John Foxe
![](/Images/godic/202501/14/John_Foxe_from_NPG_cleaned2444.jpg")
![A page from the first edition of Actes and Monuments, also known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, published in 1563.](/Images/godic/202501/14/Actes_and_Monuments2444.jpg")
![Dual martyrdom by burning, 1558; from a 1641 edition of Foxe.](/Images/godic/202501/14/FoxeMartyrsIllustration2444.JPG")
John Foxe (1516/17 – 18 April 1587) was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of Actes and Monuments (popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs), an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the reign of Mary I. Widely owned and read by English Puritans, the book helped mould British popular opinion about the Catholic Church for several centuries.