The Life of Froude

by Herbert W. Paul

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. —