the Führer Headquarters ...
'' with Hitler, and who had been able to escape to the West, including Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven. For the most part Trevor-Roper relied on investigations and interviews by hundreds of British, American and Canadian intelligence officers.Parker (2014) He did not have access to Soviet materials. Working rapidly, Trevor-Roper drafted his report, which served as the basis for his most famous book, ''The Last Days of Hitler'', in which he described the last ten days of Hitler's life and the fates of some of the higher-ranking members of the inner circle, as well as those of key lesser figures. Trevor-Roper transformed the evidence into a literary work, with sardonic humour and drama, and was much influenced by the prose styles of two of his favourite historians,
Edward Gibbon Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, '' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, i ...
and
Lord Macaulay Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, (; 25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a British historian and Whig politician, who served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and as the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1 ...
. The book was cleared by British officials in 1946 for publication as soon as the war crimes trials ended. It was published in English in 1947; six English editions and many foreign language editions followed. According to American journalist Ron Rosenbaum, Trevor-Roper received a letter from Lisbon written in Hebrew stating that the Stern Gang would assassinate him for ''The Last Days of Hitler'', which, they believed, portrayed Hitler as a "demoniacal" figure but let ordinary Germans who followed Hitler off the hook, and that for this he deserved to die. Rosenbaum reports that Trevor-Roper told him this was the most extreme response he had ever received for one of his books.


Anti-communism

In June 1950, Trevor-Roper attended a conference in Berlin of
anti-Communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...
intellectuals along with
Sidney Hook Sidney Hook (December 20, 1902 – July 12, 1989) was an American philosopher of pragmatism known for his contributions to the philosophy of history, the philosophy of education, political theory, and ethics. After embracing communism in his you ...
, Melvin J. Lasky,
Ignazio Silone Secondino Tranquilli (1 May 1900 – 22 August 1978), known by the pseudonym Ignazio Silone (, ), was an Italian political leader, novelist, and short-story writer, world-famous during World War II for his powerful anti-fascist novels. He was no ...
,
Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler, (, ; ; hu, Kösztler Artúr; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was a Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. In 1931, Koestler join ...
,
Raymond Aron Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Aron is best known for his 19 ...
and Franz Borkenau that resulted in the founding of the
Congress for Cultural Freedom The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an anti-communist advocacy group founded in 1950. At its height, the CCF was active in thirty-five countries. In 1966 it was revealed that the CIA was instrumental in the establishment and funding of the ...
and its magazine ''Encounter''. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was a frequent contributor to ''Encounter'', but had reservations about what he regarded as the over-didactic tone of some of its contributors, particularly Koestler and Borkenau.


Historical debates and controversies

Trevor-Roper was famous for his lucid and acerbic writing style. In reviews and essays he could be pitilessly sarcastic, and devastating in his mockery. In attacking
Arnold J. Toynbee Arnold Joseph Toynbee (; 14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975) was an English historian, a philosopher of history, an author of numerous books and a research professor of international history at the London School of Economics and King's Colleg ...
's '' A Study of History'', for instance, Trevor-Roper accused Toynbee of regarding himself as a Messiah complete with "the youthful Temptations; the missionary Journeys; the Miracles; the Revelations; the Agony".Sisman, 2010 For Trevor-Roper, the major themes of early modern Europe were its intellectual vitality, and the quarrels between Protestant and Catholic states, the latter being outpaced by the former, economically and constitutionally. In Trevor-Roper's view, another theme of early modern Europe was expansion overseas in the form of colonies and intellectual expansion in the form of the
Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
and the Enlightenment. In Trevor-Roper's view, the witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries can ultimately be traced back to the conflict between the religious values of the Reformation and the rationalistic approach of what became the Enlightenment. Trevor-Roper argued that
history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
should be understood as an art, not a science and that the attribute of a successful historian was imagination. He viewed history as full of contingency, with the past neither a story of continuous advance nor of continuous decline but the consequence of choices made by individuals at the time. In his studies of early modern Europe, Trevor-Roper did not focus exclusively upon
political history Political history is the narrative and survey of political events, ideas, movements, organs of government, voters, parties and leaders. It is closely related to other fields of history, including diplomatic history, constitutional history, social ...
but sought to examine the interaction between the political,
intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator o ...
,
social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...
and religious trends. His preferred medium of expression was the essay rather than the book. In his essays in social history, written during the 1950s and 1960s, Trevor-Roper was influenced by the work of the French Annales School, especially
Fernand Braudel Fernand Braudel (; 24 August 1902 – 27 November 1985) was a French historian and leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects: ''The Mediterranean'' (1923–49, then 1949–66), ''Civilization and Capitalism'' ...
and did much to introduce the work of the ''Annales'' school to the
English-speaking world Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the '' Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest languag ...
. In the 1950s, Trevor-Roper wrote that Braudel and the rest of the school were doing much innovative historical work but were "totally excluded from Oxford which remains, in historical matters, a retrograde provincial backwater".


