ABSTRACT
[After the defeat of Melbourne’s ministry in August 1841, Macaulay’s political life became less busy and he resumed his work on the History of England. In September 1841 he moved into chambers in the Albany, close to the Club and to Parliament, but also to the British Museum. So absorbed was he by his historical work that he neglected the needs of his Edinburgh constituents and was haughtily neutral in the religious disputes which accompanied the Disruption of the Kirk, though he offended many by voting for Peel’s efforts to conciliate the Irish Catholics by doubling the grant to the Catholic Seminary at Maynooth. On Peel’s fall he had the minor post of Paymaster General in Russell’s ministry, but defeat at Edinburgh in the general election of July 1847 was a relief, as it enabled him to finish the first two volumes of the History. He took up the Journal again when he had finished reading the proofs of those volumes and was awaiting the first reviews.]
