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The Founders XXXX to XXXX
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The Reformationists from XXXX to XXXX

John Foxe, an Oxford Scholar, created the Book of Martyrs. In telling the high price paid for the Word of God, it would impact the English people forever. Foxe was caught up with the ideas of the Reformation, and as Bloody Queen Mary took power, he fled to Protestant Europe. Risking his life, he worked publishing the most important books of the Reformers. He was inspired by ideas that would become the foundation for the Book of Martyrs. Foxe’s challenge was to change Protestant executions from that of “heretics” and “dissidents” to “heroes” and “martyrs for the cause”. In doing so, it showed how her people now had the chance to embrace the true Reformed church. With the Protestant Queen Elizabeth taking power, Foxe returned to write the martyrs’ stories in English from early Christianity to the reigns of the Tudors. His brilliant graphics ensured a largely illiterate population could understand the message they were trying to convey. In 1570, the queen’s privy council ordered copies of Foxe’s book to be distributed to parish churches across the country. As the Book of Martyrs was chained to lecterns across England, it joined the English Bible and the reintroduced Book of Common Prayer that formed the backbone of the English reformation.