It was in defending Froude that Kingsley made his unfortunate attack upon Newman, which led to his own discomfiture in the first Preface to the Apologia.

Froude was unable to support his champion's irrelevant and unlucky onslaught.

Newman's casuistry was a fair subject for criticism; his personal integrity should have been above suspicion, and Kingsley's insinuations against it only recoiled upon himself.
No one, as his History shows, could do ampler justice to individual Catholics than Froude, and his feelings for Newman were never altered, either by disagreement or by time.
The first part of the History had just been finished when a sudden bereavement altered the whole course of Froude's life.

On the 21st of April, 1860, Mrs.Froude died.

Her religious opinions had been very different from her husband's.