[The Life of Froude by Herbert Paul]@TWC D-Link bookThe Life of Froude CHAPTER IV 105/143
In purity, in uprightness, in courage, truth and stainless honour, the Regent and Latimer were perhaps his equals; but Murray was intellectually far below him and the sphere of Latimer's influence was on a smaller scale.
The time has come when English history may do justice to one but for whom the Reformation would have been overthrown among ourselves; for the spirit which Knox created saved Scotland; and if Scotland had been Catholic again, neither the wisdom of Elizabeth's Ministers, nor the teaching of her Bishops, nor her own chicaneries, would have preserved England from revolution.
His was the voice that taught the peasant of the Lothians that he was a free man, the equal in the sight of God with the proudest peer or prelate that had trampled on his forefathers.
He was the one antagonist whom Mary Stuart could not soften nor Maitland deceive.
He it was who had raised the poor commons of his country into a stern and rugged people, who might be hard, narrow, superstitious and fanatical, but who nevertheless were men whom neither king, noble, nor priest could force again to submit to tyranny.
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