Acton and Butterfield

Abstract

Some may wonder why Acton is a suitable subject for a Butterfield Lecture. People who knew Butterfield's writing will not wonder. He was fascinated by Acton's mind. He did not quite like Acton's mind. Yet something in Acton was so powerful to Butterfield that it needed arguing with all the time. In some ways you can say that Butterfield spent a lot of his historical life arguing with Acton, even though he was born only just before Acton died. Sir Geoffrey Elton said in his first Butterfield Memorial Lecture that he, Elton, much regretted Butterfield's obsession with Acton. He said that Acton was an ‘unproductive monument’ who really deserves ‘honourable oblivion'. ‘I could wish’, he told you here two years ago, ‘that after 1931 Butterfield had forgotten about Acton. He wasted much time, effort and subtlety, in that doomed enterprise to make something of a bogus enigma.’