FOXE, John (1517-1587), was born at Boston in Lincolnshire in 1517. At the age of sixteen he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, where at twenty-one he took the degree of B.A., and five years later that of Μ.A. He attained a fair reputation for scholarship, was elected to a fellowship at Magdalen, and wrote several Latin plays on Scriptural subjects, of which the best, the De Christo Triumphante, was repeatedly published (London, 1551, Basel, 1556, &c.), and was thought worthy of translation into English by Richard Day, the son of the printer. Having become deeply interested in the more advanced religious inquiry of his time, he devoted himself to the study of Hebrew, of the ancient fathers, and of the doctrines of the Reformers; and at length his views coming to the ears of the authorities were considered so unorthodox that in 1545 he was deprived of his fellowship and expelled from the university. Here his punishment would probably have ended had not his stepfather taken advantage of his misfortune to deprive him of his patrimony. He was glad to accept a situation as tutor to the children of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford-on-Avon, who is famous as the prototype of Shakespeare’s “Justice Shallow.” But he did not long retain this situation, and he was in London in very destitute circumstances when the duchess of Richmond appointed him tutor to the children of her nephew, the unfortunate earl of Surrey, During the reign of Edward, Foxe’s circumstances were more comfortable. He married, and settled at Reigate, where, having been ordained deacon by Ridley in 1550, he preached and acted as tutor to the orphan children of Surrey throughout the rest of the reign. On the accession of Mary, he was for some time protected by his pupil, the duke of Norfolk, ...but was at length obliged to seek safety by fleeing with his family to Basel, where he maintained himself by writing and correcting the press for the printer Oporinus. At the suggestion of Lady Jane Grey, he had already commenced a Latin history of the Christian persecutions. He now received assistance from two distinguished exiles, belonging to opposed sections of the Protestant party—from Grindal, who afterwards as Puritan archbishop of Canterbury distinguished himself by the noble firmness with which he maintained his convictions, even at great personal cost, and in opposition to the commands of Queen Elizabeth; and from John Aylmer, the tutor of Lady Jane Grey, who afterwards, as bishop of London, was one of the bitterest enemies of the Puritans. The first outline of the work appeared in 1554, and the first complete edition was published by Oporinus in 1559. About a year after the accession of Elizabeth, Foxe returned to England. The duke of Norfolk again extended to him his patronage. For some time he resided at the duke’s manor of Christchurch in London, and on the duke’s death he received a small pension. He became associated with John Day, the printer, himself once a Protestant exile, with whom he had many sympathies in common. We find him staying in Grub Street laboriously engaged in varied literary work, and occasionally preaching at St Paul’s Cross and in other parts of London. Church preferment was offered him by the Government, to which his works had rendered invaluable service. Cecil appointed him to the prebend of Shipton in Salisbury Cathedral, and he held for a short time the living of Cripplegate; but true to his Puritan views, which prevented him from subscribing to the Articles, he accepted nothing further, though more was offered him. In 1563 the first English edition of the “Book of Martyrs,” in which several gross errors which had been exposed were corrected, appeared from the press of John Day. Its popularity among a people which had just passed through the horrors of the Marian persecutions was naturally immediate and signal. The Government commanded it to be placed in each parish church; and more than any other influence it fanned the flame of that fierce hatred of Spain and the Inquisition which was the master passion of the reign. Nor was its influence transient. For generations the popular conception of popery has been derived from its melancholy and bitter pages. It was vigorously attacked by Catholic writers, and its accuracy in details has been successfully challenged, even such blunders as indicate gross over-credulity having been exposed; but the honourable lives of Foxe and his assistants place the work above the charge of wilful falsehood. If in all those who had been engaged in the persecution he could only recognize the spirit of cruelty and Antichrist—if in the noble Sir Thomas More he could only see “a persecuting spirit,”— this was but natural in a man who had witnessed the untimely destruction of some of the noblest spirits of the age, of some whom he had personally known and loved, and whose own career has been undeservedly blighted by the ruthless hand of persecution; and it must be remembered to his honour that in his firm grasp of the principle of religious toleration he rose far above his age and his fellow Protestants. He hated impartially all religious persecution, and he wrote to Queen Elizabeth pleading even for the despised Dutch Anabaptists. It is interesting to note that Foxe was one of the earliest students of Anglo-Saxon, and that John Day was the only printer of the day who could print the Anglo-Saxon characters. In 1571 they published, under the patronage of Archbishop Parker, an edition of the Saxon Gospels, dedicated to the queen. Foxe died on the 18th April 1587, at the age of seventy, and was buried in the Church of St Giles, Cripplegate. His life was written by his son, Samuel Foxe.
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