Few imaginative artists could have resisted as he did the temptation to draw a dazzling picture of Mary's charms and accomplishments, scholarship and statesmanship, beauty and wit.

Froude felt of her as Jehu felt of Jezebel, that she was the enemy of the people of God.

So with his own contemporaries, such as Carlyle's "copper captain," Louis Napoleon.
He was never dazzled by the blaze of the Tuileries and the glare of temporary success.

He might have said after Boileau, J' appelle un chat un chat, et Louis un fripon.
The peculiarity of Froude's nature was to combine this firm foundation with superficial layers of cynicism, paradox, and irony, as in his apology for the rack, his character of Henry VIII., his defence of Cranmer's churchmanship, and Parker's.

He shared with Carlyle the belief that conventional views were sham views, and ought to be exposed.