English Civil War

In Trevor-Roper's opinion, the dispute between the
Puritans The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
and the Arminians was a major, although not the sole, cause of the
English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...
. For him, the dispute was over such issues as free will and predestination and the role of preaching versus the sacraments; only later did the dispute become a matter of the structure of the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...
. The Puritans desired a more decentralised and egalitarian church, with an emphasis on the laity, while the Arminians wished for an ordered church with a hierarchy, an emphasis on divine right and salvation through free will. As a historian of early modern Britain, Trevor-Roper was known for his disputes with fellow historians such as Lawrence Stone and Christopher Hill, whose materialist (and in some measure "inevitablist") explanations of the
English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...
he attacked. Trevor-Roper was a leading player in the historiographical storm over the gentry (also known as the ''Gentry controversy''), a dispute with the historians R. H. Tawney and Stone, about whether the English
gentry Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies ''Gentry'', in its widest c ...
were, economically, on the way down or up, in the century before the
English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...
and whether this helped cause that war. Stone, Tawney and Hill argued that the gentry were rising economically and that this caused the Civil War. Trevor-Roper argued that while office-holders and lawyers were prospering, the lesser gentry were in decline. A third group of history men around
J. H. Hexter Jack H. Hexter (May 25, 1910 – December 8, 1996) was an American historian, a specialist in Tudor and seventeenth century British history, and well known for his comments on historiography. Hexter was a member of both the American Academy of ...
and Geoffrey Elton, argued that the causes of the Civil War had nothing to do with the gentry. In 1948, a paper put forward by Stone in support of Tawney's thesis was vigorously attacked by Trevor-Roper, who showed that Stone had exaggerated the debt problems of the Tudor nobility.Brown, Kenneth "Tawney, R.H." pages 1172–1173 from ''The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing'' page 1173. He also rejected Tawney's theories about the rising gentry and declining nobility, arguing that he was guilty of selective use of evidence and that he misunderstood the statistics.


World War II and Hitler

Trevor-Roper attacked the philosophies of history advanced by
Arnold J. Toynbee Arnold Joseph Toynbee (; 14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975) was an English historian, a philosopher of history, an author of numerous books and a research professor of international history at the London School of Economics and King's Colleg ...
and
E. H. Carr Edward Hallett Carr (28 June 1892 – 3 November 1982) was a British historian, diplomat, journalist and international relations theorist, and an opponent of empiricism within historiography. Carr was best known for '' A History of Soviet R ...
, as well as his colleague A. J. P. Taylor's account of the origins of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. Another dispute was with Taylor and
Alan Bullock Alan Louis Charles Bullock, Baron Bullock, (13 December 1914 – 2 February 2004) was a British historian. He is best known for his book '' Hitler: A Study in Tyranny'' (1952), the first comprehensive biography of Adolf Hitler, which influence ...
over the question of whether
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
had fixed aims. In the 1950s, Trevor-Roper was ferocious in his criticism of Bullock for his portrayal of Hitler as a " mountebank" instead of the ideologue Trevor-Roper believed him to be. When Taylor offered a picture of Hitler similar to Bullock's, in his 1961 book ''
The Origins of the Second World War ''The Origins of the Second World War'' is a non-fiction book by the English historian A. J. P. Taylor, examining the causes of World War II. It was first published in 1961 by Hamish Hamilton. Origins Taylor had previously written ''The Struggl ...
'', the debate continued. Another feud was with the novelist and Catholic convert
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires '' Decl ...
, who was angered by Trevor-Roper's repeated harsh attacks on the Catholic Church. In the globalist–continentalist debate between those who argued that Hitler aimed to conquer the world and those who argued that he sought only the conquest of Europe, Trevor-Roper was one of the leading continentalists. He argued that the globalist case sought to turn a scattering of Hitler's remarks made over decades into a plan. In his analysis, the only consistent objective Hitler sought was the domination of Europe, as laid out in ''
Mein Kampf (; ''My Struggle'' or ''My Battle'') is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Ge ...
.'' The American historian Lucy Dawidowicz in ''The Holocaust and Historians'' (1981) delivered what the British historian David Cesarani called an "''ad hominem'' attack", writing that Trevor-Roper in his writings on Nazi Germany was indifferent to Nazi antisemitism, because she believed that he was a snobbish antisemite, who was apathetic about the murder of six million Jews. Cesarani wrote that Dawidowicz was wrong to accuse Trevor-Roper of antisemitism but argued that there was an element of truth to her critique in that the ''Shoah'' was a blind-spot for Trevor-Roper. Trevor-Roper was a very firm "intentionist" who treated Hitler as a serious, if slightly deranged thinker who, from 1924 until his death in 1945, was obsessed with "the conquest of Russia, the extermination of the Slavs, and the colonization of the English". In his 1962 essay "The Mind of Adolf Hitler", Trevor-Roper again criticized Bullock, writing "Even Mr. Bullock seems content to regard him as a diabolical adventurer animated solely by an unlimited lust for personal power... Hitler was a systematic thinker and his mind is, to the historian, as important as the mind of Bismarck or Lenin".Cesarani, David "From Bullock to Kershaw: Some Peculiarities of British Historical Writing About the Nazi Persecution and Mass Murder of the Jews" page 339–354 from ''Holocaust Historiography In Context'' edited by David Bankier and Dan Michman, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2008 page 346. Trevor-Roper maintained that Hitler, on the basis of a wide range of antisemitic literature, from the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain to ''The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion'', had constructed a racist ideology that called for making Germany the world's greatest power and the extermination of perceived enemies like the Jews and Slavs. Trevor-Roper wrote that the mind of Hitler was "a terrible phenomenon, imposing indeed in its granite harshness and yet infinitely squalid in its miscellaneous cumber, like some huge barbarian monolith; the expression of giant strength and savage genius; surrounded by a festering heap of refuse, old tins and vermin, ashes and eggshells and ordure, the intellectual detritus of centuries". Cesarani wrote that Trevor-Roper regarded Hitler, in marked contrast to Bullock, as a man who was serious about what he said but at the same time, Trevor-Roper's picture of Hitler as a somewhat insane leader, fanatically pursuing lunatic policies, meant paradoxically that it was hard to take Hitler seriously, at least on the basis of Trevor-Roper's writings. Cesarani stated that Trevor-Roper was sincere in his hatred and contempt for the Nazis and everything they stood for but he had considerable difficulty when it came to writing about the complicity and involvement of traditional German elites in National Socialism, because the traditional elites in Germany were so similar in many ways to the British Establishment, which Trevor-Roper identified with so strongly. In this respect, Cesarani argued that it was very revealing that Trevor-Roper in ''The Last Days of Hitler'' was especially damning in his picture of the German Finance Minister, Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk, whom Trevor-Roper noted "had been a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, but he had acquired none of its values".Cesarani, David "From Bullock to Kershaw: Some Peculiarities of British Historical Writing About the Nazi Persecution and Mass Murder of the Jews" page 339–354 from ''Holocaust Historiography In Context'' edited by David Bankier and Dan Michman, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2008 page 352. Cesarani wrote "Thus, to Trevor-Roper the values of Oxford University stood at the opposite pole to those of Hitler's Reich, and one reason for the ghastly character of Nazism was that it did not share them". Cesarani noted that while Trevor-Roper supported the Conservatives and ended his days as a Tory life-peer, he was broadly speaking a liberal and believed that Britain was a great nation because of its liberalism.Cesarani, David "From Bullock to Kershaw: Some Peculiarities of British Historical Writing About the Nazi Persecution and Mass Murder of the Jews" page 339–354 from ''Holocaust Historiography In Context'' edited by David Bankier and Dan Michman, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2008 pages 352–353. Because of this background, Cesarani wrote that Trevor-Roper naturally saw the liberal democracy Britain as anathema to Nazi Germany. Cesarani concluded "...to maintain the illusion of virtuous British liberalism, Hitler had to be depicted as either a statesman like any other or a monster without equal, and those who did business with him as, respectively, pragmatists or dupes. Every current of Nazi society that made it distinctive could be charted, while the anti-Jewish racism that it shared with Britain was discreetly avoided".


