ABSTRACT
John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is probably the best-known Protestant martyrology of the sixteenth century. The first English edition, published on 20 March 1563, was an enormous compendium of biographies of Protestant martyrs from the proto-Protestant Bohemian Jas Hus in the early fifteenth century up to the reformers killed during the persecutions of the Catholic government of Queen Mary I of England (1553–8). Appearing in the tense political and religious context of the accession of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, Foxe’s work sought to bolster the faith of English Protestants and was a polemical attack on Catholicism. In 1571, the Anglican authorities ordered that a copy should be kept in every English cathedral church. In this passage, Foxe recounts the life of Dr. Rowland Taylor, a protestant preacher arrested and burned at the stake in 1555. Foxe’s portrayal of Taylor offers an interesting contrast between the martyr’s seeming lack of emotional response (indeed serenity) when faced by the intemperate accusations and rage of the Catholic bishop of Winchester. The martyr’s lack of emotional response to the prospect of his horrific death – particularly his fearlessness – are presented as remarkable and exemplary proof of his faith and, by extension, of the superiority of that faith over Catholicism.
