FOXE, JOHN (1516-1587), the author of the famous Book of Martyrs, was born at Boston, Lincolnshire. At the age of 16 he is said to have entered Brasenose college, Oxford. His authenti cated connexion at the university is, however, with Magdalen col lege, of which he became a fellow in 1539, resigning in 1545. Soon after leaving Oxford he married Agnes Randall. After holding two tutorships he was driven from England by the accession of Mary, and he retired to Strasbourg, where he occupied himself with a Latin history of the Christian persecutions, which he had begun at the suggestion of Lady Jane Grey. This book, dealing chiefly with Wycliffe and Huss, and coming down to 15oo, formed the first outline of the Actes and Monuments. It was printed by Wendelin Richelius with the title of Commentarii reruns in ecclesia gestarum (Strasbourg, 1554). In the same year Foxe moved to Frankfort, where he found the English colony of Protestant refugees divided into two camps, the Calvinists and the Anglicans, and made a vain attempt to frame a compromise. He moved (1555) to Basle, where he worked as printer's reader to Johann Herbst or Oporinus. He made steady progress with his great book as he received re ports from England of the religious persecutions there, and he issued from the press of Oporinus his pamphlet Ad inclytos ac praepotentes Angliae proceres . . . supplicatio (1557), a plea for toleration addressed to the English nobility. In he com pleted the Latin edition of his martyrology and returned to Eng land. He lived for some time at Aldgate, London, in the house of his former pupil, Thomas Howard, now duke of Norfolk, and became associated with John Day the printer, himself once a Protestant exile. Foxe was ordained priest by Edmund Grindal, bishop of London, in 1560, and besides much literary work he occasionally preached at Paul's Cross and other places. His work had rendered great service to the Government, and he might have had high preferment in the church but for the Puritan views which he consistently maintained. He held, however, the prebend of Shipton in Salisbury cathedral, and is said to have been for a short time rector of Cripplegate.
In 1563 was issued from the press of John Day the first Eng lish edition of the Actes and Monuments of these latter and peril lous Dayes . . . by John Foxe, commonly known as the Book of Martyrs. Its popularity was immense and signal. The Marian persecution was still fresh in men's minds, and the graphic narra tive intensified in its numerous readers the fierce hatred of Spain and of the Inquisition which was one of the master passions of the reign. Nor was its influence transient. For generations the popular conception of Roman Catholicism was derived from its bitter pages. Its accuracy was immediately attacked by Catholic writers, notably in the Dialogi sex (1566). These criticisms in duced Foxe to produce a second corrected edition, Ecclesiastical History, contayning the Actes and Monuments of things passed in every kynges tyme . . . in 157o, a copy of which was ordered by Convocation to be placed in every collegiate church. Anthony a Wood says that Foxe "believed and reported all that was told him." There is no doubt that he was only too ready to believe evil of the Catholics, and he cannot always be exonerated from the charge of wilful falsification of evidence. It should, however, be remembered in his honour that his advocacy of religious toler ation was far in advance of his day. He pleaded for the despised Dutch Anabaptists, and remonstrated with John Knox on the rancour of his First Blast of the Trumpet. Foxe was one of the earliest students of Anglo-Saxon, and he and Day published an edition of the Saxon gospels under the patronage of Archbishop Parker. He died on April 18, 1587 and was buried at St. Giles's, Cripplegate.
A list of his Latin tracts and sermons is given by Wood, and others, some of which were never printed, appear in Bale. Four editions of the Actes and Monuments appeared in Foxe's lifetime. The 8th edition (1641) contains a memoir of Foxe purporting to be by his son Samuel, the ms. of which is in the British Museum (Lans downe ms. 388) . Samuel Foxe's authorship is disputed, with much show of reason, by Dr. S. R. Maitland, On the Memoirs of Foxe ascribed to his Son (1841) . The best-known modern edition of the Martyrology is that (1837-41) by the Rev. Stephen R. Cattley, with an introductory life by Canon George Townsend. The numerous inaccuracies of this life and the frequent errors of Foxe's narrative were exposed by Dr. Maitland in a series of tracts (1837-42), collected (1841-42) as Notes on the Contributions of the Rev. George Townsend, M.A.. . to the New Edition of Foxe's Martyrology. The criticism lavished on Cattley and Townsend's edition led to a new one (1846-49) under the same editorship. A new text prepared by the Rev. Josiah Pratt was issued (187o) in the "Reformation Series" of the Church Historians of England, with a revised version of Townsend's Life and appendices giving copies of original documents. Later edition by W. Grinton Berry (1907).
Foxe's papers are preserved in the Harleian and Lansdowne collec tions in the British Museum. Extracts from these were edited by J. G. Nichols for the Camden Society (1859). See also W. Winters, Biographical Notes on John Foxe (1876) ; J. Gairdner, The English Church in the Sixteenth Century (1902).