any ways they were
well equipped for the task; but the materials had not been sifted and
the demands on their time would have been excessive, even if they
abstained from all other work. Another scheme was for a series of Lives
of the Archbishops of Canterbury. Green was much attracted by the
subject. Already he had made a special study of Dunstan and other great
holders of the See; and he believed that the series would illustrate,
better than the lives of kings, the growth of certain principles in
English history. But with other archbishops he found himself out of
sympathy; and in the end he was not sorry to abandon the idea, when he
found that Dean Hook was already engaged upon it.

A project still nearer to his heart, which he cherished till near the
end of his life, was to write a history of our Angevin kings. For this
he collected a vast quantity of materials, and it was a task for which
he was peculiarly fitted. It would be difficult to say whether Fulc
Nerra, the founder of the dynasty, or Black Angers, the home of the
race, was more vividly present to him. Grim piles of masonry, stark
force of character, alike compelled his admiration and he could make
them live again in print. As it proved, his life was too short to
realize this ambition and he has only left fragments of what he had to
tell, though we are fortunate in having other books on parts of the
subject from his wife and from Miss Norgate, which owed their origin to
his inspiration.

During his time as a London clergyman Green used to pay occasional
visits to Dawkins in Somerset; and in 1862, when he went to read a paper
on Dunstan to a society at Taunton, he renewed acquaintance with his old
schoolfellow, E. A. Freeman, a notable figure in the county as squire,
politician, and antiquarian, and already becoming known outside it as a
historian. The following year, as Freeman's guest, he met Professor
Stubbs; and about this time he also made friends with James Bryce, 'the
Holy Roman', as he calls him in later letters.[57] The friendship of
these three men was treasured by Green throughout his life, and it gave
rise to much interesting correspondence on historical subjects. They
were the central group of the Oxford School; they reverenced the same
ideals and were in general sympathy with one another. But this sympathy
never descended to mere mutual admiration, as with some literary
coteries. Between Freeman and Green in particular there was kept up a
runni