Henry Hallam Froude

“ His old college perceived that he was a credit, not a disgrace to it, and the Rector of Exeter* courteously invited him to replace his name on the books. The Committee of the Athenaeum elected him an honorary member of the Club. Even the Archdeacon, now a very old man, discovered at last that his youngest son was an honour to the name of Froude. He knew something of ecclesiastical history, and he understood that the character of Henry, which certainly left much to be desired, might have been blackened of set purpose by ecclesiastical historians. Froude's reputation was made. ”

“ These, he states, he intends to publish, with additions from his own reading, as soon as he has brought his history down to the end of Henry the Eighth’s reign.
But Mr. Froude’s chief text-book seems to have been State Papers and Acts of Parliament. He has begun his work in the only temper in which a man can write accurately and well; in a temper of trust toward the generation whom he describes. The only temper; for if a man has no affection for the characters of whom he reads, he will never understand them; if he has no respect for his subject, he will never take the trouble to exhaust it. ”

“ Then he sent for one Master Sumner and Master Bets, fellows and canons there. In the meantime he gave me a very godly exhortation, praying God to give us all the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of doves, for we should shortly have much need thereof. When Master Sumner and Master Bets came, he caused me to declare again the whole matter to them two. Then desiring them to tell our other brethren in that college, I went to Corpus Christi College, to comfort our brethren there, where I found in Diet's chamber, looking for me, Fitzjames, Diet, and Udal. ”

“ This partisanship, which called forth severe at tacks, notably in Canon Dixon's 'History of the Church of England' and Father Gasquet's 'Henry VIII and the Monasteries,' and the carelessness with which Froude not infrequently used his authorities, impair the effect of his great endeavour. Among the most enthusiastic admirers of his 'History' was Froude's friend Kingsley, and Kingsley's eulogy of it in 'Macmillan's Magazine' for January 1860 contained his first challenge to Newman. In 1869, when Froude was rector of St. ”

“ Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, the younger son of Henry Hallam, Esq., was born on the 31st of August 1824; he took his second name from his godfather, the Marquis of Lansdowne.... A habit of reserve, which characterized him at all periods of life, but which was compensated in the eyes of even his first companions by a singular sweetness of temper, was produced and fostered by the serious thoughtfulness ensuing upon early familiarity with domestic sorrow. ”

“ But it was real enough twenty years ago, when people who never read books of any kind thought that Froude was the name of the man that whitewashed Henry VIII. and blackened Carlyle. Froude would probably have been happier if he had turned upon his assailants once for all, as he once finally and decisively turned upon Freeman. Freeman, however, was an open enemy. A false friend is a more difficult person to dispose of, and even to deny the charge of deliberate treachery hardly consistent with self-respect. Long before Froude died the clamour against him had by all decent people been dropped. ”

“ In that fell strife of mighty opposites the voice of toleration was not raised, and would not have been heard. Tyrant as he was himself, Henry in his battle against Rome did represent the English people, and his cause was theirs. Froude brought out this great truth, and to bring it out was a great service. Unfortunately he went too far the other way, and impartial readers who had no sympathy with Cardinal Campeggio were revolted by what looked like a defence of cruel persecution. The welfare of a nation is more important in history than the observance of any marriage ”

“ If Jack were insane enough to marry her she would wash her hands of him and send him off to that orange grove, where she had heard there was a little dilapidated house in which he could try to live on the climate and one hundred a year. Some such thoughts as these were passing through Lady Gresham’s mind, while Mrs. Haynes was thinking of Grace’s perversity in encouraging young Travis, and of Reginald Hallam, from whom Mrs. Hallam had that morning had a letter and who was coming to Aix earlier than he had intended doing. ”

“ He is seldom ungenerous in his references to [xiii] individual Catholics, however mistaken in his sight their opinions may have been. With Wolsey and Warham, Fisher and More, even with Gardiner and Bonner he deals fairly and with some amount of real sympathy. The heroic death of Campian moves him to pity just as much as the death of Latimer; the strenuous labours of Father Parsons to overthrow Elizabeth and Protestantism failed to remove him beyond the pale of Froude's charitable judgment. One English Catholic alone was reserved for the historian's harsh and sometimes petulant criticism. ”

“ He was not more favourable to Henry VIII. than Stubbs was to Thomas à Becket. But Froude openly avowed his preferences and his dislikes. Catholicism was to him "a dying superstition," Protestantism "a living truth." Freeman went further, and charged Froude with having written a history which was not "un livre de bonne joy." It is only necessary to recall the circumstances under which the History was written to dispose of that odious charge. In order to obtain material for his History, Froude spent years of his life in the little Spanish village of Simancas. ”

“ Peto and one Friar Elstowe of Canterbury, being the only men that have and do take upon themselves to be conveyers of the same books into England, and conveyers of all other things into and out of England. If privy search be made, and shortly, peradventure in the house of the same bishop shall be found his first copy. Master More hath sent oftentimes and lately books unto Peto, in Antwerp—as his book of the confutation of Tyndal, and of Frith's opinion of the sacrament, with divers other books. ”

“ So dangerous is the quality of imagination in a writer!
Truth to tell, Froude was a literary man with a fondness for historical investigation, and an artist's passion for the dramatic in life and story. He wrote with a purpose—that purpose being to defend the English Reformation against the attacks of the neo-Catholic-Anglicans, under whose influence he had himself been for a time in his youth. To him, therefore, Henry VIII. was "the majestic lord who broke the bonds of Rome." This is not the occasion, nor is the present writer the man, to analyse that complex and masterful [xvii] personality. ”

