He transcribed, from the Spanish, masses of papers which even a Spaniard could have read with difficulty, and I am assured that his translations (with rare exceptions) render the original with singular exactness."+ And in the preface to his Maitland of Lethington the same distinguished author says, "Only the man or woman who has had to work upon the mass of Scottish material in the Record Office can properly appreciate Mr.Froude's inexhaustible industry and substantial accuracy.

His point of view is very different from mine; but I am bound to say that his acquaintance with the intricacies of Scottish politics during the reign of Mary appears to me to be almost, if not quite, unrivalled." John Hill Burton, to whose learning and judgment Freeman's were as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine, concurred in Skelton's view, and no one has ever known Scottish history better than Burton.
-- * June 21st, 1870.
+ Table Talk of Shirley, p.

143.
-- Freeman's reckless and unscholarly attacks upon Froude produced no effect upon his own master Stubbs, whom he was always covering with adulation.

From the Chair of Modern History at Oxford in 1876 Stubbs pronounced Froude's "great book," as he called it, to be "a work of great industry, power, and importance." Stubbs was as far as possible from agreeing with Froude in opinion.

An orthodox Churchman and a staunch Tory, he never varied in his opposition to Liberalism, as well ecclesiastical as political, and he had no sympathy with the reformers.