** Dictionary of National Biography, article “John Foxe,”

No more potent means could have been devised for saturating the national mind with the principles of the Reformation than the diffusion of the Book of Martyrs on this gigantic scale.  In a few years there was scarcely a parish church in England that did not possess a chained copy of the work.  The illiterate might frequently be seen standing in a group round the lectern, while one among them better instructed than the rest read to them aloud its graphic and lying legends.  Added to this, in many churches a chapter was read to the assembled congregations every Sunday evening along with the Bible, and the clergy constantly made its dubious martyrdoms the subject of their sermons.  No wonder that it assumed an importance equal to that of the Scriptures themselves.  One of the indictments against Archbishop Laud at his trial was the fact that he had ordered it to be removed from some churches in his diocese.*

* Dictionary of National Biography, article “John Foxe.”

The secret of its charm for Puritan England did not altogether lie in its Anti-Marian character, or in the partisanship of its garbled facts and fictitious heroisms.  The simplicity of its vigorous English, the picturesque though minute circumstances which it detailed, the very boldness with which it lied, in league with the primary passions to which it appealed, made it one of the most powerful engines in the revolution that gradually changed the face of the whole country.  Its deadly work of destruction has been effectually accomplished, and it is almost useless to attempt to convince a people into whose frame and tissue its stories have been woven, that the Protestant Reformation in which they so implicitly believe is but a fairytale for the invention of which John Foxe is mainly responsible.  Gairdner, in his History of the English Church in the Sixteenth Century, a book of the very first importance for any serious study of the period, has again and again expressed his opinion of the worthlessness of the Acts and Monuments as history; and the Rev. John Gerard* has been at the pains of collecting the learned historian’s remarks on Foxes compilation.  He says: 

* In his pamphlet, John Fare and his Book of Martyrs, Catholic Truth Society.

“But more damaging than any other is the criticism which Foxe receives at the hands of Mr. James Gairdner, the fullness of whose knowledge is matched only by the calm judicial manner in which he deals with the martyrologist’s stories as he encounters them in his own history.  Discussing each case on its merits, and giving full weight to the evidence on either side, Mr. Gairdner finds charges of untruthfulness and dishonesty established at every turn.  Foxe, he declares, ignores or misrepresents evidence that tells against him [p. 38]; he manipulates it to suit his purpose [56]; he counts as martyrs offenders of all kinds [129n]; he ‘was above all things credulous’