The compliments, the reluctant compliments, of The Edinburgh reviewer must be taken as the admissions of an enemy.

He acknowledges fully and frankly the thoroughness of Froude's research among the State Papers of the reign, not merely those printed and published by Robert Lemon, but "a large manuscript collection of copies of letters, minutes of council, theological tracts, parliamentary petitions, depositions upon trials, and miscellaneous communications upon the state of the country furnished by agents of the Government, all relating to the early years of the English Reformation." No historian has ever been more diligent than Froude was in reading and collating manuscripts.

For Henry's reign alone he read and transcribed six hundred and eighty-seven pages in his small, close handwriting.

That in so doing, and in working without assistance, he should sometimes fall into error was unavoidable.

But he never spared himself.