Fox's Book of Martyrs

brucesbiblepage

Nov 3

https://www.biblestudytools.com/history/foxs-book-of-martyrs/

Edited by William Byron Forbush This is a book that will never die -- one of the great English classics. . . . Reprinted here in its most complete form, it brings to life the days when "a noble army, men and boys, the matron and the maid," "climbed the steep ascent of heaven, 'mid peril, toil, and pain." "After the Bible itself, no book so profoundly influenced early Protestant sentiment as the Book of Martyrs. Even in our time, it is still a living force. It is more than a record of persecution. It is an arsenal of controversy, a storehouse of romance, as well as a source of edification."

Fox's Book of Martyrs is in the public domain and may be freely used and distributed.

An Account of the Persecutions in Great Britain and Ireland, Prior to the Reign of Queen Mary I Part 2
It was much the same in that part of Ireland now called Leinster, there the Danes murdered and burned the priests alive in their churches; they carried destruction along with them wherever they went, sparing neither age nor sex, but the clergy were most obnoxious to them, because they ridiculed their idolatry, and persuaded their people to have nothing to do with them.
In the reign of Edward III the Church of England was extremely corrupted with errors and superstition; and the light of the Gospel of Christ was greatly eclipsed and darkened with human inventions, burdensome ceremonies, and gross idolatry.
The followers of Wickliffe, then called Lollards, became extremely numerous, and the clergy were so vexed to see them increase; whatever power or influence they might have to molest them in an underhand manner, they had no authority by law to put them to death. However, the clergy embraced the favorable opportunity and prevailed upon the king to suffer a bill to be brought into parliament, by which all Lollards who remained obstinate, should be delivered over to the secular power, and burnt as heretics. This act was the first in Britain for the burning of people for their religious sentiments; it passed in the year 1401 and was soon after put into execution.