He was born in Glanton, Northumberland, England, the son of a
doctor, and educated at Charterhouse and at Christ Church,
Oxford in Classics and Modern History, later moving to Merton
College, Oxford to be a research fellow. His home was a place
largely devoid of affection, books and intellectual interests.
Trevor-Roper took a first in Classical Moderations in 1934 and
won the Craven, the Ireland and the Hertford scholarships in
Classics. Initially Trevor-Roper intended to make his career in
the Classics, but he became bored with what he regarded as the
pedantic technical aspects of the Greats course at Oxford, and
instead switched to History, where he obtained another first in
1936.. Trevor-Roper's first book was his 1940 biography of
Archbishop William Laud, in which Trevor-Roper challenged many
of the prevailing perceptions surrounding Laud. For Trevor-
Roper, the major themes of early modern Europe were those of
intellectual vitality, religious quarrels and of divergence
between Protestant and Catholic stat