1576 Edition | Book 8 | Page 1229 
nor exhortation to agreement that will serue betwene these two contrary doctrines, but either the Popes errors must geue place to gods word, or els the verity of God must geue place vnto them.
Wherfore, as the good intent and plausible Oration of the king in this behalfe, was not to be discommended in exhorting his subiects to charitie: so had he much more deserued commendation if he had sought the right way to worke charitie, & to helpe innocencie amongest his subiectes, by taking away the impious law of the vj. articles, the mother of all diuision and manslaughter. For what is this to the purpose, to exhort in wordes neuer so much to charitie, and in dede to geue a knife to the murtherers hand, to run vppon his naked brother, which neither in conscience can leaue his cause, nor yet hath power to defend himselfe? As by experience here followeth to be seene, what charitie ensued after this exhortation of the king to charitie, by the racking and burnyng of good Anne Askew, with 3. other poore subiects of the kyng, within halfe a yeare after: whereof shortly you shall heare more declared.
[Back to Top]When these Chauntreis and colledges thus by Acte of Parliament were geuen into the kings hands as is aboue remembred: which was about the month of December, an. 1545. the next Lent followyng D. Crome
CloseIn the second and later English editions of the Acts and Monuments (1570, 1576, 1583), Foxe introduces Anne Askew's story of examination and martyrdom with a reference to the troubles of Dr Edward Crome, rector of St Mary Aldermary parish church, who publicly recanted his evangelical views three times during Henry VIII's reign, and likely recanted them again during Mary Tudor's reign as well (see Susan Wabuda, 'Equivocation and Recantation during the English Reformation: The "Subtle Shadows" of Dr Edward Crome', Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44 [1993], 224-42). But Crome's submission does more than serve as the point of contrast to Askew's experience (and bravery) offered by Foxe; Crome's sermon at Mercer's Chapel mentioned by Foxe (in which he denied the sacrificial nature of the Mass) sparked the 'purge' of London evangelicals that took place during the summer of 1546, providing the context for Askew's burning with three companions in the fire (including John Lascelles, a gentleman of the king's Privy Chambre), as well as for the recantations of Crome himself and Nicholas Shaxton (formerly Bishop of Salisbury), and the interrogations of Hugh Latimer (formerly Bishop of Gloucester) and George Blage, another of the king's servants. (For Crome's importance, and the significance of his sermon at Mercer's Chapel in particular, see Alec Ryrie, The Gospel and Henry VIII: Evangelicals in the Early Reformation [Cambridge, 2003], pp 53-4, 142.) And if the story following Askew's in the Acts and Monuments, of Gardiner and Wriothesley's attempt to bring down Catherine Parr is to be believed, we should also see Crome's sermon (which so angered the king) as providing an opportune moment for their conspiracy against the queen.
[Back to Top]The move against evangelical heresy following Crome's sermon helps to explain why Anne Askew was called before the Privy Council and burned for heresy in 1546, when the previous year she had been released by the Bishop of London after his own examination of her, despite her having clearly revealing her evangelical heresy to him at that time (Megan L. Hickerson, 'Negotiating Heresy in Tudor England: Anne Askew and the Bishop of London', Journal of British Studies 46 [2007], 774-95).
[Back to Top]Megan L. HickersonHenderson State University
1545.
The charitie of the Byshops. that on Easter next they brought hym Coram nobis, where they so handled him þt they made hym to recant. And if he had not, they would haue dissolued him and his argument in burnyng fire, so burning hote was their charitie, according as they burned Anne Askew and her fellowes in the moneth of Iulye the yeare followyng. Whose tragicall story and cruel handling now consequently (the lord willyng) you shall heare.[Back to Top]
CloseLittle is known about Anne Askew (c. 1521-46) prior to her examination before a London Grand Jury (quest) in March, 1545. She was the daughter of a Lincolnshire knight, Sir William Askew (or Ayscough), and was married at a young age to another knight, Sir Thomas Kyme, apparently against her will. According to John Bale, the first editor of Askew's Examinations (John Bale, The Lattre Examinacyon of the worthye servaunt of God mastres Anne Askewe [Marburg, 1547]), Kyme had been previously betrothed to Askew's older sister, Martha, but she died before their wedding took place and Anne was offered as a substitute bride. Askew and Kyme had two children, but the couple became estranged due to her conversion to and proselytizing of the evangelical heresy and his subsequent decision to expel her from their marital home, seemingly in response to pressure from local priests whom she had antagonized (Bale, Lattre Examination [1547], 15r-v). After fruitlessly petitioning for a divorce in the ecclesiastical court in Lincoln, Askew travelled to London, where her sister Jane and brother Edward served at court. There she continued her unsuccessful pursuit of a divorce, this time in the Court of Chancery.