General crisis of the 17th century

A notable thesis propagated by Trevor-Roper was the " general crisis of the 17th century". He argued that the middle years of the 17th century in
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
saw a widespread break-down in politics, economics and society caused by demographic, social, religious, economic and political problems. In this "general crisis", various events, such as the
English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...
, the '' Fronde'' in France, the climax of the
Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of batt ...
in Germany, troubles in the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, and revolts against the Spanish Crown in
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...
,
Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adm ...
and
Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the no ...
, were all manifestations of the same problems.Rabb, Theodore K., ''The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1975, page 18. The most important causes of the "general crisis" in Trevor-Roper's opinion were conflicts between "Court" and "Country"; that is, between the increasingly powerful centralizing, bureaucratic, sovereign princely states, represented by the Court, and the traditional, regional, land-based aristocracy and gentry, representing the country. In addition, he said that the religious and intellectual changes introduced by the
Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
and the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
were important secondary causes of the "general crisis". The "general crisis" thesis generated controversy between supporters of this theory, and those, such as the Marxist historian
Eric Hobsbawm Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work. ...
, who agreed with him that there was a "general crisis", but saw the problems of 17th century Europe as more economic in origin than Trevor-Roper would allow. A third faction denied that there was any "general crisis", for example the Dutch historian Ivo Schöffer, the Danish historian Niels Steengsgaard, and the
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
historian A. D. Lublinskaya. Trevor-Roper's "general crisis" thesis provoked much discussion, and led experts in 17th century history such as
Roland Mousnier Roland Émile Mousnier (; Paris, September 7, 1907– February 8, 1993, Paris) was a French historian of the early modern period in France and of the comparative studies of different civilizations. Life Mousnier was born in Paris and recei ...
, J. H. Elliott, Lawrence Stone, E. H. Kossmann,
Eric Hobsbawm Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work. ...
and
J. H. Hexter Jack H. Hexter (May 25, 1910 – December 8, 1996) was an American historian, a specialist in Tudor and seventeenth century British history, and well known for his comments on historiography. Hexter was a member of both the American Academy of ...
to become advocates of the pros and cons of the theory. At times the discussion became quite heated; the Italian Marxist historian Rosario Villari, speaking of the work of Trevor-Roper and Mousnier, claimed that: "The hypothesis of imbalance between bureaucratic expansion and the needs of the state is too vague to be plausible, and rests on inflated rhetoric, typical of a certain type of political conservative, rather than on effective analysis." Villari accused Trevor-Roper of downgrading the importance of what Villari called the English Revolution (the usual Marxist term for the
English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...
), and insisted that the "general crisis" was part of a Europe-wide revolutionary movement. Another Marxist critic of Trevor-Roper, the Soviet historian A. D. Lublinskaya, attacked the concept of a conflict between "Court" and "Country" as fiction, arguing there was no "general crisis"; instead she maintained that the so-called "general crisis" was merely the emergence of capitalism.


