The Life of Froude by Herbert Paul

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At last, however, Freeman had gone too far. Froude had borne a great
deal, he could bear no more; and he took up a weapon which Freeman
never forgot. I can well recall, as can hundreds of others, the
appearance in The Nineteenth Century for April, 1879, of "A Few Words
on Mr. Freeman." They were read with a sense of general pleasure and
satisfaction, a boyish delight in seeing a big bully well thrashed
before the whole school. Froude was so calm, so dignified, so self-
restrained, so consciously superior to his rough antagonist in temper
and behaviour. Only once did he show any emotion. It was when he
spoke of the dastardly attempt to strike him through the memory of
his brother. "I look back upon my brother," he said, "as on the whole
the most remarkable man I have ever met in my life. I have never seen
any person--not one--in whom, as I now think of him, the excellences
of intellect and character were combined in fuller measure. Of my
personal feeling towards him I cannot speak. I am ashamed to have
been compelled, by what I can only describe as an inexcusable insult,
to say what I have said." It was not difficult to show that Freeman's
four articles in The Contemporary Review contained worse blunders
than any he had attributed to Froude, as, for instance, the
allegation that Henry VIII., who founded bishoprics and organised the
defence of the country, squandered away all that men before his time
had agreed to respect. Easy also was it to disprove the charge of
"hatred towards the English Church at all times and under all
characters" by the mere mention of Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and
Hooper. The statement that Froude had been a "fanatical votary" of
the mediaeval Church was almost delicious in the extravagance of its
absurdity; and it would have been impossible better to retort the
wild charges of misrepresentation, in which it is hard to suppose
that even Freeman himself believed, than by the simple words, "It is
true that I substitute a story in English for a story in Latin, a
short story for a long one, and a story in a popular form for a story
in a scholastic one." In short, Froude wrote a style which every
scholar loves, and every pedant hates. With a light touch, but a
touch which had a sting, Froude disposed of the nonsense which made
him translate praedictae rationes "shortened rations" instead of "the
foregoing accounts," and in a graver tone he reminded the public that
his offer to test the accuracy of his extracts from unprinted
authorities had been refused. Graver still, and not without
indignation, is his reference to Freeman's suggestion that he thought
the Cathedral Church of St. Albans had been destroyed. Most people,
when they finished Froude's temperate but crushing refutation, must
have felt the opportunity for it should ever surprised that have
arisen.

Froude had done his work at last, and done it thoroughly. Freeman's
plight was not to be envied. If his offence had been rank, his
punishment had been tremendous. Even The Spectator, which had
hitherto upheld him through thick and thin, admonished him that he
had passed the bounds of decency and infringed the rules of
behaviour. Dreading a repetition of the penalty if he repeated the
offence, fearing that silence would imply acquiescence in charges of
persistent calumny, he blurted out a kind of awkward half-apology. He
confessed, in The Contemporary Review for May, 1879, that he had
criticised in The Saturday all the volumes of Froude's Elizabeth.
This self-constituted champion proceeded to say that he knew nothing
about Froude's personal character, and that when he accused Froude of
stabbing his dead brother "in the dark" he only meant that the
brother was dead. When he says that Froude's article was "plausible,
and more than plausible," he is quite right. It is more than
plausible, because it is true. After vainly trying to explain away
some of the errors brought home to him by Froude, and leaving others
unnoticed, he complains, with deep and obvious sincerity, that Froude
had not read his books, nor even his articles in Encyclopaedias. He
exhibits a striking instance of his own accuracy. In his defence
against the rather absurd charge of not going, as Macaulay had gone,
to see the places about which he wrote, Froude pleaded want of means.
Freeman rejoined that Macaulay was at one time of his life
"positively poor." He was so for a very short time when his
Fellowship at Trinity came to an end. Unluckily for Freeman's
statement the period was before his appointment to be Legal Member of
Council in India, and long before he had begun to write his History
of England. The most charitable explanation of an erroneous statement
is usually the correct one, and it was probably forgetfulness which
made Freeman say that he did not hear of Froude's having placed
copies of the Simancas manuscripts in the British Museum till 1878,
whereas he had himself discussed it in The Pall Mall Gazette eight
years before. If Froude had made such an astonishing slip, there
would have been more ground for imputing to him an incapacity to
distinguish between truth and falsehood. Freeman's "Last Words on Mr.
Froude" show no sign of penitence or good feeling, and they end with
characteristic bluster about the truth, from which he had so
grievously departed. But Froude was never troubled with him again.

