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 personality. Froude started to defend the English
Reformation against the vile charge that it was the outcome of kingly lust.
That charge he has finally dispelled. Henry VIII. was not the monster that
Lingard painted. He beheaded two queens, but few will be found to assert
to-day that either Anne Boleyn or Catherine Howard were innocent martyrs.
People must agree to differ to the crack of doom as to the justice of
Catherine's divorce. It is one of those questions which different men will
continue to answer in different ways. But one thing is abundantly clear. If
Henry was actuated merely by passion for Anne Boleyn, he would scarcely
have waited for years before putting Queen Catherine away. Henry divorced
Anne of Cleves, but Anne, who survived the dissolution of her marriage and
remained in England for twenty years, made no complaint of her treatment,
and she has had no champions either among Catholic or Protestant writers.
Her divorce is only remembered as the occasion of the downfall of the
greatest statesman of his age, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex. But in his
eagerness to proclaim the truth, Froude went on to defend a paradox. Once
free from the charge of lust,--and compared with Francis of France or
Charles V., Henry was a continent man--Henry became to Froude the ideal
monarch.

Some one has said that Henry VIII. was the greatest king that ever lived,
because he always got his own way. If that be the test, then Henry was
indeed "every inch a king." He broke with Rome; he deposed the Pope from