Froude had to describe the dissolution of the monasteries, and besides describing he justified it.

He had to depict the absolute government of Henry; and he argued that it was a necessity of the times.

We must not transfer the passions of one age to the controversies of another.

In the seventeenth century the issue was between the Stuart kings and their Parliaments, or, in other words, between the Crown and the people.

In the sixteenth century king and Parliament were united against an alien power, the Catholic Church, and a foreign prince, the Pope.