FOX, JOHN. - Protestant writer, born at Boston in Lincolnshire (England) in 1516, died in 1587. He attended the University of Oxford and was a fellow of Magdalen College. He apostatized in 1545, and during the reign of Maria Tudor (1553–58) took refuge in Basel.
He returned to England during the reign of Elisabetta, and although a convinced Calvinist, he held a prebend in Salisbury Cathedral. He was made famous by his book on the martyrs (The Book of Martyrs), which is the Protestant martyrology of the religious victims during the reign of Maria Tudor. By order of Queen Elisabetta, a copy of this book was to be found in all the residences of bishops and principal dignitaries of the official Church, as well as in colleges and chapels; thus it contributed not a little to fomenting and maintaining English Protestant hatred against the Catholic Church. It is entirely full of inaccuracies, falsehoods, and calumnies, and on almost every page there breathes the intense Calvinist hatred professed by its author against the Catholic Church. It was refuted by Fr. Roberto Persons.
It went through various editions: The Book of Martyrs, revised and corrected by an impartial hand (London 1732); The Book of Martyrs, with notes and appendix by W. Bramley-Moore (ibid., n.d.).