Hugh Ross Williamson

Hugh Ross Williamson (1901–1978) was a prolific British popular historian, and a dramatist. Starting from a career in the literary world, and having a Nonconformist background, he became an Anglican priest in 1943.

In 1955 he converted to Roman Catholicism and wrote many historical works in a Catholic apologist tone. In 1956, he published his autobiography, The Walled Garden. Ross Williamson was critical of the reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council.

Works

• The poetry of T. S. Eliot (1932)
• John Hampden: a life (1933)
• Rose and glove: a play (1934)
• After the event: a play in one act (1935)
• King James I (1935)
• Gods and mortals in love (1936)
• The seven deadly virtues; In a glass darkly; Various heavens: a play sequence. (1936)
• Cinderella's grandchild: a play in one act (1936)
• Mr Gladstone: a play in three acts (1937)
• Stories from history: ten plays for schools (1938)
• Who is for liberty? (1939)
• George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham: study for a biography (1940)
• A.D. 33: a tract for the times (1941)
• Captain Thomas Schofield (1942)
• Paul, a bond slave: a radio play (1945)
• Charles and Cromwell (1946)
• The arrow and the sword: an essay in detection (1947)
• Queen Elizabeth: a play in three acts (1947)
• The story without an end (1947)
• Were you there ... ?: six meditations for Holy Week (1947)
• A wicked pack of cards (1947)
• The silver bowl (1948)
• The seven Christian virtues (1949)
• Four Stuart portraits (1949)
• The evidence for the Gunpowder Plot (1950)
• The Gunpowder Plot (1951)
• Sir Walter Raleigh (1951)
• Conversation with a ghost (1952)
• Jeremy Taylor (1952)
• The story without an end (1953)
• The ancient capital: an historian in search Of Winchester (1953)
• Canterbury Cathedral (1953)
• The children's book of British saints (1953)
• His eminence of England: a play in two acts (1953)
• The children's book of French saints (1954)
• The children's book of Italian saints (1955)
• The great prayer: concerning the canon of the Mass (1955)
• James: by the grace of God (1955)
• Historical whodunits (1955)
• The walled garden: an autobiography (1956)
• The beginning of the English Reformation (1957)
• Enigmas of history (1957)
• The day they killed the king (1957)
• The challenge of Bernadette (1958)
• The children's book of German saints (1958)
• The sisters (1958)
• The children's book of patron saints (1959)
• The conspirators and the crown (1959)
• Young people's book of the saints (1960)
• Teresa of Avila (1961)
• The day Shakespeare died (1961)
• The flowering hawthorn (1962)
• Guy Fawkes (1964)
• The modern Mass: a reversion to the reforms of Cranmer (1969)
• The cardinal in England (1970)
• The Florentine woman (1970)
• The last of the Valois (1971)
• Paris is worth a mass (1971)
• Kind Kit: an informal biography of Christopher Marlowe (1972)
• Catherine de' Medici (1973)
• Lorenzo the Magnificent (1974)
• Historical enigmas (1974)
• The princess a nun!: a novel without fiction (1978; completed by Julian Rathbone)