James Anthony Froude

“ In the general good-humour punishment could not be of long duration. The next day the poor chaplain had his absolution, and returned to his berth and his duty. The Pelican met with no more adventures. Sweeping in fine clear weather round the Cape of Good Hope, she touched once for water at Sierra Leone, and finally sailed in triumph into Plymouth Harbour, where she had been long given up for lost, having traced the first furrow round the globe. Winter had come home eighteen months before, but could report nothing. The news of the doings on the American coast had reached England through Madrid. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He had already persuaded the King to allow the Princess to move nearer to Kimbolton, where her mother's physician could have charge of her. He sent thanks to Charles in the King's name for his interference with the Holy Office. He left nothing undone to soften the friction and prepare for a reconciliation. Catherine and Mary he perceived to be the only obstacle to a return to active friendship. If the broken health of one, and the acute illness of the other, should have a fatal termination, as a politician he could not but feel that it would be an obstacle happily removed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I said I wished that more of his countrymen would come and settle in Jamaica as he had done and a few others already. American energy would be like new blood in the veins of the poor island. He answered that many would probably come if they could be satisfied that there would be no more political experimenting; but they would not risk their capital if there was a chance of a black parliament. ”

“ To the end Froude remained an historian, and an historian he was born. If we regret that his history was not general, and that he turned his powers upon such a restricted set of phenomena, still we must rejoice that there was once in modern England a man who could sum up the nature of a great movement. ”

“ The point really at stake was, whether the interests of the English nation could be trusted any longer to a judge who was degrading his office by allowing himself to be influenced by personal fears and interests; who, when called on to permit sentence to be delivered, by delegates whom he had himself appointed, yet confessed himself unable, or unwilling, to decide whether it should be delivered or not. Abstractly Henry's demand was right. A marriage with a brother's wife was not lawful, and no Papal dispensation could make it so ”

“ They will not profit in the fire; they will profit thee; I have no more to give now but the example of my death. Think well on that. It seems to be dreadful; but it is the gate of eternal life.'
The bishops killed him, hoping that they had done service both to God and to themselves. It seemed that they had failed. From each drop of his blood sprung up a fresh heretic. But as in England, so in Scotland, it was rare that men of the rank of Patrick Hamilton went astray after his example. Among the poorer commons chiefly 'the new learning' found a home. ”

“ Yes, if Mr. Froude had, throughout his volume, spoken in this strain, his occasional want of patience and fairness with regard to our male kindred might have found condonation in his even more than chivalrous appreciation of our womankind. But it has been otherwise. So we are forced to try conclusions with him in the arena of his own selection—unreflecting spokesman that he is of British colonialism, which, we grieve to learn through Mr. Froude's pages, has, like the Bourbon family, not only forgotten nothing, but, unfortunately for its own peace, learnt nothing also. ”

“ Most noble, spirited, and like a queen. Yet she would never have been brought to this extremity, and she would have shown a truer nobleness, if four years before she could have yielded at the pope's entreaty on the first terms which were proposed to her. Those terms would have required no humiliating confessions; they would have involved no sentence on her marriage nor touched her daughter's legitimacy. She would have broken no law of God, nor seemed to break it. She was required only to forget her own interests ”

“ Outside the royal house there were the still popular representatives of the White Rose, the Marquis of Exeter, who was Edward IV.’s grandson; the Countess of Salisbury, daughter of Edward’s brother the Duke of Clarence, and sister of the murdered Earl of Warwick; and Henry’s life was the only obstacle between the collision of these opposing pretensions. James, it was quite certain, would not be allowed to succeed without a struggle. National rivalry forbade it. Yet it was no less certain that he would try, and would probably be backed by France. ”

“ There Campeggio waited on him, accompanied by Wolsey. The weather continued to frown. "I wish," wrote Gerardo Molza to the Marchioness of Mantua, "that you could have seen the two Cardinals abreast, one on his mule, the other carried in his chair, the rain falling fast so that we were all drenched." The King, simple man, believed that the documents which he held secured him. The Pope in sending the Legate had acted in the teeth of the Emperor's prohibition, and no one guessed how the affair had been soothed down. The farce was well played, and the language used was what Henry expected. ”

“ Apart from his present infatuation, the King was a good Christian and would act as one. If he persisted, she might rely on the Pope’s protection. She must consent to nothing which would imply the dissolution of her marriage. If the [Pg 76] worst came, the King would be made conscious of his duties. [41]
In the middle of October the Legate arrived. He had been ill in earnest from gout and was still suffering. He had to rest two days in Calais before he could face the Channel. The passage was wild. A deputation of Peers and Bishops waited to receive him at Dover. ”

