John Foxe studied at Brasenose, being awarded his B.A. in 1537. The following year he became a Fellow of Magdalen College, but his strong Protestant views led to his expulsion from his Fellowship in 1545.
On the accession of Mary I he left England, not returning until after the accession of Elizabeth I. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1560, but undertook no parish duties. Although strongly espousing one side of the religious debates of the period he was an advocate of tolerance, pleading for the pardon of both Anabaptists and Jesuits.
His fame rests on his The Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Dayes, an account of the persecutions of Protestants, commonly known as the Book of Martyrs.