If any one wishes to form a correct judgment of Froude as an historian, he can scarcely begin better than by reversing every statement that Freeman felt it his duty to make.

Froude came to write about the sixteenth century after careful study of previous times.

He prepared himself for his task by patient research among letters and manuscripts such as Freeman never thought of attempting.

He neglected no source of information open to him, and he obtained special privileges for searching Spanish archives which entailed upon him the severest labour.

He studied not only at Simancas, where none had been before him, but also in Paris, in Brussels, in Vienna.