the ende. Wherefore, as sayd the holy Ghost: To day if ye shall heare his voyce, harden not your hartes. &c.MarginaliaPsal. 95. Psalm. 59.
Askew's summons to appear before the Privy Council with her husband Sir Thomas Kyme is recorded in Privy Council records. See Acts of the Privy Council of England, ed. John Roche Dasent, 46 vols (London, 1890), 1: 424, 1: 462).
YOur request, as concernyng my prison fellowes, I am not able to satisfie, because I heard not their examinations: but the effect of myne was this. I beyng before the Councell, was asked of Maister Kyme
In the first two editions of the Lattre Examinations edited by John Bale(both published in 1547), Bale elucidates on this question from the Privy Council by informing his reader of the circumstances of Askew's marriage, as well as offering justification for her pursuit of a divorce. He first explains that Askew was married against her will (following the death of her sister who had been betrothed to Sir Thomas Kyme, Anne's husband). He then argues that she yet 'demeaned her selfe lyke a Christen wyfe', having two children with her husband. However, 'by oft readynge of the sacred Bible', she converted from 'all olde superstycyons of papystrye, to a perfyght beleve in Jhesus Christ'. Having been driven for her faith from her husband's house, he claims, Askew considered herself 'free from that uncomelye kynde of coacted marryage, by thys doctryne of S. Paul 1 Cor. 7. If a faytfull woman have an unbelevynge husbande, whych wyll not tarrye with her, she may leave hym. For a brother or syster is not in subjeccyon to soch, specyallye where as the marryage afore is unlawfull'. Askew sought a divorce for this reason and, 'above all', because of her husband's cruel expulsion of her from their home, 'in despyght of Christes veryte'. She could not, supposes Bale, have considered Kyme 'worthye of her marryage' when he so 'spyghtfullye hated God the chefe autor [sic] of marriage' (Bale, Lattre Examination [1547], 15r-v).
[Back to Top]Despite Bale's ability energetically to defend Askew's pursuit of a divorce from Kyme, Foxe's decision to withhold comment himself on Askew's marital problems has been interpreted as reflecting discomfort on his part with this aspect of her story (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], 1180).
[Back to Top]As Thomas Freeman and Sarah Wall have noted, this shoulder note is new to the 1570 (second) edition of the English Acts and Monuments. They interpret Foxe's inclusion of this note as evidence that he had learned of Askew's marital problems subsequent to his publication of the first edition of the Acts and Monuments (1563). (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], 1180.)
[Back to Top]The Lord Chancellor (whom Foxe calls Wrisley) will later be identified as one of Askew's torturers.
The Bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner, and the Lord Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley will be the main players in the supposed plot against Catherine Parr.
Then had I diuers rebukes of the Councell, because I woulde not expresse my mynde in all thinges as they woulde haue me. But they were not in the meane tyme vnanuswered for all that, which now to rehearse were to much for I was with them there about. v. houres. Then the Clerke of the Counsell conueyed me frō thence to my Lady Garnish.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaAnne Askewe brought agayne before the Counsell. The next day I was brought agayne before the councel. Then would they needes know of me, what I sayd to the Sacrament. I aunswered, that I already had sayd that I could say. Then after diuers wordes, they bad me goe by. Then came my Lord Lisle, my Lord of Essex, and the byshop of Winchester, requiryng me earnestly that I shoulde confesse the sacrament to bre fleshe, bloud and bone. Then sayd I to my Lord Parre and my Lord Lisle, that it was great shame for them to counsel contrary to their knowledg, Whereunto in fewe wordes they dyd say, that they woulde gladly all thinges were well
Both Lisle and Essex were known evangelicals; thus Askew's comment that it was 'great shame for them to counsayle contrary to their knowledge'.
Then the bishop sayd, he would speake with me familiarly.MarginaliaWinchester aunswered home. I sayd. so dyd Iudas whē he vnfrēdly betrayed Christ Then desired the Byshop to speake with me alone. But þt I refused. He asked me why? I sayd that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, euery matter shoulde stande, after Christes & Paules doctrine.MarginaliaMath. 18.
2. Cor. 13. Mathew. xviij. ij. Corinth. xiij.
Then my Lorde Chauncellour began to examine me agayne of the sacrament. Then I asked hym how long hee would hault on both sides?
