Butler, Charles

BUTLER, CHARLES: English Roman Catholic layman; nephew of Alban Butler; b. in London Aug. 14, 1750; d. there June 2, 1832. He studied at Douai, and for many years was a leading lawyer of London. He was prominent in the movement to secure the repeal of the laws against Roman Catholics; in regard to the hierarchy and the relations of English Catholics to the pope he was an extreme Gallican, and found bitter opponents in the vicars-apostolic in England. He was a voluminous writer; among the more important of his works are Horæ biblicæ (2 pts., London, 1797–1802); Historical Memoirs respecting the English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics from the Reformation (4 vols., 1819–21); Reminiscences (1822); The Book of the Roman Catholic Church (1825); biographies of Alban Butter (1800), Fénelon (1811), Erasmus (1825), Grotius (1826), and others. He continued his uncle's Lives of the Saints.