The Reign of Henry the Eighth | Page 5

qualities of Englishmen with a zest
and gusto that drew the comment from Carlyle that "this seems to me
exaggerated: what we call John Bullish." He described them as "a
sturdy, high-hearted race, sound in body and fierce in spirit which,
under the stimulus of those great shins of beef, their common diet, were
the wonder of the age." Carlyle's advice when he read this passage in
proof was characteristic:--"Modify a little: Frederick the Great was
brought up on beer-sops; Robert Burns on oatmeal porridge; and
Mahomet and the Caliphs conquered the world on barley meal." But the
passage stood unmodified, in spite of Froude's regard for his master.
How this fierce and turbulent people fought their way to world-wide
empire was a problem which Froude thought he was able to solve. It
was, in the main, because they broke down the power of the priests, and
insisted on the supremacy of state over Church. Therefore all his filial
affection, his patriotism, and his ecclesiastical prejudices were arrayed
on the same side. 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. "Gibbon," he once
wrote, "believed that the era of conquerors was at an end. Had he lived
out the full life of man, he would have seen Europe at the feet of
Napoleon. But a few years ago we believed the world had grown too
civilised for war, and the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park was to be the
inauguration of a new era. Battles, bloody as Napoleon's, are now the
familiar tale of every day; and the arts which have made the greatest
progress are the arts of destruction."
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. Stubbs,
indeed, did pay public tribute to Froude's "great work," but he stood
almost alone of his school. Freeman for many years pursued and
persecuted Froude with a persistent malevolence which happily has no
parallel in the story of English scholarship. It is not necessary in this
place to do more than refer to that unpleasant episode. Since the
publication of the brilliant vindication of Froude in Mr. Herbert Paul's
Life, it would be superfluous to go into the details of that unhappy
controversy. The only difference between Froude and other historians
is that Froude's partisanship is always obvious. 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.
"I have worked in all," he said in his Apologia, "through nine hundred
volumes of letters, notes, and other papers, private and official, in five
languages and in different handwritings. I am not rash enough to say
that I have never misread a word, or overlooked a passage of
importance. I profess only to have dealt with my materials honestly to
the best of my ability." Few, indeed, have had to encounter such
difficulties as met Froude in his exploration of the archives at Simancas.
"Often at the end of a page," he wrote many years after, "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-coloured despatches, and told to make the best of it. Often have I
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." Of these difficulties not a