First World War

In 1973, Trevor-Roper in the foreword to a book by John Röhl endorsed the view that Germany was largely responsible for the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. Trevor-Roper wrote that in his opinion far too many British historians had allowed themselves to be persuaded of the theory that the outbreak of war in 1914 had been the fault of all the great powers. He claimed that this theory had been promoted by the German government's policy of selective publication of documents, aided and abetted by most German historians in a policy of "self-censorship". He praised Röhl for finding and publishing two previously secret documents that showed German responsibility for the war.


Backhouse frauds

In 1973, Trevor-Roper was invited to visit Switzerland to examine a manuscript entitled ''Decadence Mandchoue'' written by the
sinologist Sinology, or Chinese studies, is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of China primarily through Chinese philosophy, language, literature, culture and history and often refers to Western scholarship. Its origin "may be traced to the ex ...
Sir Edmund Backhouse (1873–1944) in a mixture of English, French, Latin and Chinese that had been in the custody of Reinhard Hoeppli, a Swiss diplomat who was the Swiss consul in Beijing during World War II. Hoeppli, given ''Decadence Mandchoue'' in 1943 by his friend Backhouse, had been unable to publish it owing to its sexually explicit content. But by 1973 looser censorship and the rise of the gay rights movement meant a publisher was willing to release ''Decadence Mandchoue'' to the market. However, before doing so they wanted Trevor-Roper, who as a former MI6 officer was an expert on clandestine affairs, to examine some of the more outlandish claims contained in the text. For an example, Backhouse claimed in ''Decadence Mandchoue'' that the wives and daughters of British diplomats in Beijing had trained their dogs and tamed foxes to perform cunnilingus on them, which the fascistic Backhouse used as evidence of British "decadence", which in turn explained why he was supporting Germany and Japan in the Second World War. Trevor-Roper regarded ''Decadence Mandchoue'' with considerable distaste calling the manuscript "pornographic" and "obscene" as Backhouse related in graphic detail sexual encounters he claimed to have had with the French poet
Paul Verlaine Paul-Marie Verlaine (; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the '' fin de siècle'' in international and ...
, the Irish playwright
Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
, Wilde's lover
Lord Alfred Douglas Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (22 October 1870 – 20 March 1945), also known as Bosie Douglas, was an English poet and journalist, and a lover of Oscar Wilde. At Oxford he edited an undergraduate journal, ''The Spirit Lamp'', that carried a homoer ...
, the French poet
Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he start ...
, the Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, the British Prime Minister Lord Rosebery and the Empress Dowager Cixi of China whom the openly gay Backhouse had maintained had forced herself on him.Trevor-Roper, Hugh ''The Hermit of Peking'', New York: Alfred Knopf, 1976 pages 295–296. Backhouse also claimed to have been the friend of the Russian novelist
Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
and the French actress
Sarah Bernhardt Sarah Bernhardt (; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 or 23 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including ''La Dame Aux Cameli ...
. For the next two years, Trevor-Roper went on an odyssey that took him all over Britain, France, Switzerland, the United States, Canada and China as he sought to unravel the mystery of just who the elusive Backhouse was. Backhouse had between 1898 and his death in 1944 worked as a sinologist, the business agent for several British and American companies in China, a British spy, gun-runner and translator before finally ending his days in World War II China as a fascist and a Japanese collaborator who wished fervently for an Axis victory which would destroy Great Britain. Trevor-Roper noted that despite Backhouse's homosexuality and Nazi Germany's policy of persecuting homosexuals, Backhouse's intense hatred of his own country together with his sadistic-masochistic sexual needs meant that Backhouse longed to be "ravished and possessed by the brutal, but still perverted masculinity of the fascist ". The end result was one of Trevor-Roper's most successful later books, his 1976 biography of Backhouse, originally entitled ''A Hidden Life'' but soon republished in Britain and the US as ''The Hermit of Peking''. Backhouse had long been regarded as a world's leading expert on China. In his biography, Trevor-Roper exposed the vast majority of Sir Edmund's life-story and virtually all of his scholarship as a fraud. In ''Decadence Mandchoue'', Backhouse spoke of his efforts to raise money to pay the defence lawyers for Wilde while he was an undergraduate at Oxford. Trevor-Roper established that while Backhouse did indeed raise money for the Wilde defence fund, he spent it all on buying expensive jewellery, especially pearl necklaces, which were a special passion of Backhouse's. It was this embezzlement of the money Backhouse had raised for the Wilde defence fund that led to him fleeing Britain in 1895. The discrediting of Backhouse as a source led to much of China's history being re-written in the West. Backhouse had portrayed Prince Ronglu as a friend of the West and an enemy of the Boxers when the opposite was true. Trevor-Roper noted that in the "diary" of Ching Shan, which Backhouse claimed to have looted from Ching's house just before it was burned down by Indian troops in the
Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an Xenophobia, anti-foreign, anti-colonialism, anti-colonial, and Persecution of Christians#China, anti-Christian uprising in China ...
, it has Prince Ronglu saying in French about the government's support of the Boxers: "It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder."Trevor-Roper, Hugh, ''The Hermit of Peking'', New York: Alfred Knopf, 1976, page 203. Trevor-Roper argued that it was extremely unlikely that Prince Ronglu – who only knew Manchu and Mandarin – would be quoting a well-known French expression, but noted that Backhouse was fluent in French. Backhouse was fluent in Mandarin and
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...
, lived most of his life in Beijing and after moving to China had declined to wear western clothes, preferring instead the gown of a Chinese mandarin, which led most Westerners to assume that Backhouse "knew" China. Trevor-Roper noted that despite his superficial appearance of affection for the Chinese, much of what Backhouse wrote about on China worked subtly to confirm Western "
Yellow Peril The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racial color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the Western world. As a psychocultural menace from the Eastern world ...
" stereotypes, as Backhouse variously depicted the Chinese as pathologically dishonest, sexually perverted, morally corrupt and generally devious and treacherous – in short, Chinese civilization for Backhouse was a deeply sick civilization.