Although a refuted detractor is not formidable in the flesh, the evil
that he does lives after him. Freeman's view of Froude is not now
held by any one whose opinion counts; yet still there seems to rise,
as from a brazen head of Ananias, dismal and monotonous chaunt, "He
was careless of the truth, he did not make history the business of
his life." He did make history the business of his life, and he cared
more for truth than for anything else in the world. Freeman's
biographer has given no clue to his imperfect sympathy with Froude.
Green, true historian as he was, made more mistakes than Froude, and
the mistakes he did make were more serious. He trespassed on the
preserves of Brewer, who criticised him severely without deviating
from the standard of a Christian and a gentleman. Even over the
domain of Stubbs, and the consecrated ground of the Norman Conquest
itself, Green ranged without being Freemanised as a poacher. But then
Green was Freeman's personal friend, and in friendship Freeman was
staunch. They belonged to the same set, and no one was more cliquish
than Freeman. Liberal as he was in politics, he always professed the
utmost contempt for the general public, and wondered what guided
their strange tastes in literature. Dean Stephens has apparently
suppressed most of the references to Froude in Freeman's private
letters, and certainly he drops no hint of the controversy about
Becket. But the following passage from his "Concluding Survey" is
apparently aimed at Froude.
Freeman, we are told, "was unable to write or speak politely"--and if
the Dean had stopped there I should have had nothing to say; but he
goes on--"of any one who pretended to more knowledge than he really
had, or who enjoyed a reputation for learning which was undeserved;
nay, more, he considered it to be a positive duty to expose such
persons. In doing this he was often no doubt too indifferent to their
feelings, and employed language of unwarranted severity which
provoked angry retaliation, and really weakened the effect of his
criticism, by diverting public sympathy from himself to the object of
his attack. But it was quite a mistake to suppose, as many did, that
his fierce utterances were the outcome of ill-temper or of personal
animosity. He entertained no ill-will whatever towards literary or
political opponents."

There is more to the same effect, and of course Froude must have been
in Stephens's mind. But the reputation of a great historian is not to
be taken away by hints. It may suit Freeman's admirers to seek refuge
in meaningless generalities. Those who are grateful for Froude's
services to England, and to literature, have no interest in
concealment. Froude never "pretended to more knowledge than he really
had." So far from "enjoying a reputation for learning which was
undeserved," he disguised his learning rather than displayed it, and
wore it lightly, a flower. That Freeman should have "considered it to
be a positive duty to expose" a man whose knowledge was so much wider
and whose industry was so much greater than his own is strange. That
he did his best for years, no doubt from the highest motives, to
damage Froude's reputation, and to injure his good name, is certain.
With the general reader he failed. The public had too much sense to
believe Froude was merely, or chiefly, or at all, an ecclesiastical
pamphleteer. But by dint of noisy assertion, and perpetual
repetition, Freeman did at last infect academic coteries with the
idea that Froude was a superficial sciolist. The same thing had been
said of Macaulay, and believed by the same sort of people. Froude's
books were certainly much easier to read than Freeman's. Must they
therefore have been much easier to write? Two-thirds of Froude's
mistakes would have been avoided, and Freeman would never have had
his chance, if the former had had a keener eye for slips in his
proof-sheets, or had engaged competent assistance. When he allowed
Wilhelmus to be printed instead of Willelmus, Freeman shouted with
exultant glee that a man so hopelessly ignorant of mediaeval
nomenclature had no right to express an opinion upon the dispute
between Becket and the King. Nothing could exceed his transports of
joy when he found out that Froude did not know the ancient name of
Lisieux. Freeman thought, like the older Pharisees, that he should be
heard for his much speaking, and for a time he was. People did not
realise that so many confident allegations could be made in which
there was no substance at all. They thought themselves safe in making
allowance for Freeman's exaggeration, and Freeman simply bored many
persons into accepting his estimate of Froude. Perhaps he went a
little too far when he claimed to have found inaccuracies in Froude's
transcripts from the Simancas manuscripts without knowing a word of
Spanish. But he was seldom so frank as that. It was not often that he
forgot his two objects of holding up Froude as the fluent, facile
ignoramus, and himself as the profound, erudite student.

Just after reading Freeman's furious articles on Becket, I turned to
Froude's "Index of Papers collected by me October, November, and
December, 1856." It covers twenty-one pages, very closely written,
and I will give a few extracts to show what sort of preparation this
sciolist thought necessary for his ecclesiastical pamphlet. The first
entry, representing four pages of text, is "Hanson's Description of
England. Diet, habits, prices of provisions from Parliamentary
History." Another is "Dress and loose habits of the London clergy in
1486. From Morton's Injunctions."

