ABSTRACT
The Acts and Monuments was one of those comparatively rare books which transcend the context in which they were written. Foxe's agenda was very much of his own time. He was concerned to demonstrate that the reformed faith to which he was committed represented, and always had represented, the truth. Those who embraced that faith were therefore, and always had been, the "true" church. Sir William Cecil knew Foxe as a potential ally long before the Acts and Monuments saw the light of day. The direct political influence of Foxe ended with the fall of the republic in 1660. Many copies of what was now considered to be a vast and unreadable tome were consigned to parish cupboards to gather dust. The Acts and Monuments is a great historical work, comparable in scale with the corpus of Shakespeare's plays, and in influence with Das Kapital or the Origin of Species.