Oxford activities

In 1960, Trevor-Roper waged a successful campaign against the candidacy of Sir Oliver Franks who was backed by the heads of houses marshalled by Maurice Bowra, for the Chancellorship of the
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
, helping the then Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as " Supermac", ...
to be elected instead. In 1964, Trevor-Roper edited a ''
Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the ...
'' in honour of his friend Sir
Keith Feiling Sir Keith Grahame Feiling (7 September 1884 – 16 September 1977) was a British historian, biographer and academic. He was Chichele Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, 1946–1950. He was noted for his conservative interpre ...
's 80th birthday. In 1970, he was the author of ''The Letters of Mercurius'', a satirical work on the student revolts and university politics of the late 1960s, originally published as letters in ''
The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...
''.


Debates on African history

Another aspect of Trevor-Roper's outlook on history and on scholarly research that has inspired controversy, is his statement about the historical experiences of pre-literate societies. Following Voltaire's remarks on the fall of the Roman Empire at the hands of barbarian tribes, he asserted that Africa had no history prior to European exploration and colonisation. Africa is "no historical part of the World; it has no movement or development to exhibit". Trevor-Roper said "there is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness", its past "the unedifying gyrations of barbarous tribes in picturesque but irrelevant corners of the globe." These comments, recapitulated in a later article which called Africa "unhistoric", spurred intense debate between historians,
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...
s, sociologists, in the emerging fields of postcolonial and
cultural studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...
about the definition of "history". Historians have argued, in response, that historical myths of the kind perpetrated by Trevor-Roper need to be actively countered: "Only a process of counter-selection can correct this, and African historians have to concentrate on those aspects which were ignored by the disparaging mythologies". Many historians now argue, against Trevor-Roper, that historical evidence should also include
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and Culture, cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Traditio ...
s as well as written history, a former criterion for a society having left "
prehistory Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The us ...
". Critics of Trevor-Roper's claim have questioned the validity of systematic interpretations of the African past, whether by
materialist Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materiali ...
, Annalist or the traditional historical methods used by Trevor-Roper. Some say approaches which compare Africa with Europe or directly integrate it into European history cannot be accurate descriptions of African societies. Virtually all scholars now agree that Africa has a "history". Despite controversies over historical accuracy in oral records, as in
Alex Haley Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992) was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book '' Roots: The Saga of an American Family.'' ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and ...
's ''Roots'' book and popular TV mini-series, African griots, or oral memoirists, provided a historical oral record.


"Hitler Diaries" hoax

The
nadir The nadir (, ; ar, نظير, naẓīr, counterpart) is the direction pointing directly ''below'' a particular location; that is, it is one of two vertical directions at a specified location, orthogonal to a horizontal flat surface. The direc ...
of his career came in 1983, when as a director of ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
'', Trevor-Roper (by now Baron Dacre of Glanton) made statements that authenticated the so-called
Hitler Diaries The Hitler Diaries (german: Hitler-Tagebücher) were a series of sixty volumes of journals purportedly written by Adolf Hitler, but forged by Konrad Kujau between 1981 and 1983. The diaries were purchased in 1983 for 9.3 million Deutsche ...
. Others were unsure: holocaust denier,
David Irving David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is an English author and Holocaust denier who has written on the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany. His works include '' The Destruction of Dresden'' (1 ...
, for example, initially decried them as forgeries but subsequently changed his mind and declared that they could be genuine, before finally stating that they were a forgery. Historians
Gerhard Weinberg Gerhard Ludwig Weinberg (born 1 January 1928) is a German-born American diplomatic and military historian noted for his studies in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. Weinberg is the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of History ...
and Eberhard Jäckel had also expressed doubt regarding the authenticity of the diaries. Within two weeks, forensic scientist Julius Grant demonstrated that the diaries were forgeries. The ensuing fiasco gave Trevor-Roper's enemies the opportunity to criticise him openly, while Trevor-Roper's initial endorsement of the diaries raised questions about his integrity: ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'', a newspaper to which he regularly contributed book reviews and of which he was an independent director, had already paid a considerable sum for the right to serialise the diaries if and only if they were genuine. Trevor-Roper explained that he had been given assurances (that turned out to be false) about how the diaries had come into the possession of their "discoverer", and about the age of the paper and ink used in them and of their authenticity. Nonetheless, this incident prompted the satirical magazine ''
Private Eye ''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satirical and current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely recognised for its prominent critici ...
'' to nickname him ''Hugh Very-Ropey'' (''Lord Lucre of Claptout''), or more concisely, Lord Facre. Despite the shadow this cast over his later career, he continued to write and publish and his work remained well received.


