John Foxe at Home and Abroad

John Foxe is chiefly remembered as an historian and propagandist of the English Reformation. However, thanks partly to his exile (1554-59) and partly to his network of friends among the continental reformers, both his general intention and his Latin works were widely known. His major English work, the Actes and Monuments, made little immediate impact in Europe, although by the following century it was generally familiar at second hand, but wherever the English language went, whether to North America or to European exile, a broad familiarity with the Book of Martyrs went with it. Although his effective influence varied very much from one country to another, eventually it became international - and indeed worldwide.