Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/151

 with Parkhurst, and as having preached in his diocese. The bishop invited him to Norwich (29 Jan. 1563–4), but there is no evidence of an earlier visit. From the autumn of 1561 Foxe was chiefly engaged in translating his latest volume into English and in elaborating its information. The papers of Ralph Morice, Cranmer's secretary, had fallen into his hands, together with much new and, as Foxe believed, authentic material. Most of his time was clearly spent in London at the Duke of Norfolk's house in Aldgate, but every Monday he worked at the printing-office of John Day in Aldersgate Street, who had undertaken the publication.

In 1564, after the death of the Duchess of Norfolk, Foxe removed from the duke's house to Day's house in Aldersgate Street, and took a prominent part in Day's business. He petitioned Cecil (6 July 1568) to relax in Day's behalf the law prohibiting a printer from employing more than four foreign workmen. Day's close connection with Foxe's great undertaking is commemorated in the lines on Day's tombstone in the church of Little Bradley, Suffolk:— He set a Fox to wright how martyrs runne By death to lyfe: Fox ventured paynes and health To give them light: Daye spent in print his wealth. (Notes and Queries, 6th ser. viii. 246.) But Foxe's stay in Day's house was probably only temporary. In 1565 he spent some time at Waltham. The register states that two of his children, Rafe and Mary, were baptised there on 29 Jan. 1565–6. Fuller in ‘The Infant's Advocate,’ 1653, not only credits Waltham with being Foxe's home when he was preparing ‘his large and learned works,’ but says that he left his posterity a considerable estate in the parish. The biographer of 1641 writes that Foxe was on very good terms with Anne, the wife of Sir Thomas Heneage [q. v.], who was a large landowner in the neighbourhood of Waltham. On 24 July 1749 the antiquary Dr. Stukeley made a pilgrimage to the house associated with Foxe at Waltham, and it then seems to have been a popular show-place (Memoirs, ii. 211). About 1570 Foxe removed to Grub Street, where he probably lived till his death.

On 20 March 1562–3 Foxe's ‘Actes and Monuments’ issued from Day's press, on the very same day as Oporinus published at Basle the second part of the Latin original containing Pantaleone's account of the persecutions on the continent. The title of the ‘Actes and Monuments’ seems to have been borrowed from a book called ‘Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum,’ printed by Jean Crespin at Geneva in 1560. Grindal had written of Foxe's projected work as ‘Historia Martyrum,’ 19 Dec. 1558. From the date of its publication it was popularly known as the ‘Book of Martyrs,’ and even in official documents as ‘Monumenta Martyrum.’ The first edition has four dedicatory epistles: to Jesus Christ, the queen, ad doctum lectorem (alone in Latin), and to the persecutors of God's truth. A preface ‘on the utility of the story’ is a translation from the Basle volume of 1559. Foxe forwarded a copy to Magdalen College, with a letter explaining that the work was written in English ‘for the good of the country and the information of the multitude,’ and received in payment 6l. 13s. 4d. The success of the undertaking was immediate, and at the suggestion of Jewell, bishop of Salisbury, the author received his first reward in the shape of a prebend in Salisbury Cathedral, together with the lease of the vicarage of Shipton (11 May 1563). Before the year was out he had brought out an elaborate treatise on the Eucharist, entitled ‘Syllogisticon,’ with a dedication to his old friend Hawarden, now principal of Brasenose, and in 1564 he published a Latin translation of Grindal's funeral sermon in memory of the Emperor Ferdinand I. But he also spent much time in helping the plague-stricken, and made a powerful appeal to the citizens for help for the afflicted (1564). His poverty did not cease. His clothes were still shabby; the pension which the Duke of Norfolk gave him was very small, and when he bestowed the vicarage of Shipton on William Master he appealed to the queen (August 1564) to remit the payment of first-fruits, on the ground that neither of them had a farthing. He also informed her, in very complimentary terms, that he contemplated writing her life. At Salisbury he declined to conform or to attend to his duties regularly. He had conscientious objections to the surplice. He was absent from Jewell's visitation in June 1568, and in the following December was declared contumacious on refusing to devote a tithe of his income to the repair of the cathedral.

On the Good Friday after the publication of the papal bull excommunicating the queen (1570), Foxe, at Grindal's bidding, preached a powerful sermon at St. Paul's Cross, and renewed his attacks on the catholics. The sermon, entitled ‘A Sermon of Christ Crucified,’ was published by Day immediately, with a prayer and ‘a postscript to the papists,’ and was reissued, ‘newly recognised by the authour,’ in 1575, 1577, and 1585. A very rare edition was printed for the Stationers' Company in 1609. On 1 Oct. 1571 Foxe translated it into Latin, and Day issued it under the title ‘De Christo Crucifixo Concio.’ In this shape it was published at Frankfort in 1575.