[[File:St Mary's Gate, Gloucester.jpg|thumb|center|Statue at Gloucester<ref name=NHL>{{National Heritage List for England|num=1245667|desc=Bishop Hooper's Monument|access-date=18 April 2019}}</ref> of Bishop Hooper, with inscription,
"GLORIA SOLI DEO. For the witness of JESUS and for the Word of GOD, not accepting deliverance, JOHN HOOPER … Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester, was burnt to ashes on this spot, February ix, Anno Domini mdlv."]] |
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Bishop Latimer to Dr Ridley, at their execution:<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.</strong><ref>Pratt J (1853) "The church historians of England. Reformation period. The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe.", Vol 07 part 02., for free download from https://archive.org/details/churchhistorians0702prat/page/n5/mode/2up , page numbered 550.</ref></div>
*The witness of Christians who were persecuted under King Henry VIII (1509–1547) and Queen Mary Tudor (1553–1558), described by a contemporary.
*Relevant editions were published in 1559<ref>Fox J (1559) "Rerum in ecclesia gestarum....", at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=peRDAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Foxe+rerum+1559&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjB4t_9r97cAhVMaVAKHZHxAEYQ6AEIRjAF#v=onepage&q=Foxe%20rerum%201559&f=false at 08 August 2018. Or for free download from the Bavarian State Library. (The 1559 version gives substantial coverage of the persecution under Mary Tudor; for example Latimer, perhaps the most famous of the martyrs, is mentioned more frequently - average per page - in the 1559 version than in the 1641 edition. Another example is that much of the 1559 edition starting at the page numbered 230 deals with the reign of Mary Tudor, that is, 67% of the pages. Further, the 1559 edition only has four illustrations, of which the third shows the martyrdom of Bishop Hooper in 1555 and the fourth shows Archbishop Cranmer, in 1556, being martyred. Evidence is as follows. The standard pdf reader program finds Latamer (Latamerus when nominative, etc) 66 times in the 1559 edition of 761 pages (8.7% instances per page in 1559); likewise Cranmer 23.1% in 1559; the standard pdf reader program finds Latimer 230 times in the 1641 edition of 3282 pages (7.0% instances per page in 1641); likewise Cranmer 9.1% in 1641. Again, the standard pdf reader first finds the number 1554 at the page numbered 230 and thereafter never finds any earlier date (searching for arabic numerals in the 1559 edition).)</ref> (Latin, Switzerland), 1563 (first English edition), 1570, 1576, 1583.
*John Foxe had been a Fellow of Magdalen College Oxford (pronounced Mordlin College) 1538/9 to 1545.
*Details of trials, accounts of martyrdoms, letters from gaol, etc.
* Foxe often names his sources. The title page of the 1563 edition reads, "… according to the … wrytinges … of the parties them selves that suffered, as also out of the Bishops Registers, which were the doers therof…"
*The book is sometimes called "Acts and Monuments".
*Some material is unsuitable for children.
====Further Reading====
Oxford World's Classics offer an abridged paperback of about 388 pages, in a modern typeface. The version emphasizes executions rather than trials, debates or letters, and has illustrations from 1583.<ref>Foxe J (2009) "Foxe's Book of Martyrs", edited by King JN, Oxford University Press.</ref>
A full-length version of 3282 large pages can be downloaded free from archive.org. The version dates from 1641 but is in the old-english typeface.<ref>Foxe J (1641) "The Ecclesiasticall historie : containing the Acts and monuments of martyrs....", at https://archive.org/details/ecclesiasticallh01foxe and https://archive.org/details/ecclesiasticallh02foxe and https://archive.org/details/ecclesiasticallh03foxe at 08 August 2018.</ref>