The only interest of his character now is its bearing upon the fate of England.

If the Pope, and not the king, had become head of the English Church, would it have been for the advantage of the English people?
By frankly taking the king's side Froude made two different and influential sets of enemies, especially at Oxford.

High Churchmen, then and for the rest of his life, assailed him for hostility to "the Church," forgetting or ignoring the fact that the Church of England is not the Church of Rome.

Liberals, on the other hand, mistook him for a friend of lawless despotism, as if Henry's opponents had been constitutional statesmen, and not arrogant Churchmen, hating liberty even more than he did.
That Froude had no faith in modern Liberalism is true enough.

His political leader in 1856 was neither Palmerston nor Cobden, but Carlyle.