John Foxe - Martyrologist (8 of 9)

An account of his life taken from The History and Antiquities of Boston by Pishey Thompson (1856) [continued].

wife. He left two sons, Samuel and Thomas. Samuel, the eldest, was born in the city of Norwich, December 3 1st, 1560; and, in 1576, became Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford; and afterwards Fellow and Master of Arts. He was, in 1585, by the factions of the Puritan party, expelled from his fellowship on suspicion of Popery,1 but restored to it again by the Queen’s mandate. In 1586, he had a lease of the manor annexed to the Prebend of Skipton settled on him by his father. He was steward to Sir Thomas Heneage, Vice-Chamberlain to the Queen; and, in 1589, married Mrs. Ann Levison in the house of Sir Moyle Finch, of Eastwell, in Kent. In 1610 (as WOOD states), he wrote the life of his father, prefixed to the second volume of the “Acts and Monumnents,” as pub lished in 1641. Thomas Fox, the younger son, was educated at King’s College, Cambridge, and afterwards became an eminent physician in London, and Fellow of the College of Physicians. His daughter, Anne, who was his heir, married Sir Richard Willis, of Ditton, in Essex, “sometime Colonel-General of the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, and Rutland, and Governor of the town and castle of Newark.”2 A note, in BLISS’s edition of WOOD, states, that John Fox had another son, named Symon, Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and a physician.3 WOOD gives a long list of John Fox’s writings, enumerating some which are not known, nor mentioned elsewhere. WOOD’s list consists of twenty-two different works published between 1551 and 1587. It is stated that Mr. Fox, in his youth, “Affected poetry, and wrote some Latin Comedies of the History of the Bible, in a copious and graceful style; this was before he engaged himself seriously in the study of divinity and Church history, and acquired great proficiency in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. WOOD’s list does not include any of John Fox’s poetry, and only one of his Latin Comedies, “De Christo Triumphante,” printed in Basil, 1551, and translated into English, and printed in London in 1556, by Richard Day, under the title of “Christ Jesus Triumphant ;" it was reprinted in 1579 and 1607 in 8 vo.4 The large collection of MSS., consisting of John Fox’s letters, notes, and materials for his works, which were in the possession of the Rev. JOHN STRIPE, and before he had them of William Willis, Esq., of Hackney (the descendant of Sir Richard Willis, who married Fox’s grand-daughter), was purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum at STRIPE’s sale. It is of great value and interest, as an illustration of the times to which it relates.5 Nearly all Fox’s contemporaries and successors speak of his character and abilities with the greatest respect. CAMDEN, under the year 1587, in the Latin MS. of his “Annals of Queen Elizabeth’s Reign,” in the Oxford Library, thus notices his death: “Ex eruditorum numero obiit Johannes Foxus, Oxoniensis, qui ecclesiasticam Angliae historiam, sive Martyrologiam, indefesso veritatis studio, conscripsit: quem Latine primum, postea Anglice auctius, summa cam laude contexuit.”6 TILLOTSON says, “It is, I think, a true observation, that catechising, and tile ‘History of the Martyrs,’ have been the two great pillars of the Reformation.” Dr. CHARLET, some time master of University College,

1 On this occasion his father wrote a very sensible and energetic letter to a bishop (not named), which is quoted in FULLER’s Clurch History, book ix. p. 106. 2 Biog. Brit.—B. 3 See Hatcher’s MSS., anno 1583, mentioned in COLE’s Collections.—B. 4 “I find no account of any Comedies he wrote

on the history of the Bible. Several such were writtenby John Bale, bishop of Ossory, his contemporary and intimate friend, and might have been, by mistake, attributed to JOHN FOX."---B. 5 Harl. MSS. No. 416, 426.---B. 6 STRYPE's Annals, vol iv. part i. p. 741, Oxford edit. 1824.---B. 7 Sermons on Education, p. 162.

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