Carte

Carte, THOMAS, historian, was born in 1686 at Clifton-upon-Dunsmore, near Rugby, Warwickshire, where his father was vicar. Educated at University College, Oxford (1698–1702), he took his M.A. both there and at Cambridge, and receiving holy orders in 1707, was appointed reader at the Abbey Church, Bath. In 1714, however, being strongly attached to the Stuarts, he resigned his office rather than take the oaths to the Hanoverian government. In 1722 he was suspected of complicity in the conspiracy of Bishop Atterbury, whose secretary he was, and £1000 was offered for his apprehension; but he escaped to France, where he remained till 1728. After his return, he published a Life of James, Duke of Ormonde (2 vols. 1736), more full than lively, and a History of England (4 vols. 1747–55), bringing it down to the year 1654. The prospects of this work were blighted by an unlucky note in vol. i., ascribing to the Pretender the gift of touching for the king's evil. It is very valuable for its wealth of original materials, but the author had not the capacity to grapple with these philosophically. Hume and other historians, however, were much indebted to him for their facts. Among Carte's other works was an edition of Thuanus (De Thou, q. v.); and at his death, on 7th April 1754, he left behind him 20 folio and 15 quarto volumes of MSS. in further illustration of the history of England to 1688, which are preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.