A New Day: Derricke's Visual Apocalypse and Foxe's Book of Martyrs

• In Event: John Derricke's Image of Irelande: History, Archaeology, and Contexts

Abstract

This essay explores the thematic connections between two English works rife with pro-Protestant Reformation-era politics and religious polemic, John Derricke's Image of Irelande, with a Discoverie of Woodkarne (1581) and Foxe's Acts and Monuments (1560s) (also known as the Book of Martyrs). Both works were published by John Day in London and have an equally sophisticated visual program of woodcuts. My paper will highlight their similar apocalyptic rhetoric as well as similarities between Foxe's frontispiece of his work, showing the Last Judgement, and Derricke's own visual scheme of 12 woodcuts bifurcated in style between the "damned" Irish and the civilized English who conquered them. Sir Henry Sidney, Derricke's hero against the rebel Irish, is portrayed as more of a Christ-like judge than previously understood.

Author

• Thomas Herron, East Carolina University