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Anne Askew didn’t raise a family. She never made large sums of money. She couldn’t even claim a solid reputation as her own. Instead, she was burned at the stake for crimes she committed against the state.
As ludicrous as it may sound, most of those crimes revolved around her understanding of the Lord’s Supper.
Anne was born in Lincolnshire in 1521, and like everyone else in her day, was a member of the Church of England. But when the Protestant Reformation swept across Europe, she was engulfed in its foundational – and controversial – doctrines, which included salvation by faith alone and a rejection of transubstantiation, the belief that the bread and wine are literally the body and blood of Jesus.
She was soon arrested on the grounds of “heresy” and held in Counter Prison where she was questioned about her beliefs by the mayor of London and Edmund Bonner, the bishop’s chancellor. Though she underwent repeated interrogations, she never recanted of her faith, and was eventually released due to her friendship with several influential citizens.
However, it wouldn’t be long before she was arrested again…and her second “examination” would prove to be far more difficult than the first.
In June of 1546, she was taken into custody again for charges of “heresy,” and underwent a two-day long interrogation at Newgate Prison. She was told to recant of her faith, but refused to do so. When she appealed to King Henry VIII for help, he made her situation even more dire by having her sent to the infamous Tower of London.
There, she suffered unimaginable pain at the hands of the sinister Lord Wriothesley; he tortured her on the rack for hours on end. She was promised an end to the cruel and brutal persecution if she would only name her co-conspirators and recant of her faith.
She refused her captor on both accounts.
This defiance sealed her fate. She was sentenced to burn at the stake, the Church’s way of “purifying” sinners.
On July 16, 1546, Anne was carted to the place of executions in a chariot because the inhumane torture had robbed her of the ability to walk. Carried from the chariot to the stake, she was chained at the waist and forced to listen to a sermon. The authorities had arranged for a man by the name of Shaxton to preach at her execution because he had previously recanted of his Protestant faith and their hope was he would be able to convince her to do the same.
Instead, she interrupted his preaching to correct his doctrine!
Infuriated, the officials gave her one final chance to recant. Her response was a resolute one: “I have not come this far to deny my Lord and Master.” She was promptly executed.
Resource’s Origins:
The Examinations of Anne Askew by Elaine V. Beilin. Oxford University Press, 1996, Pages 191-192.
Topics Illustrated Include:
Beliefs
Choices
Death
Faith
Heresy
Lord’s Supper
Martyr
Pain
Persecution
Reformation
Suffering
Torture
(Resource cataloged by David R Smith)
