What an answere was that? Though it were but meane (sayed I): Yet it was good enough for the question
Askew is here again indicating her rejection of the idea of the mass as a propitiatory sacrifice. Bonner understands this, as he shows in his reaction: 'What an aunswer is that?' (See Megan L. Hickerson, 'Negotiating Heresy in Tudor England: Anne Askew and the Bishop of London', Journal of British Studies 46 [October 2007], 788-89.)
[Back to Top]Standish's reference is to 1 Corinthians 14. Foxe omits, here, Askew's answer to Standish. As Thomas Freeman and Sarah Wall have noted, the passage in Foxe's base-text, Bale's 1550 (Copland) edition, reads: 'doctor Standish desired my lord, to byd me say my mind, concerning the same text of. S. Paule. I answered that it was against saynt Paules lerning, that I being a woman, shuld interprete the scriptures, specially where so many wise lerned men were'. Freeman and Wall have argued convincingly that this was a case of 'eye skip' - an error on the part of the compositor copying from Bale's 1550 (Copland) edition (See Thomas F. Freeman and Sarah E. Wall, 'Racking the Body, Shaping the Text: The Account of Anne Askew in Foxe's Book of Martyrs', Renaissance Quarterly 54 [2001], 1175-76).
[Back to Top]Then my Lord asked, if there were not one that did speake vnto me. I told him yeas, that there was one of them at the laste, whiche did speake to me in dede. And my Lord than asked me what he said? And I told him, his wordes were of smal effect, that I did not now remembre them. Then said my Lord there are many that read and know the scripture, and yet not follow it nor liue therafter. I said againe, my Lord I would wish that all men knew my cōuersation and liuinge in all poynts, for I am so sure of my selfe this houre þt there are none able to proue any dishonestie by me. If you know any that can do it, I pray you bring thē furth
Whether or not Bonner implies, here, immoral living on Askew's part, this is how she interprets it, as she shows in her answer. In context, a woman's 'honesty' is her chastity, and her 'conversation' is her moral behavior. In his gloss ('Anne askew standeth upon her honesty') Foxe also suggests that this exchange is about Askew's sexual morality.
[Back to Top]This 'circumstance' (or confession of faith) appears in Bonner's Bishop's Register (Guildhall Library MS 9531/12, 109r) as Foxe reproduces it. Askew's addendum to her signature, as she describes it - 'I Anne Askew do beleve all maner of things conteined in the faith of the catholike church' - is intended to relieve her of any commitment to ideas contained within the confession that actually conflict with her own beliefs. Her use of the word 'catholike' implies 'universal' - or rather, Christ's true universal church, rather than the orthodox church associated with Roman or Henrician 'Catholic' orthodoxy.
[Back to Top]It is impossible to ascertain whether or not Askew did sign the confession prepared for her by Bonner in the manner she describes. However, if she wrote the First Examination as part of an exercise also including her authorship of the Lattre - in effect, after the publication of this confession of faith in June 1546 (following her condemnation) - it is likely that she had an interest in denying that she had been apostate in 1545. (See Megan L. Hickerson, '"Ways of Lying": Anne Askew and the Examinations', Gender & History 18 [April 2006], 50-65.)
[Back to Top]And for as much as mention here is made of the Writīg of Boner, which this godly Ann sayd before she had not in memory, therfore I thought in this place to infer the same, both with the whol circumstance of Boner, & with the title therunto prefixed by the register, & also with her owne subscription: to the entent the reader seing the same subscription nether to agre with the time of the title aboue prefixed, nor with the subscription after the writing annexed, he might the better vnderstād therby what credit is to be geuē hereafter to such bishops, and to such regesters. The tenor of Boners wriing procedeth thus.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe tenor of Boners writing wherunto An Askew suscrybed.The true copy of the confession and beliefe of Anne Askew otherwise called Anne Kime made before the bishop of London the. xx. day of March in the yere of oure Lorde God after the computation of the church of Englād. 1544 and subscribed with her owne hand in the presēce of the said B. and other whose names here after are resited, setforth & published at this present, to the entent the world may see, what credence is now to be geuen vnto the same womā who in so short a time hath most dampnably altered and changed her opinion and beliefe and therfore rightfully in open court arrayned and condempned.
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