Foxe John - Foxes Book of Martyrs Select Narratives

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

FOXES BOOK OF MARTYRS
SELECT NARRATIVES

JOHN FOXE (1516/1787) was born at Boston, Lincolnshire. During his youth, England became embroiled in controversy concerning the advent of new Lutheran ideas, William Tyndales unauthorized effort to produce a translation of the New Testament, and Henry VIIIs endeavour to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Foxe began his studies at the University of Oxford c.1534, close to the time when England broke from the Church of Rome and Henry VIII united church and state. Having become a Protestant, Foxe resigned his fellowship at Magdalen College and then began a career as a publicist during the reign of Edward VI. At the same time, Foxe entered into service to the Duchess of Richmond as tutor to the orphans of her brother, the recently executed Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, who had joined his father, the 3rd Duke of Norfolk, as a leader of the Roman Catholic faction. When Edwards Roman Catholic half-sister, Mary I, acceded to the throne she instituted a reign of terror during which hundreds of Protestants were burnt alive as heretics. From exile in Europe, Foxe began to publish martyrological histories in Latin. When he returned to England following the cessation of persecution of Protestants, he entered into collaboration with the London printer, John Day, who published a sequence of four vernacular editions of the Book of Martyrs (1563, 1570, 1576, and 1583). At about four times the length of the Bible, the fourth edition is the most physically imposing, complicated, technically demanding, and best illustrated book of the Shakespearean age. Although it contains an impressive array of genres, it is best remembered for its many moving accounts of the apprehension, imprisonment, interrogation, and execution of Protestants who had been condemned as heretics.

JOHN N. KING is Distinguished University Professor and Humanities Distinguished Professor of English and of Religious Studies at The Ohio State University. His publications include English Reformation Literature: The Tudor Origins of the Protestant Tradition (1982); Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature and Art in an Age of Religious Crisis (1989); Spensers Poetry and the Reformation Tradition (1990); Milton and Religious Controversy: Satire and Polemic in Paradise Lost (2000); Voices of the English Reformation: A Sourcebook (2004); and Foxes Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture (2006). He serves as Editor of Reformation and Coeditor of Literature and History.

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Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
JOHN N. KING

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John N. King 2009

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First published as an Oxford Worlds Classics paperback 2009

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Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India
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ISBN 9780199236848

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In memory of my parents
Revd Dr Luther Waddington and Alba Iregui King
and my grandparents
Revd William Luther and Mary Ann Waddington King
and
Salvador Enrique and Maria Luisa Burgos Iregui

I owe a debt of gratitude to Mark Greengrass and David M. Loades, who serve respectively as Project Director and Editorial Director of Foxes Book of Martyrs Online, a new digital edition published by the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield under sponsorship from the British Academy and Humanities Research Institute. I have incurred debts to others who have been associated with this massive scholarly endeavour. They include Patrick Collinson and the late J. B. Trapp. Editors at Oxford University PressJudith Luna, Andrew McNeillie, and Rowena Anketellhave contributed greatly to advancing this edition towards publication. I am further indebted to other individuals on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, who include Steven Galbraith, the late Ruth Samson Luborsky, and Alexandra Walsham. At my home institution, I am indebted to James Bracken, with whom I have collaborated on projects related to John Foxe, early modern printing, and the history of the book for many years. For good conversation, wise counsel, and unfailing support, I am grateful to Joseph Branin, Richard Dutton, Christopher Highley, Valerie Lee, James Phelan, John Roberts, Geoffrey Smith, and Luke Wilson. In particular, I am grateful to Mark Rankin for wise counsel and assistance in transcribing the textual contents of this edition and to Erin Kelly, Erin McCarthy, Aaron Pratt, and Seth Reno for their gracious support in preparing this edition. Of course, I remain responsible for all errors in this edition.