But without an intimate knowledge of Foxe's political experience and capacity he would hardly have made him his principal secretary, and soon afterwards Lord Privy Seal and elected Bishop of Exeter on 29 January 1487, being consecrated on 8 April. Doubtless Henry had every reason to reward his companions in exile, and to rule like Ferdinand II of Aragon by means of lawyers and churchmen rather than trust nobles like those who had made the Wars of the Roses. The important offices conferred on Foxe immediately after the Battle of Bosworth imply that he had already seen more extensive political service than can be traced in records. In January 1485 Richard intervened to prevent Foxe's appointment to the vicarage of Stepney on the ground that he was keeping company with the 'great rebel, Henry ap Tuddor.' There he came into contact with Henry Tudor, who was beginning his quest for the English throne, and was taken into his service.

In 1484, Foxe was in Paris possibly for the sake of learning or because he had made himself unpopular with Richard III. He also appears to have studied at Cambridge University, but nothing definite is known of his first thirty-five years. He is thought to have gone to Magdalen College, Oxford, from which he drew many members of his subsequent foundation, Corpus Christi. His parents belonged to the yeoman class, and little is known about Foxe's early career. Foxe was born at Ropsley near Grantham, Lincolnshire.

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