Now let us see what use Freeman made of the information thus given him by Froude.
"Meanwhile," he says in The Saturday Review for the 22nd of January, 1870, "Mr.Froude is conveniently silent as to the infamous tricks played by Elizabeth and her courtiers in order to make estates for court favourites out of Episcopal lands.

A line or two of text is indeed given to the swindling transaction by which Bishop Coxe of Ely was driven to surrender his London house to Sir Christopher Hatton.
But why?
Because the story gives Mr.Froude an opportunity of quoting at full length a letter from Lord North to the Bishop in which all the Bishop's real or pretended enormities are strongly set forth." Here follows a short extract from the letter, in which North accused Coxe of grasping covetousness.

Now it is perfectly obvious to any one having the whole letter before him, as Freeman had, that Froude quoted it with the precisely opposite aim of denouncing the conduct of Elizabeth to the Bishop, whom he compares with Naboth.

Freeman must have heard of Naboth.

He must have known what Froude meant.