Election as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge

In 1980 at the age of 67, he became
Master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...
of
Peterhouse Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite o ...
, the oldest and smallest college in the
University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
. His election, which surprised his friends, was engineered by a group of fellows led by
Maurice Cowling Maurice John Cowling (6 September 1926 – 24 August 2005) was a British historian and a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. Early life Cowling was born in West Norwood, South London, son of Reginald Frederick Cowling (1901–1962), a patent agen ...
, then the leading Peterhouse historian. The fellows chose him because Cowling's reactionary clique thought he would be an arch-conservative who would oppose the admission of women. In the event, Trevor-Roper feuded constantly with Cowling and his allies, while launching a series of administrative reforms. Women were admitted in 1983 at his urging. The British journalist
Neal Ascherson Charles Neal Ascherson (born 5 October 1932) is a Scottish journalist and writer. He has been described by Radio Prague as "one of Britain's leading experts on central and eastern Europe". Ascherson is the author of several books on the history ...
summarised the quarrel between Cowling and Trevor-Roper as:
Lord Dacre, far from being a romantic Tory ultra, turned out to be an anti-clerical Whig with a preference for free speech over superstition. He did not find it normal that fellows should wear mourning on the anniversary of General Franco’s death, attend parties in SS uniform or insult black and Jewish guests at high table. For the next seven years, Trevor-Roper battled to suppress the insurgency of the Cowling clique ("a strong mind trapped in its own glutinous frustrations"), and to bring the college back to a condition in which students might actually want to go there. Neither side won this struggle, which soon became a campaign to drive Trevor-Roper out of the college by grotesque rudeness and insubordination.
In a review of Adam Sisman's 2010 biography of Trevor-Roper, the ''Economist'' wrote that the picture of Peterhouse in the 1980s was "startling", stating the college had become under Cowling's influence a sort of right-wing "lunatic asylum", who were determined to sabotage Trevor-Roper's reforms. In 1987 he retired complaining of "seven wasted years".


Festschrift

In 1981 a
Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the ...
was published in honour of Trevor-Roper, ''History and the Imagination''. Some of the contributors were Sir Geoffrey Elton, John Clive,
Arnaldo Momigliano Arnaldo Dante Momigliano (5 September 1908 – 1 September 1987) was an Italian historian of classical antiquity, known for his work in historiography, and characterised by Donald Kagan as "the world's leading student of the writing of history ...
, Frances Yates,
Jeremy Catto Robert Jeremy Adam Inch Catto (27 July 1939 – 17 August 2018) was a British historian who was a Rhodes fellow and tutor in Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford, where he was also senior dean. Catto was a Brackenbury Scholar in History at Bal ...
, Robert S. Lopez,
Michael Howard Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne (born Michael Hecht; 7 July 1941) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005. He previously held cabinet posit ...
,
David S. Katz David S. Katz FRHistS (born 1953) is Director of the History of Ideas Program and a member of the Department of History at Brandeis University and Professor Emeritus of early modern European history at Tel Aviv University in Israel, where he taug ...
, Dimitri Obolensky, J. H. Elliott,
Richard Cobb Richard Charles Cobb (20 May 1917 – 15 January 1996) was a British historian and essayist, and professor at the University of Oxford. He was the author of numerous influential works about the history of France, particularly the French R ...
, Walter Pagel, Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Valerie Pearl and
Fernand Braudel Fernand Braudel (; 24 August 1902 – 27 November 1985) was a French historian and leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects: ''The Mediterranean'' (1923–49, then 1949–66), ''Civilization and Capitalism'' ...
. The topics contributed by this group of American, British, French, Russian, Italian, Israeli, Canadian and German historians extended from whether the ''
Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Iliad'', ...
'' was a part of an oral tradition that was later written down, to the question of the responsibility for the
Jameson Raid The Jameson Raid (29 December 1895 – 2 January 1896) was a botched raid against the South African Republic (commonly known as the Transvaal) carried out by British colonial administrator Leander Starr Jameson, under the employment of Cecil ...
.


