Guienne had been a French province since the Hundred Years' War, and therefore the French would neither have attacked nor invaded it.

As if all this were not enough to show the nature and source of the error, the word was correctly printed in the marginal heading.

In the same article, after quoting Froude's denial that a sentence described by the Spanish Ambassador de Silva as having been passed upon a pirate could have been pronounced in an English court of justice, Freeman asked, "Is it possible that Mr.Froude has never heard of the peine forte et dure ?" Freeman of course knew it to be impossible.

He knew also that the peine forte et dure was inflicted for refusing to plead, and that this pirate, by de Silva's own account, had been found guilty.

But he wanted to suggest that Froude was an ignoramus, and for the purpose of beating a dog one stick is as good as another.
Freeman's trump card, however, was the Bishop of Lexovia, and that brilliant victory he never forgot.