“ If history be an exact science, then Froude can lay no claim to the title of historian. He was a brilliant advocate, a man of letters endowed with a matchless style, writing of matters which interested him deeply, and in the investigation of which he spent twenty years of his life. Froude himself would have been the first to repudiate the idea that history is philosophy teaching by examples, or that an historian has necessarily a greater insight into the problems of the present than any other observant student of affairs. ”

“ Sir James Crofts was well inclined to the Reformation, and under Mary almost lost his life for it. Yet, to answer the clamours of defrauded tradesmen and labourers, and soldiers too justly mutinous, with a text or a homily, was a task for which he had no disposition. He was 'a man not learned,' he replied; and they had divines for such purposes. [115] 'The matter of the currency, in his simple opinion, was so apparent, it needed not to be consulted upon; as a proof of which he stated that to keep the army from starving, he had been driven, as the council at home had been driven, to purveying. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She entreated, therefore, that her want of conformity might be tolerated till the King was old enough to act for himself, and if this could not be, 'rather than offend God and my conscience,' she said, 'I offer my body at your will, and death shall be more welcome than life.' [33]
The appeal was naturally ineffectual. The council would not have ventured so far, had they not been determined to go farther; and with a reprimand for the neglect of their orders, Rochester and his companions were commanded to go back and execute them. They refused. ”

“ They were conducted through the streets by an armed force. The Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Richmond, Henry’s illegitimate son, Lord Wiltshire, and Lord Rochford attended at the scaffold. Sir Henry Norris was also there, masked, with forty of the Royal Guard on horseback. At the scaffold they were again offered a chance of life; again they refused, and died gallantly. The struggle had begun for the Crown of England. In claiming the supremacy for the Pope, these men had abjured their allegiance to the King whom the Pope had excommunicated. Conscience was nothing—motive was nothing. ”

“ My first American acquaintances had gone, but their rooms were occupied by another of their countrymen, a specimen of a class of whom more will be heard in Jamaica if the fates are kind. The English in the island cast in their lot with sugar, and if sugar is depressed they lose heart. Americans keep their 'eyes skinned,' as they call it, to look out for other openings. They have discovered, as I said, 'that there are dollars in Jamaica,' and one has come, and has set up a trade in plantains, in which he is making a fortune ”

“ The King of Scots, he trusted, would be too wise to condescend to such purposes; 'but because his realm adjoined unto England, and as a prince and king on whose peril they had not much regard,' the Pope and cardinals 'designed to make him a ringleader and chief setter forth of hostility against his uncle, not caring whether both uncle and nephew should consume each other,' so they might have their way. Let James consider whether the conduct of England towards him for the last twenty years deserved that he should lend himself to its enemies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A great many absolutely cried. I never made so many friends in my life, and converted so many enemies. All the women are on my side, and wear my colours—pink and white.’ Colonel Grey told Bulwer that he never heard a finer command of words. Wycombe was prouder than ever of its brilliant neighbour; but of course he failed. Hume had shaken the Radicals by withdrawing his support before the election; Government influence and the Carringtons did the rest. Disraeli, however, had made a beginning and never let himself be disheartened. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The friends of the English alliance were now recovering the ascendant. The young King was twelve years old. It was concerted between Margaret and Henry that the minority should be considered at this point to have expired. No fresh regency should be established, and the Government should be conducted in the King's own name. James was in Stirling Castle, virtually a prisoner in the hands of the Duke of Albany's friends. ”

“ The longer the delay the harder the remedy will be.
"The particulars of what is passing here are so shocking, so outrageous against Almighty God, they touch so nearly the honour of my Lord and husband, that for the love I bear him, and for the good that I desire for him, I would not have your Highness know of them from me. Your ambassador will inform you of all."—Queen Catherine to Charles V. September 18.—MS. Simancas.
The Emperor, who was at Mantua, was disturbed at the meeting at Boulogne, on political grounds as well as personal. On the 24th of October he wrote to his sister, at Brussels. ”

“ May God forgive him for the many delays which he has granted and which alone are the cause of my extremity. I am the King’s lawful wife, and while I live I will say no other. The Pope’s tardiness makes many on my side waver, and those who would say the truth dare not. Speak out yourself, that [Pg 178] my friends may not think I am abandoned by all the world.” [166]
Well might Catherine despair of Clement. While she was expecting him to excommunicate her husband, he was instructing his Nuncio to treat that husband as his most trusted friend. He invited Henry to assist in the Turkish war ”