Personal life

On 4 October 1954, Trevor-Roper married Lady Alexandra Henrietta Louisa Howard-Johnston (9 March 1907 – 15 August 1997), eldest daughter of Field Marshal Earl Haig by his wife, the former Hon. Dorothy Maud Vivian. Lady Alexandra was a goddaughter of
Queen Alexandra Alexandra of Denmark (Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia; 1 December 1844 – 20 November 1925) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 22 January 1901 to 6 May 1910 as the wife of ...
and had previously been married to Rear-Admiral
Clarence Dinsmore Howard-Johnston Clarence may refer to: Places Australia * Clarence County, New South Wales, a Cadastral division * Clarence, New South Wales, a place near Lithgow * Clarence River (New South Wales) * Clarence Strait (Northern Territory) * City of Clarence, a l ...
, by whom she had had three children. There were no children by his marriage with her. Trevor-Roper was made a
life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...
in 1979 on the recommendation of
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
. He was raised to the
Peerage A peerage is a legal system historically comprising various hereditary titles (and sometimes non-hereditary titles) in a number of countries, and composed of assorted noble ranks. Peerages include: Australia * Australian peers Belgium * Be ...
on 27 September 1979, and was introduced to the House of Lords as Baron Dacre of Glanton, ''of Glanton in the
County of Northumberland Northumberland () is a ceremonial counties of England, county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Ab ...
''. He did not base his title on his surname, because "double-barrelled titles are an invention, and a monopoly, of
Wilsonian Wilsonianism, or Wilsonian idealism, is a certain type of foreign policy advice. The term comes from the ideas and proposals of President Woodrow Wilson. He issued his famous Fourteen Points in January 1918 as a basis for ending World War I and p ...
peers", and "under the rules of the
College of Arms The College of Arms, or Heralds' College, is a royal corporation consisting of professional officers of arms, with jurisdiction over England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some Commonwealth realms. The heralds are appointed by the British Sover ...
either Lord Trevor' or 'Lord Roper'would require him to change his surname to either 'Trevor' or 'Roper.'" On mentioning the family's connection to the Dacre title to his wife, who liked the sound of it, Trevor-Roper was persuaded to opt for the title of "Baron Dacre", despite staunch opposition from the ''suo jure'' 27th Baroness Dacre (née Brand). She had her cousin, Anthony Brand, 6th Viscount Hampden, "as titular head of the Brand family", inform Trevor-Roper that the Dacre title belonged to the Brand family "and no-one else should breach their monopoly", on the grounds of the title's antiquity of over six centuries. This high-handed treatment strengthened Trevor-Roper's resolve in the face of his initial ambivalence; he observed "why should the Brands be so 'proud', or so jealous, of a mere title... a gewgaw, which has been bandied intermittently from family to family for six centuries, without tradition or continuity or distinction (except for murder, litigation and extravagance) or, for the last 250 years, land? They only acquired this pretty toy, in 1829, because a Mr Brand, of whom nothing whatever is known, had married into the Trevor-Ropers (who had themselves acquired it by marrying into the Lennards). Now they behave as if they had owned it for six centuries and had a monopoly of it for ever. A fig for their stuffiness!" Notwithstanding objections, Trevor-Roper duly took the title of Baron Dacre of Glanton. In his last years he had suffered from failing eyesight, which made it difficult for him to read and write. He underwent cataract surgery and obtained a magnifying machine, which allowed him to continue writing. In 2002, at the age of 88, Trevor-Roper submitted a sizable article on Thomas Sutton, the founder of
Charterhouse School (God having given, I gave) , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , president ...
, to the ''
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'' in part with notes he had written decades earlier, which editor Brian Harrison praised as "the work of a master". Trevor-Roper suffered several other minor ailments related to his advanced age, but according to his stepson, "bore all his difficulties stoically and without complaint". That year, he was diagnosed with cancer and died on 26 January 2003 in a
hospice Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life b ...
in
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, aged 89.


Posthumous books

Five books by Trevor-Roper were published posthumously. The first was ''Letters from Oxford'', a collection of letters written by Trevor-Roper between 1947 and 1959 to his close friend the American art collector
Bernard Berenson Bernard Berenson (June 26, 1865 – October 6, 1959) was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book ''The Drawings of the Florentine Painters'' was an international success. His wife Mary is thought to have had a large ...
. The second book was 2006's ''Europe’s Physician'', a biography of Sir Theodore de Mayerne, the Franco-Swiss court physician to Henri IV,
James I James I may refer to: People *James I of Aragon (1208–1276) *James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327) *James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu *James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347) *James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...
and
Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...
. The latter work was largely completed by 1979, but for some unknown reasons was not finished. The third book was ''The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History'', a critique written in the mid-1970s of what Trevor-Roper regarded as the myths of Scottish nationalism. It was published in 2008. The fourth book collecting together some of his essays on ''History and the Enlightenment: Eighteenth Century Essays'' was published in 2010. The fifth book was ''The Wartime Journals'', edited by Richard Davenport-Hines, published in 2011. ''The Wartime Journals'' are from the journals that Trevor-Roper kept during his years in the Secret Intelligence Service.


