Controversy from ‘The Contemporary Review’ and ‘The Nineteenth Century’ between Prof. E. A. Freeman and Mr. James Anthony Froude.

[From The Contemporary Review for March, 1878, xxxi., 822 et seq. By E. A. Freeman.][378]

‘… Mr. Froude, in his present attempt to paint the picture of the great men of the twelfth century, puts on the outward garb of one who has read and tested his materials, and has come to a critical judgement on what he has read and tested. But he happily leaves a little cranny open which enables us to look within. The very first words of Mr. Froude’s Life and Times of Thomas Becket are enough to show us that the seeming historical inquiry is really designed as a manifesto against a theological party which once numbered its author among its members. To those who know the whole literature of the subject, it has a look more unpleasant still. Those whose study of twelfth-century history goes back to times when those who are now in their second half-century were young, will not fail to remember a time when the name of Froude reminded them of another, an earlier, and (I have no hesitation in saying) a worthier treatment of the same subject. And some of those who go back so far may be tempted to think that natural kindliness, if no other feeling, might have kept back the fiercest of partisans from ignoring the honest work of a long-deceased brother, and from dealing stabs in the dark at a brother’s almost forgotten fame…. [Mr. Froude] is controversial, something more than controversial, from the beginning. He undertakes the study, not to throw fresh light on the history of the twelfth century, but to deal a blow at a party in the nineteenth. His first words are: “Among the earliest efforts of the modern sacerdotal party in the Church of England was an attempt to re-establish the memory of the Martyr of Canterbury.” It is not everybody who reads this who will fully take in what is here meant. The first attempt made, within the memory of our own generation, to examine and compare the materials for the great controversy between King and Primate, was made by Richard Hurrell Froude of Oriel College: the Froude of the once famous Remains, the elder brother of the man who makes this somewhat unbrotherly reference. The elder Froude doubtless belonged to what the younger calls “the sacerdotal party.” His wish undoubtedly was “to re-establish the memory of the Martyr of Canterbury.” To those with whom historic truth comes foremost, and who have no special fanaticism, sacerdotal or anti-sacerdotal, the effort of a “sacerdotal party” to re-establish the memory of Thomas of Canterbury may seem at least as worthy an object as to re-establish the memory of Flogging Fitzgerald, or of King Harry himself. To re-establish the memory of Thomas is, at the worst, a question of words and names, and of a certain law: it does not, like the other two re-establishments, imply the defence of any matter of wrong, or wicked lewdness. And the elder Froude’s history of controversy, if undertaken with a purpose of theological partisanship, was still a piece of creditable historical work. Done forty years or so ago, it was, of course, not up to the level of modern criticism on the subject. But it was the beginning of modern criticism on the subject. The elder Froude is entitled, at the hands of everyone who writes or reads the story of Thomas, to that measure of respectful thanks which belongs to a pioneer on any subject. As for his spirit of partisanship, those who stand outside the arena of all such partisanship might say that when the elder Froude wrote, it was time that the other side should be heard, in its turn. The name of Thomas à Becket had been so long the object of vulgar and ignorant scorn; his character and objects had been treated with such marked unfairness, even by historians of real merit, that fair play might welcome a vindication, even if it went too far the other way. Such a vindication was the object of the elder Froude: in the course of it, he got rid of several prevalent errors, and made ready the way for more impartial and critical examination at the hands of others. The elder Froude did something to put one who, whatever were his objects, whatever were his errors, was still a great and heroic Englishman, in a historic place more worthy of him. At all events, he deserves better than to have his work thus sneeringly spoken of by his own younger brother: “And while Churchmen are raising up Becket as a brazen serpent on which the world is to look to be healed of its incredulities, the incredulous world may look with advantage at him from its own point of view; and if unconvinced that he was a Saint, may still find instruction in a study of his actions and his fate.” This way of speaking may seem startling to those who know the relation between the long-deceased champion of the one side, and the living champion of the other…. The point of view of those whose sole object is historic truth may well be different either from the point of view of “Churchmen,” or from that of the “incredulous world.” At all events, historic truth has nothing to do with the point of view of either.’