Askew's retort to Wriothesley, in which she asked 'how long he woulde halt on both sides', does not indicate suspicion of evangelical tendencies on his part. Rather, halting on 'both sides' is a reference to the state of the English Church, which has rid itself of popery, and yet maintains idolatry; is no longer papist, and yet (in the evangelical view) retains the practices and priesthood of Baal. As Bale adds in his elucidation of Askew's words against Wriothesley, 'For all our newe Gospell, yet wyll we styll beare the straungers yoke with the unbelevers, and so become neyther whote nor colde, that God may spewe us out of hys mouth' (Bale, Lattre Examination [1547], 19r-v). For further discussion of this sort of evangelical critique of the Henrician Church, see Alec Ryrie, The Gospel and Henry VIII: Evangelicals in the Early English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 132-33.
[Back to Top]Then they made me a bill of the Sacrament, willinge me to sette my hand therunto: but I would not. Then on the sonday I was sore sicke, thinkyng no lesse then to dye.MarginaliaA. Askew desired to speake with M. Latimer. Therfore I desired to speake with Maister Latimer: but it would not be. Then was I sent to Newgate in my extremitie of sickenes: for in all my life afore was I neuer in such payne. Thus the Lorde strengthen vs in the truth. Pray, pray, pray
Askew's desire to see Hugh Latimer is another indication of her clear familiarity with the prominent evangelicals of her day. When she requested this audience, Latimer had himself recently survived interrogation for counseling Crome against recantation (See Letters & Papers Foreign and Domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, ed. James Gairdner and R.H. Brodie [London, 1862 1932], I: 823 [14 May 1546].
[Back to Top]Askew's illness and request for Latimer's counsel, at this point in her Lattre Examination, has been interpreted as a moment of self-described epiphany modelled on that of Saul of Tarsus (marked by physical suffering), in which she realized her fate and stopped attempting to save herself from condemnation. Her request for Latimer and illness is immediately followed, in the Lattre Examination, by her 'first' confession of her sacramentarian belief denying the Real Presence before the Privy Council, after which she is formally condemned as a heretic. (See Paula McQuade, '"Except that they had offended the Lawe": Gender and Jurisprudence in the Examinations of Anne Askew', Literature & History 3 [1994], 9.) However, Kimberly Coles has contested this view, pointing out that Askew had already, when she asked for Latimer, revealed her heresy to William Paget (Kimberly Anne Coles, 'The Death of the Author [and the Appropriation of her Text]: the Case of Anne Askew's Examinations', Modern Philology 99 [May 2002], 535). (The relevant discussion between Paget and Askew does not appear in Foxe's version of the Examinations. This is possibly because Paget, having survived Henry's reign to retain his office of principal secretary to the king during Edward's, was still too important a man, early in Elizabeth's reign, deliberately to antagonize, but it is more likely that the discussion with Paget was omitted from Foxe's base text. The pages with the Paget discussion on them are glued together in many surviving copies of Bale's 1547 Lattre Examination (p. 21), and it is excised in later editions. As Freeman and Wall point out, Paget was dead by 1570 (he died in 1563), and in the second edition of the Acts and Monuments (1570), Foxe identifies him as having advised Philip and Mary to execute Elizabeth (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], 1172-3).
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe confession of Anne Askew in Newgate. I Finde in the scriptures (sayd she) that Christ tooke the bread and gaue it to his disciples, saying: Take, eate, this is my body which shall be broken for you, meanyng in substance hys owne very body, the bread beyng therof an onely signe or Sacrament. For after lyke maner of speakyng, he sayd, he would breake downe the temple, and in three dayes build it vppe agayne,MarginaliaAs Christes body is called the tēple in the scripture: so is the bread called Christs bodye. signifying hys owne body by the temple, as S. Iohn declareth it, Iohn 2. and not the stony temple it selfe. So that the bread is but a remembraunce of his death or a sacrament of thanks geuyng for it, wherby we are knit vnto hym by a communion of christian loue. Although there be many that cannot perceiue the true meanyng therof, for the veile that Moyses put ouer hys face before the children of Israel, that they should not see the clearenes therof.MarginaliaExod. 24.
2. Cor. 3. Exodus 24. and 2. Cor. 3. I perceyue the same veyle remayneth to this day. But when God shall take it away, then shall these blynde men see. For it is plainly expressed in the history of Bell in the Bible
'Bell' is Ba'al.
Written by me Anne Askew, that ney-
ther wisheth death, nor yet feareth
his might, and as mery as one that is
bound towardes heauen.
Truth is layd in prison.MarginaliaLuke. 21. Luke. 21. The law is turned to Wormewood.MarginaliaAmos 6 Amos. 6. And there can no right iudgement go forth.MarginaliaEsay 59 Esay. 59.
Oh forgeue vs all our sinnes, and receyue vs graciously. As for the workes of our handes, we will no more cal vpon them. For it is thou lord that art our God. Thou shewest euer mercy vnto the fatherlesse.
Oh if they would do this (sayth the lord): I should heale their sores, yea with all my hart would I loue them.
