Thomas Carte
English historian
Thomas or John Carte (1686–1754) was an English historian with Jacobite sympathies, who served as a Church of England clergyman.
Life
Carte was born in 1686 near Clifton upon Dunsmore (itself near Rugby), the eldest son of the antiquarian Samuel Carte. He matriculated at University College, Oxford in 1698, and took his degree from Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1702, and an MA from King's College, Cambridge, in 1706.
Carte first became known for the controversy that opposed him to Henry Chandler, father of Samuel Chandler, regarding the role played by King Charles I in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. This controversy started with a sermon Carte preached at the Abbey Church in Bath in 1714, where he was a reader. In this sermon Carte defended King Charles I against the accusation that he was in league with Phelim O'Neill who pretended to act on a (probably false) royal commission issued.
His attachment to the Stuarts also caused him to remain a non-juror. He was ordained around 1714, and in that year refused to take the Oath of Allegiance. On the discovery of the plot of Francis Atterbury, whose secretary he was, he was accused of high treason in 1722 and was forced to flee to France adopting the name of Philips.
There he collected materials for illustrating a London edition of the Historium sui temporis of Jacques Auguste de Thou planned by Samuel Buckley.
“Thomas Carte” enters the record as english historian. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thomas, Carte and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3401937. VIAF identifies the subject as 34794161. The Library of Congress control number is n85099866. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1686, 1754, 1698 and 1702.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Carte” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.