It is significant that Froude laid down in 1892 the same propositions for which he had contended in the Oxford Essays of 1855.

He had suffered many things in the meantime of The Saturday Review, but he held to his old opinions with unshaken tenacity.

All Froude's changes were made early in life.

When once he had shaken himself free of Tractarianism, The Nemesis of Faith, and Elective Affinities, he remained a Protestant, Puritan, sea-loving, priest-hating Englishman.
The subject with which Froude began his brief career as Professor was the Council of Trent.

The Council of Trent has been described by one of the great historians of the world, Fra Paolo Sarpi, whom Macaulay considered second only to Thucydides.