FROUDE, JAMES ANTHONY. - English historian and prose writer, b. at Dartington on 23 Apr. 1818, d. there on 20 Oct. 1894.
He took part in the Tractorian movement and collaborated on the Lives of saints edited by its leader, Card. J. H. Newman, whose ideas he soon opposed in the novel Nemesis of faith (London 1849), burned at Easter College. Author of valuable essays (Short studies, 4 vols., ibid. 1867–83), his merit as a historian is diminished by anti-Catholicism, persistent inaccuracy, and errors of perspective, since he placed the individual before events according to the principle of Carlyle, whose friend, executor, and biographer—though not a very scrupulous one—he was. Monumental among his works is the History of England, in 12 vols. (ibid. 1856–70).