"State of the Abbey of St. Albans in 1489 shows that Froude was well
acquainted with that subject many years before he wrote his Short
Study on it. "The Bishops of all the Sees in England under Henry,
date of appointment, etc.," is another of these items, which also
comprise "Extracts from the so-called Privy Purse Expenses of Henry
VIII." "Bulla Clementis Papae VII. concessa Regi Henrico de Secundis
nuptiis. This contains the passage quocunque licito vel illicito
coitu." "Petition of the Upper House of Convocation for the
suppression of heretical books." "Royal Letter on the Articles of
1536 which were written, Henry says, by himself." "Elaborate and
extremely valuable State Papers on the Duchy of Milan, and the
dispute between the Emperor and Francis I." "Pole to James, the Fifth
Letter of Warning." "Pole to the Pope, May 18th, 1537. N.B.--Very
remarkable." "Remarkable State Paper drawn by Pole and addressed to
the Pope at the time of the interview at Paris between Francis and
the Emperor." "Privy Council to the Duke of Norfolk. Marquis of
Exeter to Sir A. Brown. Promise of money. Directions to send relief
to the Duke of Suffolk in Lincolnshire, etc." "Henry VIII. to the
Duke of Norfolk about November 27th, 1536. Part of it in his own
hand. High and chivalrous." "Curious account of the ferocity of the
clergy in Lincolnshire." "Curious questions addressed to Fisher
Bishop of Rochester on some treasonable foreign correspondence."
"Learned men to be sent to preach to the disaffected counties.
Henry's version of the causes of the insurrection---N.B., and the
cure." "Instructions to the Earl of Sussex for tranquillising the
North after the Insurrection. Long and curious--noticeable list of
accusations against the monastic bodies. In Wriothesley's hand." "Sir
Francis Bigod to Sir Robert Constable. Very remarkable account of his
unpopularity in the first rebellion from suspicion of heresy, January
18th, 1537." "Emperor at Paris, 1539. War between France and England.
Secret causes why the Emperor made a secret peace with France." "Lord
Lisle to Henry VIII. on his chance of running down the French fleet
as they lay at anchor, July 21st, 1545." "Losses of the old families
by the suppression--new foundation by Henry VIII. Bishoprics,
hospitals, colleges, etc." "The Abbot of Coggeshall hides jewels,
makes away goods, maintains Rome and consults the devil." "Henry
VIII. to Justices of the Peace, admonition for neglect of duty.
Highly in character." "King's Highness having discovered all the
enormities of the clergy, pardons all that is past, and exhorts them
to a Christian life in all time to come."

During the three months to which alone this list refers Froude must
have read and studied more than four hundred pages of important
documents. If any one wishes to form a correct judgment of Froude as
an historian, he can scarcely begin better than by reversing every
statement that Freeman felt it his duty to make. Froude came to write
about the sixteenth century after careful study of previous times. He
prepared himself for his task by patient research among letters and
manuscripts such as Freeman never thought of attempting. He neglected
no source of information open to him, and he obtained special
privileges for searching Spanish archives which entailed upon him the
severest labour. He studied not only at Simancas, where none had been
before him, but also in Paris, in Brussels, in Vienna. The documents
he read were in half a dozen languages, sometimes in the vilest
scrawls. Long afterwards he described his own experience in his own
graphic way. "Often at the end of a page," he said, "I have felt as
after descending a precipice, and have wondered how I got down. I had
to cut my way through a jungle, for no one had opened the road for
me. I have been turned into rooms piled to the window-sill with
bundles of dust-covered despatches, and told to make the best of it.
Often I have found the sand glistening on the ink where it had been
sprinkled when a page was turned. There the letter had lain, never
looked at again since it was read and put away." Out of such
materials Froude wrote a History which any educated person can read
with undisturbed enjoyment. He was too good an artist to let his own
difficulties be seen, and they were assumed not to exist. Froude did
not write, like Stubbs, for professional students alone; he wrote for
the general public, for those whom Freeman affected to despise. So
did Macaulay, whom Freeman idolised. So did Gibbon, the greatest
historian of all time. Froude's History covered the most
controversial period in the growth of the English Church. Lynx-eyed
critics, with their powers sharpened by partisanship, searched it
through and through for errors the most minute. Some of course they
found. But they did not find one which interfered with the main
argument, and such evidence as has since been discovered confirms
Froude's proposition that the cause of Henry was the cause of
England. Freeman's Norman Conquest has secured for him an honourable
fame; his attacks upon Froude, until they have been forgotten, will
always be a reproach to his memory.

