“Nero, the sixth emperor of Rome. This monarch reigned for the space of five years, with tolerable credit to himself, but then gave way to the greatest extravagancy of temper, and to the most atrocious barbarities. Among other diabolical whims, he ordered that the city of Rome should be set on fire, which order was executed by his officers, guards, and servants. While the imperial city was in flames, he went up to the tower of Macaenas, played upon his harp, sung the song of the burning of Troy, and openly declared that 'he wished the ruin of all things before his death.”
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John Foxe, martyrologist, is remembered as the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, an account of Christian martyrs throughout history but especially emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants from the fourteenth century through the reign of Mary I.
Foxe's prospects, and those of the evangelical cause generally, improved after the death of Henry VIII in January 1547, the accession of Edward VI, and the formation of a Privy Council dominated by pro-reform Protestants.
Although both he and his contemporary readers were more credulous than most moderns, Foxe presented "lifelike and vivid pictures of the manners and feelings of the day, full of details that could never have been invented by a forger." Foxe's method of using his sources "proclaims the honest man, the sincere seeker after truth."