Works

* ''Archbishop Laud, 1573–1645'', 1940. *
The Last Days of Hitler
', 1947 (revised editions followed, until the last in 1995) * "The Elizabethan Aristocracy: An Anatomy Anatomized," ''Economic History Review'' (1951) 3 No 3 pp. 279–29
in JSTOR
* ''Secret Conversations, 1941–1944'' (published later as '' Hitler's Table Talk, 1941–1944''), 1953. * ''Historical Essays'', 1957 (published in the United States in 1958 as ''Men and Events''). * "The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century", ''Past and Present'', Volume 16, 1959 pp. 31–64. * "Hitlers Kriegsziele", in ''Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitsgeschichte'', Volume 8, 1960 pp. 121–133, translated into English as "Hitler's War Aims" pages 235–250 from ''Aspects of the Third Reich'' edited by H.W. Koch, London: Macmillan Ltd, 1985. * "A. J. P. Taylor, Hitler and the War", ''Encounter'', Volume 17, July 1961 pp. 86–96. * "E. H. Carr's Success Story", ''Encounter'', Volume 84, Issue No 104, 1962 pp. 69–77. *
Blitzkrieg to Defeat: Hitler's War Directives, 1939–1945
', 1964, 1965. * ''Essays in British history presented to Sir Keith Feiling'' edited by H.R. Trevor-Roper; with a foreword by Lord David Cecil (1964) * ''The Rise of Christian Europe'' (History of European Civilization series), 1965. * ''Hitler's Place in History'', 1965. * ''The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century: Religion, the Reformation, and Social Change, and Other Essays'', 1967. * ''The Age of Expansion, Europe and the World, 1559–1600'', edited by Hugh Trevor-Roper, 1968. * ''The Philby Affair: Espionage, Treason and Secret Services'', 1968. * ''The Romantic Movement and the Study of History: the John Coffin memorial lecture delivered before the University of London on 17 February 1969'', 1969. * ''The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries'', 1969 * ''The Plunder of the Arts in the Seventeenth Century'', 1970. * ''The Letters of Mercurius'', 1970. (London: John Murray) * ''Queen Elizabeth's First Historian: William Camden and the Beginning of English "Civil History",'' 1971. * "Fernand Braudel, the ''Annales'', and the Mediterranean," ''The Journal of Modern History'' Vol. 44, No. 4, December 1972 * "Foreword" pages 9–16 from ''1914: Delusion or Design The Testimony of Two German Diplomats'' edited by John Röhl, 1973. * ''A Hidden Life: The Enigma of Sir Edmund Backhouse'' (published in the US, and in later Eland editions in the UK, as ''The Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse''), 1976. * ''Princes and Artists: Patronage and Ideology at Four Habsburg Courts, 1517–1633'', 1976. * ''History and Imagination: A Valedictory Lecture Delivered before the University of Oxford on 20 May 1980'', 1980. * ''Renaissance Essays'', 1985. * ''Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans: Seventeenth Century Essays'', 1987. * ''The Golden Age of Europe: From Elizabeth I to the Sun King'', edited by Hugh Trevor-Roper, 1987. * ''From Counter-Reformation to Glorious Revolution'', 1992. * ''Edward Gibbon – The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', vol. 1 introduction (London: Everyman's Library, 1993). * ''Letters from Oxford: Hugh Trevor-Roper to Bernard Berenson''. Edited by Richard Davenport-Hines. L.: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006, . * ''Europe’s Physician: The Various Life of Sir Theodore De Mayerne'', 2007, . * ''The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History'', 2008, * ''History and the Enlightenment: Eighteenth Century Essays'', 2010,


Primary sources

* '' Letters from Oxford: Hugh Trevor-Roper to Bernard Berenson'' edited by Richard Davenport-Hines (2007) * ''My Dear Hugh: Letters from Richard Cobb to Hugh Trevor-Roper and Others'' edited by Tim Heald (2011) B does not contain any letters written by Trevor-Roper* ''One Hundred Letters From Hugh Trevor-Roper,'' edited by Richard Davenport-Hines, and Adam Sisman (2013
except and text search
Corrected paperback edition, 2015. * ''The Wartime Journals: Hugh Trevor-Roper'', Edited by Richard Davenport-Hines, 2011 . Corrected paperback edition, 2015. * Dacre made an extended appearance on the television programme '' After Dark'' in 1989
List of After Dark editions '' After Dark'' is a British late night television discussion programme, produced by Open Media. It was broadcast weekly on Channel 4 between 1 May 1987 and 6 April 1991, and returned with various specials between 1993 and 1997. The programme ...
(Series 3, episode 1, 13 May 1989 ''Out of Bounds'')


See also

* List of books by or about Adolf Hitler *
Historiography of the United Kingdom The historiography of the United Kingdom includes the historical and archival research and writing on the history of the United Kingdom, Great Britain, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. For studies of the overseas empire see historiog ...


Notes


References

* * ** * * * * * * * ; published in North America as * * Discussion of H. R. Trevor-Roper: "The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century" pages 8–42 from '' Past and Present'', No. 18, November 1960 with contributions from
Roland Mousnier Roland Émile Mousnier (; Paris, September 7, 1907– February 8, 1993, Paris) was a French historian of the early modern period in France and of the comparative studies of different civilizations. Life Mousnier was born in Paris and recei ...
, J. H. Elliott, Lawrence Stone, H. R. Trevor-Roper, E. H. Kossmann,
E. J. Hobsbawm Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work. ...
and
J. H. Hexter Jack H. Hexter (May 25, 1910 – December 8, 1996) was an American historian, a specialist in Tudor and seventeenth century British history, and well known for his comments on historiography. Hexter was a member of both the American Academy of ...
.


Further reading

* *


External links

; About Trevor-Roper * * Michael Knox Beran
H. R. Trevor-Roper, R.I.P
nationalreview.com, 31 January 2003. * * Barnard, T. (Faculty of History, University of Oxford

''History Faculty Alumni Newsletter'', No. 1, April 2003. * * (there are several discrepancies between these sources) * * * * * * * * * ; By Trevor-Roper * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Trevor-Roper, Hugh 1914 births 2003 deaths Intelligence Corps officers Military personnel from Northumberland British Army personnel of World War II 20th-century English historians Academic scandals Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Deaths from cancer in England Dacre of Glanton Deaths from esophageal cancer Fellows of Christ Church, Oxford Fellows of Merton College, Oxford Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Historical Society Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Historians of Nazism Masters of Peterhouse, Cambridge People educated at Charterhouse School People from Northumberland Regius Professors of History (University of Oxford) People educated at Belhaven Hill School Fellows of the British Academy