Above, martyrs Woodman, Steves, Mainard, Hosman, Wood, Morris, Burges, Ashdon and Groves are burnt together at the stake in Lewes; below, the hand of Rose Allins is held over a flaming torch by Edmund Tyrill. Etching by G. Terry.

John Fox's (1527-1597) Book of Martyrs was originally published in the 16th century, it being the classic history of the lives, sufferings, and deaths of the Early Christian martyrs. After the bible itself, no book so profoundly influenced early Protestant sentiment as the Book of Martyrs