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About one-third of primary and secondary schools in England are administered by Anglican or Roman Catholic voluntary organizations. More than 90 percent of the secondary-school population (children aged 11 through 18) within the government's school system attend state-funded comprehensive schools, in which admission is not based on aptitude alone; the remainder attend grammar schools (founded on the principle of teaching grammar [meaning Latin] to boys), secondary modern schools, or one of the growing number of specialist schools (such as City Technology Colleges). Tertiary colleges offer a full range of vocational and academic courses to students aged 16 and older. Independent schools provide both primary and secondary education but charge tuition. In large cities a large number of independent schools are run by ethnic and religious communities.
The passionate intensity of the style and the vivid and picturesque dialogues made it very popular among Puritan and Low Church families down to the nineteenth century. The church history of the earlier portion of the book, with its grotesque stories of popes and monks contributed much to anti-Catholic thought in England as had the sufferings of those Protestants burnt at the stake by Mary and the notorious Bishop Bonner. Foxe's account of the Marian years is based on Robert Crowley's 1559 extension of a 1549 chronicle history by Thomas Cooper, itself an extension of a work begun by Thomas Lanquet. (Cooper, who became a bishop under Elizabeth, stridently objected to Crowley's appropriation of his history and soon issued two new "correct" editions. It is interesting to note that Cooper, Crowley and Foxe were all students and fellows at the same time at Magdalen College in Oxford University; prior to his and Crowley's apparently pressured resignation for the college, Foxe objected in a letter to college president that all three were persecuted by some masters of the college for their evangelical beliefs.) Some historians dispute the accuracy of Foxe's claims regarding martyrdoms under Mary, centering primarily on the reasons for the executions themselves. Of the 273 people Foxe claimed were martyred by Mary, nearly 200 were listed by name and occupation only. With no corroborating documentation, and given Foxe's anti-Catholic views, it cannot be assumed that these executions were carried out only for religious reasons. It is also probable that at least some of the victims were revolutionaries intent on removing Mary from the throne.1 Foxe continued to collect material and to expand the work throughout his life, producing three revised editions. After the completion of the second edition (1570), the Convocation ordered that every cathedral church should own a copy. Foxe's work was enormous (the second edition filling two heavy folio volumes with a total of 2300 pages estimated to be twice as long as Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) and its production by the printer John Day (who worked closely with Foxe) was the largest publishing project undertaken in England up to that time. The Book of Martyrs was the primary propaganda piece for English anti-Catholicism, and contributed to the continuing use of Mary Tudor's nickname "Bloody Mary". The Catholic Encyclopedia states that in less than four years during the reign of Mary Tudor 277 persons were burned to death (having first been judged by the Church to be "heretics"). In later years abridged editions, often also containing accounts of later persecutions, were produced. The Wikisource version, edited by William Byron Forbush, is one of the most popular of these editions.