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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] John Foxe Biography FOXE, John (1516–87). The English martyrologist. He was born in 1516 at Boston, Lincolnshire. In 1523 he entered as a student at Oxford; in 1537 he took his bachelor’s and in 1543 his master’s degree, and was elected a full fellow of Magdalen College (1539). He displayed at an early period an inclination for Latin poetry and wrote several plays in that language upon scriptural subjects. Of these, the only one that remains, entitled De Christo Triumphante, was first printed at Basel in 1556. The religious movements of the times led him to study the great controversy between the Old Church and Protestantism, and, becoming a convert to the principles of the Reformation, on July 22, 1545, he resigned his fellowship. In 1546 he married, and, coming to London for employment, he attracted the notice of the Duchess of Richmond, and through her influence became tutor (1548) to the children of her brother, the Earl of Surrey, who had been executed in 1547. On June 23, 1550, he was ordained deacon by Ridley, Bishop of London, and preached the doctrines of the Reformation at Reigate. In 1553, when Mary came to the throne, he was dismissed by the Catholic grandfather of his pupils, and, fearing persecution for his religious opinions, he fled to the Continent. On the accession of Elizabeth he returned to England in October, 1559, was ordained priest, 1560, and in May, 1563, was made a prebendary in Salisbury Cathedral and vicar of Shipton. He also held the living of Cripplegate, which he soon resigned, and for a year (1572–73) he held a stall at Durham. In 1575, when some Dutch Anabaptists were condemned to the flames in London, Foxe interceded for them with Elizabeth and other persons in authority, but without effect. He wrote numerous controversial and other works; but the one that has immortalized his name is his History of the Acts and Monuments of the Church, popularly known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, the first draft of which was published at Strassburg in 1554. The first English edition appeared in 1563. A later edition, with certain errors corrected, was ordered, by a canon of the Anglican convocation, to be placed in every cathedral church in England. It is not a critical work, as might be supposed, and Roman Catholics deny its trustworthiness; but it was very popular and has been often reprinted. The best editions are by Cattley, with introduction by Townsend (London, 1843–49), Mendham and Pratt (8 vols., ib., 1853), by Stoughton (ib., 1877), and by Berry (New York, 1907). Foxe died in London, April, 1587, and was buried in the chancel of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, London. There is no satisfactory life of Foxe; the first issued (1641) was very unreliable; the nearest approach to correctness is that revised by Pratt (London, 1870). Consult Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xx (ib., 1889). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. IX (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 114. |