“What storms and tempests it [the church] hath overpast, wondrous it is to behold.” The works of church historians rarely influence history itself, but John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments of Matters Happening to the Church—commonly known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs—is the exception that proves the rule. “It is hard to overemphasize the impact his Acts and Monuments had the 20 years following its 1563 publication,” writes historian David Loades. “By