He witnessed the discrepancies between the profession and the conduct of the Romish clergy, and began to study the Latin and Greek scholars, as well as the various disputations, acts, and decrees of the church. He also gained a thorough knowledge of the Bible in the original tongue, which “led him to discern the errors of popery and to seek the only way of
salvation.”
Frequently he spent whole nights in study. At times in the dead of night he walked in a pleasant grove near the college to confirm his mind upon the great Biblical truths, and to determine his course of action in the light of his new-found faith. To renounce popery in that period was no light matter; it frequently involved danger, loss of friends and preferment, and even death itself.
“From these nightly vigils,” says a biographer, “sprang the first suspicion of his heresy. Some were employed to observe his words and actions. They questioned why he stayed away from church, shunned the company of his associates, and refused to recreate (take part in sports) as he had in the past.”
By request of the college officials he resigned his fellowship in 1545 and returned to the home of his father-in-law, an ardent papist, who forthwith disowned him for his heresy.
Foxe then obtained temporary employment as tutor in the home of Sir Thomas Lucy, in Warwickshire. Here, in 1546, Foxe married Agnes Randall, a servant in the Lucy home.
Persecution drove him away, however, and, penniless and sick, he went to London, to Paul’s Church. He became the tutor of the grandchildren of the duke of Norfolk.
Upon the accession of Mary Tudor, in 1553, Foxe wished to join his friends in exile, but the young duke of Norfolk, although a Catholic, felt honor bound to protect his tutor. However, Foxe, who had been ordained a deacon of St. Paul’s Cathedral by Ridley in 1550, and who had been the first to preach Protestantism at Ryegate, had made some pointed remarks against the worship of images and other popish idolatry; and Gardiner,
“the sleuthhound of the reaction,” suspected heresy.
One day, as Gardiner was visiting in the duke’s house, Foxe, whom the duke attempted to keep hidden, inadvertently walked into the room. When he saw Gardiner he immediately withdrew, and the duke explained that this was his young physician who, just coming from the university, had not yet learned the amenities of court life. Gardiner remarked that he liked the young man’s looks and would doubtless sometime want to make use of him.
Realizing that his mentor’s life was in danger, the young duke provided a boat at Ipswich and sent Foxe and his wife to a farmhouse near the
seashore, to be out of harm’s way until sailing time. A heavy storm caused the boat with the Foxes on board to return to port. Upon landing, Foxe learned that a messenger of Gardiner’s had searched the farmer’s house for him and had followed him to the port. The messenger had left when he discovered that the vessel had sailed.
Foxe decided to set sail again that night regardless of the rough sea, and in two days he and his wife landed in Flanders. For a time they lived in Frankfort, in the house of Anthony Gilby, a well-known Protestant.
Because controversy in that city raged among the Protestants as to which ritual to use, Foxe left for Basel.
At Basel, then celebrated for its superior printing, Foxe became a
“corrector of the press,” as he worked for John Herbst (or Oporinus), an enthusiastic Protestant printer. He also continued his work on a church history which he had already begun in England. His labors were severe. In addition he “suffered want, sat up late, and kept a hard diet,” but,
accustomed to hardship from his youth, he did not seem to mind.
With his history he was assisted by Grindal, afterward archbishop of Canterbury, who was living in Strasbourg. Grindal kept up a constant correspondence with England and obtained many accounts of those who were burned at the stake, from the Reformers undergoing persecution and from their friends. These he gave to Foxe, who later also had access to the archives and the registers of the bishops.
In 1559 his Acts and Monuments of the Church, written in Latin and dedicated to the duke of Norfolk, his former pupil, appeared at Basel. In
excellent Latin, Foxe congratulated Queen Elizabeth, in the name of the German people, upon her accession to the English throne.
Foxe returned to England the same year. Still in financial straits, he appealed to the duke of Norfolk, who provided him with a home. Foxe in turn encouraged his patron to read the Scriptures and stand manfully for Christ.
Foxe remained with the duke, then one of the most powerful noblemen in England, until the duke was executed in 1572 as a result of becoming involved in the intrigues of Mary, queen of Scots. Foxe accompanied the duke to the scaffold as his comforter, and heard him renounce the Romish doctrines and express his belief in Jesus Christ. The duke left Foxe an annuity of 20 pounds.
During the autumn of 1561 Foxe began to translate his Acts and
Monuments of the Church into English. Every Monday he worked at the printing office of John Day, famous printer in Aldergate Street; and from this office the first complete English edition, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, appeared in 1563.
The popularity of the volume was instantaneous. In the course of years it went through many editions — at least four editions within the first twenty years. By order of the canons of the convention of 1571, all high dignitaries were to receive a copy, as well as every college hall and
university. A copy was ordered to be placed in every parish church, along with the Great Bible, that all people might read it. “Even now,” said George Stokes, a historian, in 1841, “the well-worn remains are sometimes found in village churches.” It is recorded that Nicholas Ferrar, pastor at Little Giddings, had a chapter of it read every Sunday along with the Bible.
So great was its influence that “with Puritan clergy, and in almost all English households where Puritanism prevailed, the Martyrs was long the sole authority for church history, and an armory of arguments in defense of Protestantism against Catholicism.”
Judged by twentieth-century standards Foxe’s book can hardly be termed a critical work, but his supporters feel that it is unfair to accuse him of deliberate falsehood. In the years following its first printing he kept on revising wherever misrepresentations and new facts came to light. What he
wrote, it is said, he wrote in good faith; and this is established by the internal evidence in the book. It possesses “a simplicity in the narrative, particularly in many of its minute details, which is beyond fiction; and homely pathos in the stories which art could not reach.”
Because of his Nonconformist views, the extreme kind at that, Foxe never succeeded to special favor with Queen Elizabeth or her bishops, who had settled upon the Anglican form of church service. Consequently he did not advance in church office. For a time under Elizabeth’s reign the
Nonconformists were as greatly persecuted as were the Catholics.
He did, however, receive some consideration in the lower ranks. As a reward for his Martyrs he was made a prebendary in Salisbury Cathedral and vicar of Shipton. While holding these offices he had occasional conflicts with the ecclesiastical authorities, for he believed that too many of the fripperies of popery had been retained in church affairs. When Archbishop Parker asked him to conform, Foxe held up a copy of the New Testament and said, “To this I will subscribe.”
He continued to preach, even at the famous Paul’s Cross, the greatest outdoor religious meeting place of the time. Invited by Grindal in 1570, he preached his renowned sermon on the crucified Christ, and later amplified it for the press.
Foxe was a kind man, noted for his charity. Always poor himself, he shared what little he had with those less fortunate. Foxe also possessed tolerance. He hated the persecutions meted out to those of divergent faith.
In 1575 he interceded valiantly with Elizabeth and other authorities to obtain a remission of the sentence to burn two Anabaptists. Although the queen called him “her father Foxe,” she did not accede to his pleadings.
Shortly after 1570 to the time of his death, he probably lived on Grub Street. In 1586 his health began to fail rapidly, and after much suffering he died the following year. He was buried in the chancel of St. Giles Church, Cripplegate, London, where a monument inscribed by his son Samuel marks the spot.