[Back to Top]In London, Askew came into contact with prominent evangelicals like Edward Crome, Nicholas Shaxton, Hugh Latimer, David Whitehead, and John Lascelles (with whom she was burned), and it seems she had some sort of contact with either Catherine Parr (Henry VIII's sixth queen) or some of the ladies of her court. It is also possible that she was in contact with the sometime Lollard executed for Anabaptism during Edward VI's reign, Joan Boucher (John Davis, 'Joan of Kent, Lollardy and the English Reformation', Journal of Ecclesiastical History 33 [1982], 231). She was arrested on suspicion of heresy in March 1545 (confirmed by the City of London Record Office Repertory 11, fol. 174v), but then released on bail without indictment after a preliminary hearing before a quest (Grand Jury) and a series of interrogations by the Lord Mayor of London and Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London. According to the Windsor Herald, Charles Wriothesley, she was arraigned in June of 1545, but this arrest and arraignment are not mentioned in the Examinations (Charles Wriothesley, A Chronicle of England during the Reigns of the Tudors: from AD 1485 to 1559, ed. William Douglas Hamilton, 2 vols [London, 1875], 1: 155-56). In June 1546, Askew was summoned before the king's Privy Council at Greenwich (Acts of the Privy Council of England, ed. John Roche Dasent, 46 vols (London, 1890), 1, p. 462), who condemned her under the Act of the Six Articles for denying the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar (article one in the Act of the Six Articles condemned any interpretation of the nature of the sacramental elements other than transubstantiation, and mandated death by burning for a first offense).
[Back to Top]Following her condemnation, Askew was illegally tortured in the Tower of London at the hands of two members of King Henry's Privy Council, in an apparent attempt by conservative members of the council to gain information to implicate, as supporters of evangelical reform, female members of Catherine Parr's circle, with whom Askew was thought to be acquainted. According to the description of her torture in the Examinations, Askew was asked, on the rack, about her connections to the Countesses of Suffolk and Hertford, and Ladies Denny and Fitzwilliam; she confessed that two men who had brought her money in prison had told her they were sent by Lady Denny and Lady Hertford, but would say nothing more than that. Crippled from the rack, Askew was burned at Smithfield in London on 16 July 1546, along with three male Protestants, including John Lascelles. Nicholas Shaxton, who had been arrested for his part in counseling Crome against recantation, and who had been arraigned with Askew in June, preached his sermon of recantation at her execution.
[Back to Top]The story of Anne Askew is told through two sets of documents, first published by John Bale (along with his own lengthy 'elucidation') as the First Examinacyon and the Lattre Examinacyon of… Mastres Anne Askewe (in 1546 and 1547 respectively). Following the appearance of these first editions of these two texts, the popularity of Askew's story soon led to a demand for more editions. The two Examinations subsequently appeared bound together in three further editions, once with Bale's commentary, in 1547, and twice without it, in 1548 and 1550. Foxe reproduced the Examinations (translated into Latin and without Bale's commentary) in his 1559 Rerum in Ecclesia Gestarum. Another English edition of the two texts, again omitting Bale's elucidation, was produced early in Queen Elizabeth's reign (1560), and the Examinations appear again, shaped by Foxe's editing, in the several editions of the English Acts and Monuments.
