LP in the British Library, Day #4

This turned out to be a truncated day, as I was able to locate one of the books I was looking at on GoogleBooks (different edition, different title, but I found it on a hunch) and was being driven to do something I might regret by the other one--perhaps something that might annoy correspondents to the LRB. (It would appear that my sermon is still relevant. For the record, noise has not been a problem in the days I've been at the library, although I've primarily been ensconced in Rare Books.)  I was therefore left with the book in the middle, which actually would have worked nicely in Book Two, but too late now.

Randolphe Henry Pigott, The Martyr-Crown; Or, “The Seed of the Church.” Proof that some things don't actually die on schedule--namely, the trend for writing anti-Catholic novels about Reformation martyrs.  This book appeared in 1897 and seems to have had a second edition at some undated point.  This historical novel features the martyrdom of Welsh fisherman Rawlins White, followed by an invented narrative about his son (mentioned in Foxe).  After White dies, his son Tim manages to secure an exhibition at Winchester; on his way there, Tim stops over in Oxford, where he gets to run into such Reformation characters as John Foxe himself, and even gets to witness Cranmer recanting his recantation before being burnt at the stake.  After that, um, not much happens, aside from some Tom Brown's School Days-type adventures (only in the 16th c.) and various Protestants trying to hotfoot it out of England.  In the end, the hotfooting is successful, and Tim goes on to have a successful career as a clergyman after he marries his adopted sister (!!!).  Most interesting for the narrator's reflections on Foxe's Book of Martyrs as a material object and on the circumstances under which it might have been read, especially in contrast to late-Victorian texts.  (Also, I think this is the only time I've come across Foxe as a character; there must be others somewhere.)