ABSTRACT
George Townsend's preliminary discussion to the 1841 edition of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments remains the most detailed modern analysis yet published of A Treatise of Three Conversions of England from Paganism to Christian Religion. The initial volume of Robert Persons's work discusses the arguments for supposing there were two periods of conversion of England to Christianity in the primitive church: a 'probable' conversion by the apostles or their close followers, and a mysterious conversion under King Lucius by Pope Eleutherius in 180. Persons does not claim that Conversions presents the truth of the events: no side was in a position to write an ecclesiastical history of the Reformation at this time, since Catholics lacked access to 'authenticall records' and Protestants were too engaged to be impartial observers. Persons pick up points where Foxe's prose becomes embarrassed, as it attempts to determine what inward motions the martyr felt.