[Back to Top]The original authorship of these documents is a thorny question. Bale claims that the texts describing Askew's series of examinations, along with various letters and statements of faith included in the Lattre Examination, were written by the woman herself and smuggled out of her prison to him in his exile on the continent, where he received them from merchants (both Examinations were first published from Marburg). But even if this is so, there is no reason to think that anyone but Bale ever saw the original manuscripts used by him, and this includes John Foxe. It has been convincingly argued that Foxe's base text for his Askew account is the 1550 edition of Bale's Examinations (published by William Copland), with both First and Lattre accounts bound into one book without Bale's commentary (See Thomas F. Freeman and Sarah Elizabeth Wall, 'Racking the Body, Shaping the Text: The Account of Anne Askew in Foxe's Book of Martyrs', Renaissance Quarterly 54 [2001], 1165-96).
[Back to Top]Foxe's use of the Askew account has been neglected in modern scholarship in favor of Bale's editing of it, primarily because Bale so explicitly imposed much of his agenda on the account, by virtue of his elucidation. But recently, Foxe's shaping of the account has also come under scrutiny, most significantly by Freeman and Wall. Taking careful note of the fact that it is impossible to determine to what extent Bale wrote or edited the actual text of the Askew Examinations prior to publishing them - and no autographed manuscript has been found of any of the texts attributed to Askew - Freeman and Wall argue that both Bale and Foxe must be considered collaborators in the production of the Askew narrative. They were both its mediators and shapers.
[Back to Top]In this respect, Foxe's Examinations of Anne Askew tell the reader as much about his agenda as they do about her experiences. Again, the base text used by Foxe is a 1550 edition of the Examinations in which the two sets of examinations and other texts appear together, without Bale's commentary. But Foxe does not simply reproduce his base text: he makes stylistic and substantive alterations to it (Freeman and Wall, 1176), in the process altering both rhythm and emphases, with a skilled eye to dramatic effect. But Foxe's own editing of the Examinations also changes from edition to edition of his martyrology, first between the Latin Rerum (1559) and his first English edition of the Acts and Monuments (1563), and then, significantly, between first and second (1570) editions of the English work. Perhaps most significant in terms of Foxe's broad framing of the Askew account is the shift of his placement of her account between the first (1563) and second (1570) editions of the English Acts and Monuments, which Freeman and Wall suggest reflect his growing impatience with the progress of the Elizabethan religious reform (Freeman and Wall, 1186-89). Whereas in the 1563 edition of his work Foxe places the Askew account as merely one of a number of stories relevant to the last years of Henry VIII's reign - arranged with 'no apparent order…at all' (Freeman and Wall, 1186) - the 1570 edition sees the development of Askew's account as a 'keystone' for a number of related incidents, reflecting linked themes: resistance to reform by some of Henry VIII's councilors; the responsibility of the monarch to pursue reform regardless of opposition; and the 'disastrous consequences' if the monarch fails to do so, as had Henry (1188). Thus, Askew's story in the 1570 edition, which also sees expanded accounts of her torture and execution, stands as a reminder to Queen Elizabeth of her responsibility to pursue further religious reform - to complete the reformation she had begun - in a context in which it seemed increasingly unlikely that she would do so.
[Back to Top]Megan L. HickersonHenderson State University
MarginaliaThe first examination of A. Askew. TO satisfie your expectation, good people (saieth she) this was my first examination in the yeare of our Lord 1545. and in the month of March.
MarginaliaChristopher Dare Inquisitor.
The first article agaynst An. Askew. First, Christopher Dare examined me at Sadlers Hall, beyng one of the Quest
CloseA 'quest' is a Grand Jury. The parliamentary act, De Haeretico Comburendo (1401), giving bishops the ability to condemn heretics on their own authority and turn them over to the secular power for burning, had been repealed in 1534 (25 Henry VIII, c. 14). But in 1544 (35 Henry VIII, c. 5) Parliament had further undermined ecclesiastical power (possibly in reaction to the harsh penal code attached to the Act of the Six Articles of 1539, which denied those falling foul of the first article on the Real Presence of the opportunity to recant), by requiring that bishops' proceedings against suspected heretics be preceded by Grand Jury indictment. For this reason Askew's imprisonment following her appearance before the Grand Jury (or 'quest') was technically illegal.