O Ephraim, what haue I to doe with Idols any more? who so is wyse shall vnderstand this. And he that is rightly instructed will regard it: For the wayes of the Lord are righteous: Such as are godly, will walke in them: and as for the wicked, they will stumble at them.MarginaliaOse. 14. Osee. 14.
Salomon (sayth S. Steuen) builded an house for the God of Iacob. Howbeit, the highest of all dwelleth not in Temples made with handes, as sayth the Prophet: Heauen is my seat, & the earth is my footestoole.MarginaliaEsai. 66. What house will ye build for me, sayth the Lord? or what place is it that I shall rest in? Hath not my hand made all things?MarginaliaAct 7. Act. 7.
[Back to Top]Woman beleue me (sayth Christ to the Samaritan) the tyme is at hand, that ye shal neither in this mountayne, nor yet at Ierusalem worship the father. Ye worship ye wotte not what, but we know what we worshippe. For saluation commeth of the Iewes. But the houre commeth, and is now when the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirite and veritie.MarginaliaIoh. 3. Iohn. 3.
[Back to Top]Labour not (sayth Christ) for the meate that perisheth, but for that that endureth into the lyfe euerlastyng, which the sonne of man shall geue you: For hym God the father hath sealed.MarginaliaIoh. 6. Iohn. 6.
MarginaliaAn other examinatiō of Anne Askew at the Guild Hall. THey sayd to me there that I was an hereticke, and condemned by the law, if I would stand in mine opinion. I aunswered that I was no heretick, neither yet deserued I any death by the law of God. But as concerning þe faith whiche I vttered and wrote to the counsell. I would not (I sayd) deny it, because I knew it true. Thē would they nedes know, if I would deny the Sacrament to be Christes body and bloud. I sayd yea. For the same sonne of God, that was borne of the virgine Mary, is now glorious in heauen, and will come againe from thence at the latter day, like as he went vp. Act. i.MarginaliaThe substaūce of the sacrament denyed to be God. And as for that ye call your God, it is a peece of bread. For a more profe therof (marke it whē ye liste) let it lye in the boxe but iii. monthes, and it will be mouldy, and so turne to nothing that is good. Wherupon I am perswaded, that it can not be God.
[Back to Top]After that, they willed me to haue a Priest: and then I smiled. Then they asked me, if it were not good? I saide, I would confesse my faultes vnto God. For I was sure þt he would heare me with fauour.MarginaliaAnne Askew wyth her felowes condemned by a Quest. And so we were condēned with a Quest
This is an error; as Bale's editions make clear, Askew was condemned without a quest. This is an unfortunate copying error of the part of Foxe's compositor, for in pointing out the illegality of her condemnation according to 35 Henry VIII. c 5, Askew was making an important point. Askew's attention to the relevance of her own case to ongoing jurisdictional disputes between common law and ecclesiastical courts was, as Paula McQuade argues, a 'brilliant strategic move' (see Paula McQuade, '"Except that they had offended the Lawe": Gender and Jurisprudence in the Examinations of Anne Askew', Literature & History 3 [1994], 8).
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe beliefe of A. Askew concerning the sacraments, written to the Councell. My beliefe which I wrote to the Counsail was this: that the sacramentall bread was left vs to be receiued with thankes geuyng, in remembraunce of Christes deathe. the onely remedy of our soules recouery: and that thereby wee also receyue the whole benefites and frutes of his most glorious Passion. Then would they needes knowe whether the bread in the boxe were God or no? I sayd, God is a spirit, and wil be worshipped in spirit and truth.MarginaliaIohn. 4. Iohn. 4. Then they demaūded: Wil you plainly deny Christ to be in the sacrament? I aunswered that I beleue faythfully the eternall sonne of God not to dwell there
Askew's denial of the Real Presence (and thus her heresy according to the Act of the Six Articles) is clear here, but expressed in the context of her denial of the sacrificial nature of the Catholic Mass. For Lutheran-leaning evangelicals and (reformed) sacramentaries alike (who denied the Real Presence altogether), this question of the Mass as a sacrifice was a non-starter: the only propitiatory sacrifice was the one performed by Christ himself at Calvary. Faith alone in that belief provided salvation. In expressing her opinion of the Mass, Askew echoes Crome (as he preached in his infamous 'false' recantation in May 1546): 'a sacrifice it is of thanks gevinng to the only shepherde for his ones afferd offering which hath made a full satisfaccion of all the synnes of them which beleve and cleave to hym by faythe…and it is to us a comemoracion of Chrysts deathe and passion' (British Library MS Harleian 425, 65r-66r; for Crome's 'false' recantations, 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).
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