In her diary entry for September 28, 1599, Lady Margaret Hoby writes:

Lady Hoby's diary records the events of her life in Hackness from 1599 to 1605, where she managed her large manor house and estates. Typical of other entries, September 28 demonstrates how her day is divided between domestic duty and devotional practice. Her entry moves seamlessly between the two types of activity, painting a picture of a life in which these two spheres – domestic and spiritual – abut and overlap. The same intersection of domesticity and spirituality is echoed throughout the text Lady Hoby names – the “book of Marters.” In John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, women are often characterized by their distinctly domestic spirituality: their devotion intermingles with their everyday responsibilities as wives, mothers, and daughters. This similarity between readers like Lady Hoby and Foxe's female martyrs has inspired over thirty years of scholarship. In an early and influential article, Carole Levin argues that Foxe's female martyrs constituted role models for Tudor women, though she concludes by noting the difficulty of fitting all of Foxe's women into this model. Since then, critics have often sought to understand how these martyrs align with patriarchal expectations for wives, such as those outlined in conduct manuals and other such texts.

Yet Foxe's women are not intended to be mirrors for their readers’ behavior. Instead, Foxe's female martyrs are part of a much longer trajectory of women in hagiography, whose examples are intended to teach and inspire, rather than provide models for emulation.