THE EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE AND MISSIONARY CHRONICLE. FOR NOVEMBER, 1858. JOHN FOXE. WHO is there in old England that has not heard of Foxe's Book of Martyrs? Who is there that does not remember the ponderous folios of older editions, with their brown-looking paper and fine large print, their quaint title-page, and numerous pictures of burnings and tortures; their likeness of the author in his slouch hat, with pale, thin face and pointed beard; a dash of humour brightening the look of care, and scholastic robes lending dignity to his figure? Who is there that has not looked at every one of those rudely executed wood-cuts, and then turned to the letter-press to find out what they represented, and so got at the very heart and core of the book without a regular perusal ? Such an acquaintance, however, with the "Acts and Monuments" (as his work was entitled), though it may satisfy us in these quiet days, would have been thought quite insufficient at the time of its publication. "Great," says Strype, "was the expectation of the book here in England, before it came abroad. The Papists scurrilously called it 'Foxe's Golden Legend.' When it first appeared, there was extraordinary fretting and fuming at it through all quarters of England, and on the continent, even to Louvaine." "No book," says Neal, ever gave such a mortal wound to popery as this. It was dedicated to 66 VOL. XXXVI. the queen, and was in such high reputation, that it was ordered to be set up in churches; where it raised in the people an invincible horror and detestation of that religion which had shed so much innocent blood.". We cannot doubt that in a great degree it has continued to produce the same effect ever since, and has kept up a wholesome dread of the prevalence of popery. For, although few, perhaps, now wade through the voluminous original, yet in abridgments and quotations it has always been popular, and is still sure to be read.. Its style is racy and graphic. Its details are full of interest, and deeply affecting. The sufferers are sketched with such force and skill, that they seem to walk over the stage before us. We see their manner of life; we listen to their conversations; we are introduced to their parishes and families; we stand with them before their judges; we hear the very arguments by which they defend their nonconformity, and expose the errors of Rome; we follow them to the rack and the stake; we catch their last trustful and triumphant words; and, with a profounder veneration for their principles, we feel a corresponding repugnance to the corrupt and intolerant church which drained their blood. The most adroit argumentative exposures of Romanism have not done half so T T much to confirm Englishmen in their | antism, to seek an asylum at Frankfort. Protestant faith as the life-like narrative of Foxe. A brief sketch of the man, to whom we owe so much, may not be unacceptable to our readers. 1 Foxe had been brought up in the strictest school of Romanism, and, therefore, was not likely to adopt any change except as the result of deep convicJohn Foxe was born at Boston, in tion. But his friendship with Nowell, Lincolnshire, in 1517. His parents are and conversation with him respecting described as "well reputed of, and of the opinions of Luther, the controversy good estate." He lost his father when of the king with Rome, the Bible now very young; but his mother married translated, printed, and circulated, and again, and his father-in-law, finding the martyrdom of Tyndale, Frith, and that the boy was possessed of great Bilney, would open up questions which abilities, and was passionately fond of his natural zeal and conscientiousness reading, encouraged him to persevere constrained him to investigate, until he in his studies. His fortune, however, arrived at what he believed to be the does not appear to have been equal to truth. To render his conclusions as the charges of a college education, and solid and certain as possible, he not hence Foxe was indebted to the libe- only entered upon the study of the rality of some friends, who were struck Scriptures, but made himself profoundly with his "good inclinations and toward- acquainted with ecclesiastical history, ness to learning," for his course at Ox- particularly with the controversies ford. He was entered at Brazennose which had agitated the church. "His when he was sixteen years of age, and application," says his son, 66 was great. in May, 1538, took his degree of B.A. Before he was thirty years of age, he The distinction which he achieved was had read over all that either the Greek such that he was elected fellow of Mag- or Latin fathers had left in their writdalen in 1543, and proceeded to his ings, the schoolmen in their disputamaster's degree in the same year. As tions, the councils in their acts, or the he was remarkable for the elegance of consistories in their decrees." The menhis Latin style, and had also a taste for tal struggle which he passed through poetry, he wrote in these, his younger was most severe. On the one hand days, several Latin plays, one of which, were old prejudices, beloved friends, "De Christo Triumphante," was trans- worldly interest, probably the fear of lated into English by Richard Day. being misled by seeming novelties; on But his chief studies and inquiries were the other hand, were deepening and directed to the subject of theology, most solemn convictions, produced by which he pursued with a conscientious- the study of God's unerring Word, and ness that was one of the leading cha- the whole history of the past. Most racteristics of his mind. In these in- affecting is it to read the account which quiries, and the conclusions which he his son gives of these conflicts, and of finally reached, he was probably some- the pains he took to avoid error or miswhat influenced by his companion and take. "He was reported," says he, chamber-fellow at Brazennose, Alexan- "by some of his fellow-students, to der Nowell, who became a public reader have bestowed, over and above his day's of logic in the university, then second exercise, whole nights at his studies, master in Westminster School, after- or not to have betaken himself to rest wards Dean of St. Paul's, and, in the till very late. Then it was that he days of Elizabeth, principal of his old read the Scriptures in their original college at Oxford. Nowell had strong language, and poured out the supplicasympathy with the movements which tions of his soul before the throne of were then commencing in favour of God; asking, as did Solomon, for an reformation, and was subsequently understanding heart, that he might disobliged, in consequence of his Protest-cern between good and bad; and, by comparing spiritual things with spiritual, might arrive at the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. He would leave his study or his bed, and retire to a neighbouring grove, and there, amid darkness and solitude, ponder deeply over what he had been reading, so that he might confirm his mind in the truths he had embraced. .. How many nights he watched in these solitary walks! What combats and wrestlings he suffered within himself! How many heavy sighs and sobs and tears he poured forth with his prayers to Almighty God!" At