It is, indeed, my contention, as I have already explained,[7] that to these denunciations of the errors of others is largely due the conviction of Mr Freeman's supreme accuracy. The question raised may seem to affect the whole method of history, for if, as has been said, it is the argument of the scientific historian that we ought to prefer accuracy of fact to charm of presentment and to literary style, the proof that his method fails to save him from erring like any 'literary' historian strikes at the root of his whole contention. Yet it is not the scientific method, but its prophet himself that was at fault. Although I am here only concerned with inaccuracy in matters of fact, I would guard myself against the retort that, at least, Mr Freeman's errors are of little consequence as compared with that obliquity of vision which led Mr Froude, at all hazards, to vindicate Henry the Eighth. Without insisting on an absolute parallel, I trace a resemblance even here. Just as his bias against the Roman church led Mr Froude to vindicate Henry in order to justify the breach with Rome, so Mr Freeman's passion for democracy made him an advocate on behalf of Harold, as 'one whose claim was not drawn only from the winding-sheet of his fathers'. I have elsewhere maintained, as to Harold's election 'by the free choice of a free people', that Mr Freeman's undoubted perversion of the case at this 'the central point' of his history, gravely impairs his narrative of the Conquest, because its success, and even its undertaking, can actually be traced to that election.[8] Unless we realize its disastrous effect on the situation both at home and abroad, we cannot rightly understand the triumph of the Duke's enterprise.