[Back to Top]Nevertheless, Common Law and Ecclesiastical courts were still in contention at the time of Askew's arrest over jurisdiction of heresy cases (see Paula McQuade, '"Except that they had offended the Lawe": Gender and Jurisprudence in the Examinations of Anne Askew', Literature & History 3 [1994], 4-6). Bonner, by continuing to hold and interrogate Askew following her appearance before the quest, showed a certain willingness to flout the letter of parliamentary law, but he could certainly have returned her to a second jury had he been so inclined.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe second article. Secondly, he said that there was a woman, whiche did testifie, that I should read. how God was not in Temples made with handes. Then I shewed him the 7. and 17. chap. of the Actes of the Apostles, what Steuen and Paule had said therin. Wherupon he asked me how I tooke those sentences? I aunswered that I would not throw pearles among swine, for acornes were good enough
CloseAskew's reference to St Stephen (Acts 7 and 17) - which she will repeat later under examination by Bonner - is a veiled criticism of the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ's body and blood in the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar. Stephen was stoned to death in part for claiming that God would not be found in temples made with human hands, and Askew interprets this as precluding the possibility that a man (even a priest) could make any vessel or substance 'containing' God. In refusing to explain her position further (or 'throw pealres among swine'), she then draws on Matthew 7, both insulting her questioner but also showing her awareness of the danger she would be in if she answered directly to her belief regarding the Real Presence: according to Matthew 7, Christ teaches, 'Geve not that which is holy/ to doggs/ nether cast ye youre pearles before swyne/ lest they treade them under their fete/ and the other tourne agayne and all to rent you' (William Tyndale, The newe Testament [Antwerp, 1534], ix[v]).
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe 3. article Thirdly, he asked me wherfore I said that I had rather to read fiue lines in the Bible, then to heare fiue masses in the temple? I confessed, that I said no lesse: not for the disprayse of either the epistle or the gospel, but because the one did greatly edifie me, and the other nothing at all. As S. Paul doth witnes in the 14. chap. of his first epistle to the Cor. where as he saieth: If the trumpet geueth an vncertaine sound, who will prepare himselfe to the battayle?Marginalia1. Cor. 14.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe 4. article Fourthly, he laid vnto my charge that I should say: If an ill priest ministred, it was the deuil and not God.
My aunswer was, that I neuer spake any such thyng. But this was my saying: that whosoeuer he were which ministred vnto me, hys ill conditions couldMarginaliaIll conditions of ministers hurt not the fayth of the receauers. not hurt my faith, but in spirit I receiued neuertheles, þe body & bloud of christ
CloseAskew's answer here implies that her responsibility for properly 'receiving' the blood and body of Christ is her own - the efficacy of the sacrament, or rather her receipt of it - has nothing to do with the condition of the priest ministering to her, as she will reiterate later before Bonner. This was controversial, since according to orthodox doctrine the transformation of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood depended not on the condition of the recipient of the elements, nor on the moral condition of the priest, but on the priest's ordination. Askew implies a view essentially undermining the position of the Church in standing as mediator between her and God.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe 5. article He asked me what I sayd concerning confession? I answered him my meaning, which was as S. Iames sayth, that euery man ought to knowledge hys faultes to other, and the one to pray for the other.
MarginaliaThe 6. article Sixtly, he asked me what I said to the kinges booke? And I aunswered hym, that I could say nothing to it, because I neuer saw it
CloseThe King's Book, or A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for Any Christian Man, published in 1543, is a comprehensive statement of English Church doctrine, called the King's Book due to Henry VIII's apparent enthusiasm for its contents. It is often considered part of a conservative "backlash" characterizing the Henrician 1540s, working hand in glove with the Act of the Six Articles (1539) and the Act for the Advancement of True Religion (1543) in this respect, and can be seen as an expression of Henrician religious conservatism. The notable exception to this is the King's Book's dismissive treatment of purgatory, although it nevertheless confirms the efficacy of Private Masses said for the dead. Despite Askew's claim never to have read the King's Book, that does not necessarily mean that she was unaware of its contents (see Megan L. Hickerson, 'Negotiating Heresy in Tudor England: Anne Askew and the Bishop of London', JBS 46 [October 2007], 784-86).
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe 7. article Seuenthly, he asked me if I had the spirit of God in me? I answered, if I had not, I was but a reprobate or cast away. Then he said he had sent for a Priest to examine me, which was there at hand.
