died before the divorce was mooted, Henry VIII., like the Roman emperor said by Tacitus to have been _censensu omnium dignus imperii nisi imperasset_, would have been considered by posterity as formed by Providence for the conduct of the Reformation, and his loss would have been deplored as a perpetual calamity.’ Mr. Froude has, of course, not written these words without having facts whereby to prove them. One he gives in an important note containing an extract from a letter of the Venetian Ambassador in 1515. At least, if his conclusions be correct, we must think twice ere we deny his assertion that ‘the man best able of all living Englishmen to govern England had been set to do it by the conditions of his birth.’ ‘We are bound,’ as Mr. Froude says, ‘to allow him the benefit of his past career, and be careful to remember it in interpreting his later actions.’ ‘The true defect in his moral constitution, that “intense and imperious will” common to all princes of the Plantagenet blood, had not yet been tested.’ That he did, in his later years, act in many ways neither wisely nor well, no one denies; that his conduct did not alienate the hearts of his subjects is what needs explanation; and Mr. Froude’s opinions on this matter, novel as they are, and utterly opposed to that of the standard modern historians, require careful examination. Now I am not inclined to debate Henry the Eighth’s character, or any other subject, as between Mr. Froude and an author of the obscurantist or pseudo-conservative school. Mr. Froude is Liberal; and so am I. I wish to look at the question as between Mr. Froude and other Liberals; and therefore, of course, first, as between Mr. Froude and Mr. Hallam.