“ The tone in which he wrote was at least humane, and must pass for more than an expression of natural kindness, when it is remembered that he was addressing a person with whom tenderness for heresy was a crime.
"These youths," he said, "have not been long conversant with Master Garret, nor have greatly perused his mischievous books; and long before Master Garret was taken, divers of them were weary of these works, and delivered them to Dalaber. I am marvellous sorry for the young men. ”

“ The Bishop of Rochester held aloof from such tendencies, and Warham, though he signed the address of the House of Lords to the pope, regretted the weakness to which he had yielded: but in the other prelates there was little seriousness of conviction; and the constitution of the bench had been affected also by the preferment of Gardiner and Edward Lee to two of the sees made vacant by the death of Wolsey. Both these men had been active agents in the prosecution of the divorce ”

“ Hallam smiled, wanly, "I won't scare you by saying what then, girlie. If He did, I suppose it would all be right. Everything is right—to the folks who don't have to suffer the thing. Even the doctor—and I liked him as much as I envied him—even he preached to me and bade me not to mind, to 'forget.' Hmm, I wish he could feel, just for one little minute, the helplessness that I must feel always, eternally." ”

“ Rex looked at her inquiringly, but before he could ask what she meant, they turned a corner and came upon Jack Travis, who joined them, and on hearing that Rex was from New York began to ask after his orange grove, as if he thought Reginald passed it daily on his way to his business.
“What a stupid you are!” Grace said. “Mr. Hallam never saw an orange grove in his life. Why, you could put three or four United Kingdoms into the space between New York and Florida.” ”

“ Henry's own words upon the subject are very striking:—
"All such issue male as I have received of the queen died incontinent after they were born, so that I doubt the punishment of God in that behalf. Thus being troubled in waves of a scrupulous conscience, and partly in despair of any issue male by her, it drove me at last to consider the estate of this realm, and the danger it stood in for lack of issue male to succeed me in this imperial dignity."—CAVENDISH, p. 220.
123 "If a man shall take his brother's wife it is an unclean thing. ”

“ It is absurd to attack Froude on the ground that he was biassed. No man has ever yet written a living history without being biassed. Thucydides detested the radicalism of Cleon as heartily as Gibbon hated the Christianity of Rome. It was once the fashion of the Oxford school to decry Froude as being unworthy of the name of historian. ”

“ History deals, and can only deal, with consequences and results. Motives and Intentions, however interesting, belong to another sphere. Henry and Cromwell, Mary and Pole, Elizabeth and Cecil, are tried in Froude's pages by the simple test of what they did, or failed to do, for England. Froude detested and despised the cosmopolitan philosophy which regards patriotic sentiment as a relic of barbarism. He was not merely an historian of England, but also an English historian; and holding Fisher to be a traitor, he did not hesitate to justify the execution of a pious, even saintly man. ”

“ I try him in many ways. He says I am a fool, and that I only care for his money, and if he gives me all I want I ought to be satisfied. Just now he is very good,—so good, in fact, that I wonder if he isn’t going to die. I believe he thinks I am, I am so weak and tired. I have not told you, have I, that we, too, are going to Europe before long? Switzerland is our objective point, but if I can I will persuade Fred to go to Aix, where you will be. That will be jolly. I wonder if your Mrs. Hallam can be Rex’s aunt.”
“Did you ever see her?” Bertha asked, and Louie replied:
“Only in the distance. ”

“ Among essayists he had a special liking for Froude, Matthew Arnold and Edmund Gosse. He often turned for refreshment to Froude's "Short Studies," and felt the fascination of his "Erasmus." In his essay on the Book of Job, Froude writes: "Happiness is not what we are to look for; our place is to be true to the best which we know ”

“ He inspired another to write of Hildebrand; he himself wrote of the great Becket who was honoured, we know, by Henry VIII. with a hatred highly intelligent and quaintly contemporary; he notes more than once how Henry VIII.’s tyrannising work, yet active, was in many respects the very work attempted by Henry II., against whose ideals S. Thomas of Canterbury flung his influence and his life. On these topics of incalculable importance, Froude laid his pausing finger. He never occupied himself for one moment with accidents and incidentals. ”

“ Strength is not greatness, and Melbourne must not be taken literally. What can be pleaded for Henry, without paradox and with truth, is that he imposed upon Catholic and Protestant alike the supremacy of the law. Froude preached the subordination of the Church to the State; and while supporters of the voluntary principle regarded him with suspicion, adherents to the sacerdotal principle shrank from him with horror. ”

“ In business an Englishman throws over politeness. He says, “How do you do?” very much as if he was saying, “Leave me alone;” and he is not inclined to answer questions, save, by “yes” or “no.” Elizabeth perceived at once that tears or weakness would damage her cause, and that the only way to meet Antony’s wrong was to repair it, and to do this in the plainest and simplest manner possible.
“I am Miss Hallam.”
“Take a seat, Miss Hallam.”
“You hold two notes of my brothers, one purporting to be drawn by Lord Eltham for L9,000; the other by Squire Francis Horton for L9,600.” ”

“ Peto laboureth busylier than a bee in the setting forth of this book. He never ceaseth running to and from the court here. The king never had in his realm traitors like his friars— [Vaughan wrote "clergy." The word in the original is dashed through, and "friars" is substituted, whether by Cromwell or by himself in an afterthought, I do not know] —and so I have always said, and yet do. Let his Grace look well about him, for they seek to devour him. They have blinded his Grace." ”

“ There was something in Rex’s voice and manner 127which told Bertha that he was not to be trifled with, and she replied, “I take my meals in the servants’ hall, or rather with the maids and nurses and couriers. It is not bad when you are accustomed to it,” she added, as she saw the blackness on Reginald’s face and the wrath in his eyes. They had now reached the door of Mrs. Hallam’s room, and Mrs. Hallam was just leaving the elevator in company with Mrs. Haynes, who very wisely went into her own apartment and left her friend to meet the storm alone. ”