MANNING, Henry Edward. — Cardinal and Archbishop of Westminster, b. 15 July 1808 at Torrington, d. at Westminster 14 Jan. 1892. Of distinguished family and particularly attached to the High Church, he grew up in an environment that was entirely anti-Catholic. Although at Harrow School (with latitudinarian tendencies) he had shown more passion for horses than for books, at 19, with the help of John Anderson, he entered Balliol College, Oxford, where he first revealed signs of that strength of will which distinguished him in life. The motto which he then adopted, aut Caesar aut nihil, manifested the lofty aspirations of the young twenty-year-old, whose political career was cut short by his father’s financial ruin (1831).
Entering ecclesiastical life, he immediately achieved success: ordained on 23 Dec. 1832, he soon became parish priest at Lavington, where he married the daughter of his predecessor, Carolina Sargent. Widowed early and without children, he was recommended to the new Bishop of Chichester, who appointed him archdeacon (1841). In these offices he distinguished himself by his zeal in support of Anglican missions and especially by his oratorical gifts, which he displayed in speeches during the decade 1840–50.
The High Church, threatened by the “Oxford Movement” (q.v.), believed Manning to be a support and defender; in reality, a profound inner transformation was maturing within the brilliant archdeacon. Though opposed to the “Romanizing” tendency of Newman and Pusey, he accepted from the two thinkers certain principles (especially concerning the authority and teaching office of the Church) that were necessarily to lead him to Rome. At the time of Newman’s conversion (1845), Manning was one of the most vehement in condemning it; indeed, he was entrusted with the task of refuting An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (Oxford 1845). It was precisely in this work that Manning experienced within himself that psychological change against which he had resolved to fight. The idea that Anglicanism was a return to pure Gospel found no further support in reality.