length his convictions led him to absent himself from the college chapel and the university church, except on official occasions. Suspicions were in consequence awakened, and, in 1545, he was brought before the heads of the college, accused and convicted of heresy, deprived of his fellowship, expelled the university, and ordered to leave the city and county of Oxford without delay. His fatherin-law, also, who was chagrined at his change of views and loss of position, meanly took advantage of this opportunity to withhold his paternal estate, so that he was reduced to great distress. In this state of trouble he was fortunate enough to obtain a situation as private tutor in the family of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, in Warwickshire. How long he continued in that asylum it is impossible to determine; but during his residence there, he married his wife who had been a visitor at the house. Soon after, we find him taking refuge with his wife's father at Coventry; next, we trace him to Boston, where he remained a short time with his mother, striving in vain to bring his step-father to a better mind; and then we learn that, failing to obtain his rights, he felt that he would be more likely to get employment, and escape spies and informers, in the metropolis than in a provincial town, and therefore made his way to London. To what straits he was now reduced, may be gathered from the following anecdote thus related by his son. "As Master Foxe one day sate in St. Paul's church, spent with long fasting, his countenance thin, and eyes hollow, after the ghastly manner of dying men, every one shunning a spectacle of so much horror, there came to him one whom he had never remembered to have seen before, who, sitting down by him, and saluting him with much familiarity, thrust an untold sum of money into his hand, bidding him be of good cheer; adding withal, that he knew not how great the misfortunes were which oppressed him, but supposed it was no light calamity; that he should therefore accept in good part that small gift from his countryman, which common courtesy had forced him to offer; that he should go and take care of himself, and take all occasions to prolong his life; adding that within a few days new hopes were at hand, and a more certain condition of livelihood." In this remarkable and timely succour, Foxe could not fail to recognise a merciful interposition of Divine Providence; for by it he was kept from perishing. Three days after, he was raised above the fear of want; overtures having been made to him by the Duchess of Richmond to undertake the education of the children of the Earl of Surrey, who, with his father, the Duke of Norfolk, was at that time imprisoned in the Tower. Thomas, the eldest of these children, afterwards succeeded his grandfather in the title of Duke of Norfolk, and lost his life in the reign of Elizabeth, for aspiring to the hand of Mary, Queen of Scots. Foxe continued in the Norfolk family during the last days of Henry VIII., the whole of the reign of Edward, and the first year of Mary, and instructed his pupils so carefully, that they all became ripe and elegant scholars, and firm adherents to the Reformed faith; for, although suspicion fell upon the Duke of Norfolk, yet in the address which he delivered before his execution, he said, "I have not been popishly inclined ever since I had any taste of religion; but was always averse to the Popish doctrine, and embraced the true religion of Jesus Christ, and put my whole trust in the blood of Christ, my blessed Saviour and Redeemer." While thus fulfilling his duties as tutor at Reigate, he was ordained deacon, by Ridley, Bishop of London, and preached the gospel whenever opportunity offered. Moreover, he published three or four small works in Latin, and is believed to have collected the materials for the first part of his great work, "The Acts and Monuments." On the accession of Mary, Foxe saw the prisons rapidly filling with the victims of papal bigotry and persecution, and would at once have fled with some others to the continent, but for the persuasions of his young patron. Gardiner, however, having one day called on the Duke of Norfolk, and made a remark on Foxe, which seemed to imply more than it expressed, the duke advised him at once to withdraw, and arranged for his secret embarkation on the Suffolk coast. His wife, who was then pregnant, accompanied him. But the night on which they weighed anchor was so tempestuous, that the stoutest sailors trembled, the ship was in danger of being lost, and the captain was compelled, at dawn of day, to put back to the port from which he had started. Then Foxe discovered that a messenger from the Bishop of Winchester had been despatched to the coast to apprehend him, but understanding he was gone, had returned without his errand. The captain was induced to set sail again at the earliest possible moment, and, though the sea was still boisterous, landed him safely at Nieuport. As soon as he could, Foxe proceeded to Strasbourg, where he found Grindal, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who was continually receiving from his friends in England detailed accounts of the cruel persecutions which Mary and her prelates were now relent lessly carrying forward. These ac counts were placed at the disposal of Foxe, and materially assisted him in the latter part of his history. The former part of that work he here completed, and sent to the press in its Latin form. Before the end of the year, however (the year 1554), he removed to Frankfort, where the largest number of the English exiles were settled, and there took a prominent part in the distressing controversies respecting the use of the English Service-book, which are so well known as "The Frankfort Troubles." He sided with Knox against the use of the English Liturgy, and hence, when Dr. Coxe, by the basest means, succeeded in getting that bold Reformer banished, he retired with several others to Basle. In this city he arrived, November, 1555, and obtained employment, with the printer, Oporinus, as corrector of the press. While these things were passing abroad, persecution was doing its worst in England. Within the five years of Mary's reign, no fewer than 277 martyrs perished at the stake. When the storm had reached its height, and Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer had perished at the stake, Foxe, from his foreign refuge, addressed a remonstrance to the queen and her nobility, in which, with burning eloquence, he inquires "whom will it not draw to groans and tears, e'en if he have never been in England, to hear of so much Christian blood being shed in the land; that so many ingenious citizens, So many honourable and innocent men, promiscuously with women, are daily in danger of their lives and fortunesare slain, burnt, and torn to pieces, almost without bounds and number? If the barbarians from farthest Turkey, or a fierce enemy from some other quarter, invading England, had caused such a slaughter of the nation, perhaps neither the calamity nor the complaint would have been less. But now those persons, whose safety belongs principally to you, ye see and allow to be apprehended, to be hunted, to be torn in pieces, and lacerated-English, their |