[1] He was educated at Harrow School and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he obtained a First in both parts of the Historical Tripos, as well as winning academic prizes.
He was much influenced by Herbert Butterfield and admired his scepticism towards received wisdom in historical interpretations.
He admired Pope Pius XII's definition of the Assumption of Mary and converted to Catholicism in 1955.
[1] Wormald specialised in seventeenth-century English history, and his first work was a study of Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, which was published in 1951.
[3] He married Rosemary, the sister of Lord Lloyd, in 1946 and they had four sons, one of whom was the historian Patrick Wormald.