Over the last few decades, studies on John Foxe's martyrology and history, the Acts and Monuments, have diversified from its Tudor history and its martyrological aspects to subjects such as the production and publication processes (Elizabeth Evenden and Thomas Freeman, Religion and the Book in Early Modern England: The Making of John Foxe's Book of Martyrs [2011]), investigations of the classical and medieval histories (Matthew Phillpott, The Reformation of England's Past: John Foxe and the Revision of History in the Late Sixteenth Century [2018]), and an examination of Islamic representation (Christopher Toenjes, Making of the English Reformation: The History of the Ottoman Empire in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, [2016]). Susan Royal's examination of Foxe's lollard history, and its reception and transmission in the seventeenth century, slots nicely alongside these other studies, filling a gap that otherwise has not received recent detailed attention. Foxe's lollards have, of course, received significant attention in the past and have been critiqued ever since the Acts and Monuments were first published, so what does Royal offer that is new in Lollards in the English Reformation?

Lollardy, as molded by Foxe, represented an early beginning for the Reformation, which Royal calls part of a “progressive perfection” in the history of Christianity (211). This is the idea that corruption had set in early in the church, and that the rediscovery of the true faith—often by those who were persecuted—was slow to return and took time to perfect.

By first setting the scene (chapter 1), and then, in subsequent chapters, examining how Foxe tackled a selection of the lollards’ key beliefs, Royal highlights how the choices Foxe made influenced the debate of the next century. The contentious issues of common ownership and pacificism (chapter 2), were muted by Foxe, and seemingly successfully as few took up the claims in the next century. The taint of sedition was more difficult to remove, but scholars in the 1630s, such as Thomas James and Andrew Willet, did defend Foxe's claims that John Oldcastle and John Wyclif were not traitors. The debate on the validity of the sacraments, particularly baptism, and transubstantiation (chapter 4) were taken up by the likes of John Tombes, Richard Baxter, and Henry Danvers, while the authority of the episcopate and the right to enforce tithes (chapter 5) benefitted Quakers, Puritans, and nonconformists alike. The importance lollards placed on preaching (chapter 6) was shared by early evangelical scholars but highly contentious in later decades for its potential to support lay preaching and thus, sedition. Foxe's lollard narrative, therefore, proved useful also to later debates about the role of priests and clergymen.

Royal's study is most important and original in the way that it builds upon many of the more recent studies to make a case that scholars have overplayed claims to Foxe's ability to mediate the lollards’ more radical views. Foxe's fidelity to his sources is now well understood, and the complexities of the work he undertook—not just in terms of the sheer overload of materials available to him, but also in terms of the tight deadlines and production problems—has been demonstrated. It is clear now that Foxe retained a variety of opinions both conservative and radical across the chapters of his book and that he often mediated these with marginal asides or elongated commentary, expunging some material, while also exaggerating or marginalizing others. However, as Royal identifies in the lollard stories (and as is clear elsewhere in the Acts and Monuments), Foxe was inconsistent. There are times, such as in the case of Walter Brute's views on baptism, where the expected mediating hand of Foxe is nowhere to be found.

The linchpin of Royal's argument is that scholars have too often assumed that Foxe mediated the lollards as martyrs in the same way that he did the Marian martyrs. As Royal points out, these are two separate groups, and Foxe's approach differs. Foxe retained the lollards’ wider spectrum of beliefs as it showed that they were part of a process towards perfecting religion, not the completion of it. Such a variety of opinions and the inclusion of radical beliefs meant that Foxe's work proved useful to all sides during the debates of the following century, but it also made it a complex task. Foxe essentially left the future with a freehand to interpret his evidence in multiple ways, only blocking—as much as possible—claims that the lollards were seditious. He also left the future with a belief that lollards had often suffered martyrdom, when only a few were killed for their beliefs. Martyrdom, of course, held deep-rooted importance in evangelical thought, largely due to the Marian persecutions but also due to similar persecutions abroad. Fitting lollards into the pattern and process of persecution was therefore tricky. As Royal describes in chapter 2, Foxe used the idea of suffering, including trials, oaths, imprisonment, penance, abjuration, and humiliation, as a form of martyrdom. Such issues were taken up a century later by men such as Roger Williams, Alexander Shields, and William Prynne to debate the origins of their faiths.

Royal concludes that Foxe managed to entrench an idea about the lollards that was less seditious and more foundational to many of the divergent churches that formed over the course of the next century. The claims that Foxe had made were contested, but because he retained much of the diversity of opinions found in the lollard texts, his work remained useful. Almost anyone was able to claim the lollards as their spiritual forebears, based on different aspects of the evidence. The lollards, while often marginal to their arguments, could be adopted and appropriated by all sides. Royal's examination of this subject therefore represents a useful addition to the growing understanding of Foxe's work, its creation, purpose, reception, and its influence. It also manages to bring new interpretations to how Foxe managed and interpreted the lollard textual legacy.