There was nothing conciliatory in Froude's language, and they did not think it just.
From the purely historical point of view he had much to say for himself, as, for instance: "The Papal cause in Europe in the sixteenth century, take it for all in all, was the cause of stake and gibbet, inquisition, dungeons, and political tyranny.

It did not lose its character because in Ireland it assumed the accidental form of the defence of the freedom of opinion." Perhaps not.

Ireland, for good or for evil, was connected with England, and when England was at war with the Pope she was at war with him in Ireland as elsewhere.

The argument, however, is double- edged.

The Papal cause being no longer, for various reasons, the cause of stake and gibbet, how could there be the same ground for restricting freedom of opinion in Ireland, for passing Coercion Acts, for refusing Home Rule?
As Froude himself said, "Popery now has its teeth drawn.