Yet even here Froude's Erastianism, and respect for authority, come into play.

He gravely defends Bunyan's imprisonment in Bedford gaol, which lasted, with some intermissions, from 1660 to 1672, as necessary to enforce respect for the law.

That such a man as Charles Stuart should have had power to punish such a man as John Bunyan for preaching the word of God is a strange comment on the nature of a Christian country.

But it cannot be denied that Charles and his judges, Sir Matthew Hale among them, provided the leisure to which we owe the best religious allegories in the language.

Nor can it be said that Froude's apology for the confinement Bunyan is so repugnant to reason and justice as Gibbon's apology for the martyrdom of Cyprian.
The General Election of 1880 was regarded by Froude with mixed feelings.
"I am glad," he wrote to Lady Derby on the 9th of April, 1880, "that there is to be an end of 'glory and gunpowder,' but my feelings about Gladstone remain where they were.