It was with just pride, and natural satisfaction, that Froude wrote
to Lady Derby in May, 1890: "I am revising my English History for a
final edition. Since I wrote it the libraries and archives of all
Europe have been searched and sifted. I am fairly astonished to find
how little I shall have to alter. The book is of course young, but I
do not know that it is the worse on that account. That fault at any
rate I shall not try to cure."

The Divorce of Katharine of Aragon, though not published till 1891,
is a sequel to the History. The twenty years which had intervened
did not lead Froude to modify any of his main conclusions, and he was
able to furnish new evidence in support of them. The correspondence
of Chapuys, Imperial Ambassador at the court of Henry VIII., puts
Fisher's treason beyond doubt, and proves that the bishop was
endeavouring to procure an invasion by Spanish troops when the king,
in Freeman's language, "slaughtered" him. The next year Froude
brought out, in a volume with other essays, his Spanish Story of the
Armada, written in his raciest manner, and proving from Spanish
sources the grotesque incompetence of Medina Sidonia. There are few
better narratives in the language, and the enthusiastic admiration of
a great American humourist was as well deserved as it is charmingly
expressed.

"The other night," wrote Bret Harte, "I took up Longman's Magazine*
and began to lazily read something about the Spanish Armada. My
knowledge of that historic event, I ought to say, is rather hazy; I
remember a vague something about Drake playing bowls while the
Spanish fleet was off the coast, and of Elizabeth going to Tilbury en
grande tenue, but there was always a good deal of 'Jingo' shouting
and Crystal Palace fireworks about it, and it never seemed real. In
the article I was reading the style caught me first; I became
tremendously interested; it was a new phase of the old story, and yet
there was something pleasantly familiar. I turned to the last page
quickly, and saw your blessed name. I had heard nothing about it
before. Then I went through it breathlessly to the last word, which
came all too soon. And now I am as eager for the next instalment as I
was when a boy for the next chapter of my Dickens or Thackeray. Don't
laugh, dear old fellow, over my enthusiasm or my illustration, but
remember that I represent a considerable amount of average human
nature, and that's what we all write for, and ought to write for, and
be dashed to the critics who say to the contrary! I thought your
parallel of Philip and Don Quixote delightful, but the similitude of
Medina Sidonia and Sancho Panza is irresistible. That letter to
Philip is Sancho's own hand! Where did you get it? How long have you
had it up your sleeve? Have you got any more such cards to play? Can
you not give us a picture of those gentlemen adventurers with their
exalted beliefs, their actual experiences, their little jealousies,
and the love-lorn Lope de Vega in their midst? What mankind you have
come upon, dear Froude! How I envy you! Have you nothing to spare for
a poor literary man like myself, who has made all he could out of the
hulk of a poor old Philippine galleon on Pacific seas? Couldn't you
lend me a Don or a galley-slave out of that delightful crew of solemn
lunatics? And yet how splendid are those last orders of the Duke!
With what a swan-like song they sailed away!"

--
* The successor to Fraser.
--

The letter from Medina Sidonia to Philip, which reminded both Froude
and Bret Harte of Sancho Panza, is too delicious not to be given in
full.

"My health is bad, and from my small experience of the water I know
that I am always sea-sick. I have no money which I can spare, I owe a
million ducats, and I have not a real to spend on my outfit. The
expedition is on such a scale, and the object is of such high
importance, that the person at the head of it ought to understand
navigation and sea-fighting, and I know nothing of either. I have not
one of those essential qualifications. I have no acquaintance among
the officers who are to serve under me. Santa Cruz had information
about the state of things in England; I have none. Were I competent
otherwise, I should have to act in the dark by the opinion of others,
and I cannot tell to whom I may trust. The Adelantado of Castile
would do better than I. Our Lord would help him, for he is a good
Christian, and has fought in several battles. If you send me, depend
upon it, I shall have a bad account to render of my trust."*

--
* Spanish Story of the Armada, pp. 19, 20.
--

"Those last orders of the Duke"--the same Duke, by the way--are
"splendid" enough of their kind. "From highest to lowest you are to
understand the object of our expedition, which is to recover countries
to the Church now oppressed by the enemies of the true faith. I
therefore beseech you to remember your calling, so that God may be
with us in what we do. I charge you, one and all, to abstain from
profane oaths, dishonouring to the names of our Lord, our Lady, and
the Saints. All personal quarrels are to be suspended while the
expedition lasts, and for a month after it is completed. Neglect of
this will be held as treason. Each morning at sunrise the ship-boys,
according to custom, will sing 'Good Morrow' at the foot of the
mainmast, and at sunset the 'Ave Maria.' Since bad weather may
interrupt the communications the watchword is laid down for each day
in the week: Sunday, Jesus; the days succeeding, the Holy Ghost, the
Holy Trinity, Santiago, the Angels, All Saints, and Our Lady."*

--
* Spanish Story of the Armada, pp. 27, 28.
--

"God and one," it has been said, "make a majority." But in this case
God was not on the side of the pious and incompetent Medina Sidonia.

