The English historian James Anthony Froude (1818-1894) specialized in Reformation and Tudor studies. His work is characterized by vivid description and an orderly narrative style.

James Froude was born in Dartington, Devon, on April 23, 1818. He was educated at Westminster and Oriel colleges, Oxford, and was elected fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1842. He joined the High Church movement at Oxford and helped John Henry Newman with his Lives of the English Saints. He became disillusioned with the High Church party after 1845, and, influenced by the ideas of Thomas Carlyle, his religious views shifted toward Protestantism. He resigned his fellowship in 1849.

The first two volumes of Froude's History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of the Spanish Armada appeared in 1856, with the remaining 10 volumes completed by 1870. In this work, which altered the whole direction of Tudor studies, Froude condemned the scientific treatment of history, for...