FTP, identify this British author, whose masterpiece, covering 13 centuries from the Antonines to the taking of Constantinople in 1413, is th  e History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
After he entered the Roman Catholic church, his father sent him to Switzerland to be tutored by a Calvinist; while there, he fell in love with the future wife of Jacques Necker, but his fatherÕs disapproval prevented their marriage. A colonel in the  Hampshire militia, he entered parliament in 1774, becoming Lord NorthÕs commissioner of trade five years later. FTP, identify this British author, whose masterpiece, covering 13 centuries from the Antonines to the taking of Constantinople in 1413, is th  e History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
After he entered the Roman Catholic church, his father sent him to Switzerland to be tutored by a Calvinist; while there, he fell in love with the future wife of Jacques Necker, but his fatherÕs disapproval prevented their marriage.
Edward Gibbon