It was not till this same year 1892, after Freeman's death, that the
"Calendar of Letters and State Papers relative to English affairs
preserved principally in the Archives of Simancas" began to be
published in England by the Master of the Rolls. Translated by an
eminent scholar, Mr. Martin Hume, and printed in a book, they could
have been read by Freeman himself, and can be read by any one who
cares to undertake the task. They will at least give some idea of the
enormous labour undergone by Froude in his several sojourns at
Simancas. I cannot profess to have instituted a systematic
comparison, but a few specimens selected at random show that Froude
summarised fairly the documents with which he dealt. That there
should be some discrepancies was inevitable.

Philip II. wrote a remarkably bad hand, and his Ambassadors were not
chosen for their penmanship. The most striking fact in the case is
that Mr. Hume has derived assistance from Froude in the performance
of his own duties. "I have," he writes in his Introduction, "very
carefully compared the Spanish text when doubtful with Mr. Froude's
extracts and copies and with transcripts of many of the letters in
the British Museum." Nothing could give a better idea than this
sentence of the difficulties which Froude had to surmount, or of the
fidelity with which he surmounted them. He had not only achieved his
own object: he also smoothed the path of future labourers in the same
field. It was the inaccessibility of the records at Simancas that
enabled Freeman to accuse Froude of not correctly transcribing or
abstracting manuscripts. Like other people, he made mistakes; but
mistakes have to be weighed as well as counted, and even in
enumerating Froude's we must always remember that he used more
original matter than any other modern historian.

CHAPTER VI

IRELAND AND AMERICA

Froude had made history the business of his life, and he had no
sooner completed his History of England than he turned his attention
to the sister people. The Irish chapters in his great book had been
picked out by hostile critics as especially good, and in them he had
strongly condemned the cruel misgovernment of an Englishman otherwise
so humane as Essex. While he was in Ireland he had examined large
stores of material in Dublin, which he compared with documents at the
Record Office in London, and he contemplated early in 1871, if not
before, a book on Irish history. For this task he was not altogether
well qualified. The religion of Celtic Ireland was repugnant to him,
and he never thoroughly understood it. In religious matters Froude
could not be neutral. Where Catholic and Protestant came into
conflict, he took instinctively, almost involuntarily, the Protestant
side. In the England of the sixteenth century the Protestant side was
the side of England. In Ireland the case was reversed, and the spirit
of Catholicism was identical with the spirit of nationality. Irish
Catholics to this day associate Protestantism with the sack of
Drogheda and Wexford, with the detested memory of Oliver Cromwell. To
Froude, as to Carlyle, Cromwell was the minister of divine vengeance
upon murderous and idolatrous Papists. His liking for the Irish,
though perfectly genuine, was accompanied with an underlying contempt
which is more offensive to the objects of it than the hatred of an
open foe. He regarded them as a race unfit for self-government, who
had proved their unworthiness of freedom by not winning it with the
sword. If they had not quarrelled among themselves, and betrayed one
another, they would have established their right to independence; or,
if there had been still an Act of Union, they could have come in, as
the Scots came, on their own terms. For an Englishman to write the
history of Ireland without prejudice he must be either a cosmopolitan
philosopher, or a passionless recluse. Froude was an ardent patriot,
and his early studies in hagiology had led him to the conclusion, not
now accepted, that St. Patrick never existed at all. His scepticism
about St. Patrick might have been forgiven to a man who had probably
not much belief in St. George. But Froude could not help running amok
at all the popular heroes of Ireland. In the first of his two papers
describing a fortnight in Kerry he went out of his way to depreciate
the fame of Daniel O'Connell. "Ireland," he wrote, "has ceased to
care for him. His fame blazed like a straw bonfire, and has left
behind it scarce a shovelful of ashes. Never any public man had it in
his power to do so much good for his country, nor was there ever one
who accomplished so little."*

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