MarginaliaA Priest brought to examine Anne Askew. The priest asked me what I sayd to the sacrament of the aulter, and required much to know therin my meanng. But I desired him agayne, to hold me excused concernyng that matter. None other answer would I make hym, because I perceiued hym to be a Papist
CloseIn refusing to speak to the priest sent to Askew by Christopher Dare, Askew's means of discrediting him is interesting. According to recent scholarship on the negotiation of the reformation between Henry VIII and his subjects, the appropriation of anti-papal language was at the heart of the complicity of the people of England in the break with Rome (including those both doctrinally orthodox and evangelical); indeed, anti-papism served as a conduit for the movement from Henrician Catholicism to acquiescence in the Edwardian reformation project (see Ethan Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation [Cambridge, 2003]). In this instance, by calling the priest a papist, Askew was essentially drawing attention to herself as an obedient subject while refusing to speak with one of the king's priests, in the process both rhetorically aligning herself with the royal supremacy and casting doctrinal orthodoxy as itself subversive in being 'papist'.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe 8. article. Eightly he asked me, if I did not thinke that priuate masses did helpe soules departed?MarginaliaPriuate Masses Idolatry. I said, it was great idolatry to beleue more in them, then in the death which Christ died for vs
CloseThe issue of private masses (masses sung for the dead in Purgatory) was a fraught one in the 1540s. The fifth article of the Act of the Six Articles (1539) directs that private masses 'be contynued and admytted', and while the King's Book of 1543 all but dismisses the existence of Purgatory, it also advocates for the efficacy of Private Masses. However, Askew's answer to Dare's question here is of particular interest, because she addresses an issue not actually raised by her interrogator - the sacrificial nature of the mass itself. Dare asks Askew about the effect of private masses on the dead, but in her answer, Askew moves beyond his question, by contrasting private masses in efficacy to the 'deathe whych Christe dyed'. Thus she brings into question the dangerous issue of the nature of the Mass as an efficacious performance of Christ's propitiatory sacrifice on the Cross.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaAnne Askew brought to the Lord Maior. Then they had me thence vnto my Lord Mayor, and he examined me, as they had before, and I answered him directly in all things, as I answered the Quest afore.
Besides this, my L. Maior laid one thing vnto my charge, which was neuer spoken of me, but of them: and that was, whether a mouse eating the host, receiued god or no? This question did I neuer aske, but in dede they asked it of me. Wherunto I made them no answer, but smiled
CloseThe identity of the lord mayor interviewing Askew is unclear. Archdeacon John Louth, in a letter to John Foxe written many years after Askew's death (British Library MS Harleian 425, 142r-143r), identified him as Martin Bowes, Lord Mayor from October 1545 to October 1546, but this identification brings into question the dating of Askew's first examination, which she states is March 1545. If Askew was using old-style dating (with the calendar year ending on March 25), then Louth's identification could be considered sound; however, as Elaine Beilin points out in her introduction to The Examinations of Anne Askew, Louth seems to confuse the events of the first and second examinations in other ways - by placing Askew's interview with Bowes in Tower of London rather than in the Guildhall, and by placing Bowes with the Privy Council. Thus, Beilin concludes, Bowes might have actually participated in the events of the Lattre Examination, rather than the First (Elaine Beilin (ed.), The Examinations of Anne Askew [Oxford, 1996], xxi-xxii).
[Back to Top]Then the bishops Chancellor rebuked me, and said, that I was much to blame for vttering the scriptures.MarginaliaWomen forbidden to speake in the congregatiō, and how? For S. Paul (he said) forbode women to speake or to talke of the word of God. I answered him that I knew Paules meanyng as well as he, which is in the 1. Cor. 14. that a woman ought not to speake in the congregation by the way of teaching. And then I asked hym, how many women he had seene goe into the Pulpitte and preache? Hee sayd hee neuer saw none. Then I sayd, he ought to finde no fault in poore women, except they had offended the Law
CloseAskew actually misrepresents Paul in this passage. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul enjoins women to complete silence in the congregation; his prohibition on female speech is not limited to preaching.
