BUTLER, CHARLES

English Catholic lay leader; b. London, Aug. 14, 1750; d. there, June 2, 1832. He was the son of a merchant and the nephew of Alban butler the hagiographer. After studying in France at Esquerchin and douai, concentrating on rhetoric (1759–66), he returned to England for legal studies (1769–75). Since Catholics were banned from full participation in the courts, he practiced law as a conveyancer. After the Catholic Relief Act of 1791, he became the first Catholic lawyer to be called to the bar since 1688. In 1830 he was appointed king's counsel. Butler was active in the movement for Catholic emanci pation, beginning in 1782 when he was named secretary to the committee of Catholic laymen formed to promote abolition of the penal laws. Butler's approach to the emancipation question was a controverted one, because he consistently took the position that only through concessions to the government, especially by permitting it a power of veto over the appointment of bishops, could full emancipation be attained. In this stand he met vigorous opposition from Bp. John milner, Daniel o'connell, and the Irish hierarchy. In 1792 Butler helped to organize the Cisalpine Club, which sought to thwart the prelates who opposed compromise and favored waiting until complete freedom of religion seemed likely to be granted. After the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Act (1829), Butler retracted publicly some of his earlier statements and admitted their unorthodoxy. Throughout his life he was a devout, ascetic Catholic. Butler's writings ranged over a wide area. He published studies of Roman law, lives of 17th-century Catholic writers, and critiques of Muḥammadan and Hindu literature. His best-known work was the Historical Memoirs of the English, Irish and Scottish Catholics since the Reformation (4 v. 1819–21).

Bibliography: b. n. ward, The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England, 1781–1803, 2 v. (New York 1909); The Eve of Catholic Emancipation, 3 v. (London 1911–12). f. c. husenbeth, The Life of the Right Rev. John Milner (Dublin 1862). e. bonney and m. haile, Life and Letters of John Lingard (London 1911). A Literary and Biographical History or Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics from 1534 to the Present Time 1:355–364, for Butler's writings. t. cooper, The Dictionary of National Biography from the Earliest Times to 1900 3:497–499.

[a. j. bannan]