Freeman, however, was an open enemy.

A false friend is a more difficult person to dispose of, and even to deny the charge of deliberate treachery hardly consistent with self-respect.

Long before Froude died the clamour against him had by all decent people been dropped.
But he himself continued to feel the effect of it until he became Professor of History at Oxford.

That rehabilitated him, where only he required it, in his own eyes.

It was a public recognition by the country through the Prime Minister of the honour he had reflected upon Oxford since his virtual expulsion in 1849, and he felt himself again.