MarginaliaA. Askew cōmaunded to the Counter by the Lord Maior. Then my Lord Mayor commaunded me to ward, I asked him if suertyes would not serue mee, and he made mee short answere, that he would take none. Then was I had to the Counter, and there remayned xi, dayes, no frende admitted to speake with me.MarginaliaTalke betwene An. Askew and a Priest sent to her in prison. But in the meane time there was a priest sent to me, which sayd that he was commaunded of the Byshoppr to examine me, and to geue me good counsell, which he did not. But first he asked mee for what cause I was put in the Counter, And I tolde him I could not tel. Then he sayd it was great pitty þt I should be there without cause, and concluded that he was very sory for me.
[Back to Top]Secondly he sayd, it was told him, that I should denye the Sacrament of the Aultar, And I answered him again that that I had sayd, I had sayd.
Thirdly he asked me if I were shriuen, I told him so that I might haue one of these three, that is to say, Doctor Crome, Sir Gillam, or Huntington, I was contented because I knew them to be men of wisedome, as for you or any other I will not disprayse, because I know you not
CloseFoxe omits, here, most of Askew's answer to the priest's question of whether she had been shriven. As Thomas Freeman and Sarah Wall have noted, the passage in Foxe's base-text, Bale's 1550 (Copland) edition, reads: 'I tolde him no. Then he said, he wold bring one to me, for to shryve me. And I told him so that I myght have one of these.iii.that is to saye, Doctor Crome sir, Gillam, or Huntington, I was contented'. Freeman and Wall have argued convincingly that the omission of much of Askew's answer was due to a case of 'eye skip' - an error on the part of the compositor copying from his base text (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], 1173-74).
[Back to Top]When agreeing to being shriven, Askew names some prominent evangelicals as "men of wisedome," and it is likely that she knew them personally. It is clear that she knew Crome and that she was considered a great supporter of his (Susan Wabuda, 'Equivocation and Recantation During the English Reformation: The "Subtle Shadows" of Dr Edward Crome', Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44 [April 1993], 236). John Guy suggests that Crome was Askew's teacher (John Guy, Tudor England [Oxford, 1988], 196). John Huntington was an evangelical preacher in London. Sir Gillam is an unidentified London evangelical cleric.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaWhether a mouse may eate body in the sacrament, or no. Fourthly, he asked me, if the host should fall, and a beaste did eate it, whether the beast did receiue God, or no? I aunswered, seeing you haue taken the paynes to aske this questiō I desire you also to assoyle it your selfe: for I will not doe it, because I perceiue you come to tempt me. And he sayd, it was against the order of scholes that he which asked þe questiō, should aunswere it, I tolde him, I was but a woman, and knew not the course of Schooles.
[Back to Top]Fiftely, he asked me if I intended to receiue the Sacrament at Easter, or no? I aunswered, that els I were noe Christen woman, and therat I dyd reioyce, that thee tyme was so neare at hande, and then hee departed thence wyth many fayre wordes.
MarginaliaM. Britaine seeketh to baile An Askew hys cosin. The xxiij. day of March my cousin Britaine came into the Counter to mee, and asked there whether I might bee put to baile, or no? Then went he immediatly vnto my lord Maior, desiryng of hym to bee so good vnto me, That I might be bayled, My Lorde aunswered hym, and sayd that he would bee glad to do the best that in hym lay. Howe be it he could not baile me, without the consent of a spirituall officer: requiring him to go & speake with the Chauncellor of London. For, he said, like as he could not commit me to prison without the cōsent of a spirituall Officer, no more could he baile me without consent of the same.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaM. Britaine for the bailing of A. Askew, sent from the Maior to the Chaūcellour, frō the Chaūcellour to the Byshop. So. vpon that he went to the Chancellor, requiring of him as he did before of my Lord Maior. He aunswered him that the matter was so haynous, that he durst not of himselfe do it, without my Lorde of London were made priuy therunto. But he said he would speake vnto my Lord in it, and badde hym repaire vnto hym the next morrow, and he should well know my lordes pleasure: And vpon the morow after, he came thether, and spake both with the Chancellor, and with the bishop of London. The bishop declared
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