Sometimes the hardest struggle for faith is dealing with an ever-changing situation. Anne Askew lived in a society that seemingly brought new religious freedoms, only for the situation to change a few years later. She handled this complicated time and her calling to witness in a way that gives us all an engaging example.
Who Was Anne Askew?
Anne Askew was born into a well-respected, privileged family in 1521. When she was 13 years old, England changed its national faith from Roman Catholicism to the Church of England, making English Bibles accessible to both lay people and clergy. Much like Martin Luther’s sect of Protestantism, Askew’s group encouraged a personal relationship with God without needing an intermediator to confess sin or interpret the Bible.
Martha, her older sister, was betrothed to marry Thomas Kyme. After her unexpected death, Anne’s father forced her to marry him at 15 years old to protect the family’s financial gain. Thomas, a Catholic, opposed Anne’s strong beliefs, making for a miserable marriage despite the two children they shared.
What Was Happening in Anne Askew’s Period?
To fully appreciate what happened in Anne Askew’s period, let’s consider what took place the year she was born and the years that followed.
In 1521, King Henry VIII’s defense of Catholicism, especially against reformers like Martin Luther, earned him the title “Defender of the Faith.” Less than 10 years later, King Henry VIII requested an annulment from his wife, Catherine of Aragon, because she had not produced a son. He questioned the legitimacy of their marriage while pursuing Anne Boleyn, whom he desired to marry. Pope Clement VII denied King Henry VIII’s request for an annulment. In response, the king broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and established the Church of England.
In 1534, Henry became the Supreme Head of the Church of England. He had full authority to correct and amend any part of the institution he felt was heresy. What followed was the destruction of monasteries and the deaths of those who resisted. Although Henry disagreed with Martin Luther’s stand on justification by faith alone, he did believe in the supremacy of Scripture (after all, he had used Leviticus 20:21 to justify his annulment from Catherine).
In 1536, Anne Boleyn was arrested (and later executed) for high treason. Less than two weeks later, King Henry VIII married Jane Seymour, a devout Catholic, who died soon after giving birth to his son. It was the same year Anne Askew married Thomas Kyme.
From 1538 through 1543, Protestantism grew as lay people were freely allowed to read and study their Bibles alone or with others.
In 1540, the king married the young Catherine Howard, who was also executed for treason.
In 1543, King Henry VIII married Katherine Parr. She was an intelligent reformist critical of the Act for the Advancement of the True Religion, which Parliament passed the same year they married. The act withdrew the freedom of reading and studying the Bible that lay people had enjoyed for years.
At only 22 years old, Anne Askew used her knowledge of the Word to teach others who could not read the Bible on their own, but her steadfast faith brought disgrace to Kyme, and after refusing to stop reading the Bible, he threw Anne out of the house. Undaunted by his decision, she traveled to London in hopes of meeting with the king to request a divorce based on 1 Corinthians 7:15-16. The king denied both requests. In response, she returned to her maiden name and continued preaching in London. Because of Anne’s zeal for God and His Word, a spy was delegated to follow her in London and report her actions.
In 1545, Anne Askew was arrested and interrogated about the tenets of her faith, such as transubstantiation, Christ’s sufficiency, and her views on purgatory. She answered based on Scripture and was released after twelve days of imprisonment with the order to return to her husband. Anne instead chose to live with one of her brothers.
In 1546, the bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner, led a plan to eradicate the nonconformists with King Henry VIII’s full support. Despite his split from the Roman Catholic Church and his title “Supreme Head of the Church of England,” the king wanted to keep England untarnished from radical Protestants. In one display of power, the king consented to arrest 23 people believed to be heretics, including Anne Askew. She was soon released but detained a third time in 1546.
Around this time, some of the king’s elite officials were determined to prove the Queen a heretic due to her not supporting the Act for the Advancement of True Religion a few years prior and because she held Bible studies with her ladies in waiting.
Anne Askew Condemned to Fire
By Dan Graves
Anne Askew looked around the room. She did not find a single sympathetic eye. There was no jury that she could hope to sway, no friendly witnesses. Did her heart quail? “Pray, pray, pray,” she had urged friends. Now, although she had already been racked so cruelly that she could no longer walk, her accusers had a further penalty in store for her. On this day, June 18, 1546, they pronounced her sentence. She was to be taken to Smithfield and burned.
Anne's crime was to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation. She believed (as most Protestants do), that the Lord’s Supper is not literally the body and blood of Christ, but rather a sacred symbol of it. “But as touching the holy and blessed supper of the Lord, I believe it to be a most necessary remembrance of his glorious sufferings and death. Moreover, I believe as much therein as my eternal and only Redeemer, Jesus Christ, would [that] I should believe. Finally, I believe all those Scriptures to be true [which] he has confirmed with his precious blood.” For this she had been arrested, interrogated, released and now jailed again.
When she was first brought before the Lord Mayor of London, he asked her, “You foolish woman, do you say that the priests cannot make the body of Christ?”
Always ready with a tart answer (as her own account shows) Anne replied, “I say so, my Lord; for I have read that God made man; but that man can make God, I never read, nor, I suppose, ever shall read.” She persisted in this view despite torture, answering many of her opponent's arguments with quotations from scripture, which she knew well.
She also refused to name her accomplices. These included Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, a tenderhearted and tactful woman. Katherine got Anne off the first time, but Anne's persistence in her beliefs led to her rearrest and finally spelled death for her. (Katherine was fortunate enough to outlive Henry.)
Anne's life had been a hard one. Her father forced her to marry Thomas Kyme, to whom her dead sister had originally been promised. The marriage was unhapppy, in part because of religious disagreements. Kyme eventually threw his wife out of the home, although he acknowledged that she was the most devout woman he had ever known. Anne tried to get a divorce on the ground that they were “unequally yoked.” She found a divorce as hard to obtain as the king had, but she did not have his clout to engineer national events to get her way.
In July that same year, Anne was carried to the stake in a chair. At her execution, so many spectators massed at the scene that the crowd had to be pushed back to make room for the fire. She refused a last minute pardon which required her to recant. Gunpowder was poured over her body and she perished in the flame. Because of her heroic stand and refusal to “snitch” on like-minded believers, she became a symbol of womanly valor and won wide support for the Protestant cause. John Foxe included her death in his book of martyrs. Some Baptist histories claim her among their forerunners.
Where is Anne Askew Buried?
Anne Askew, known for her role as a Protestant martyr, was executed and later buried in Smithfield, London. Her remains were treated with great respect by her followers, who ensured she was properly commemorated at the site of her martyrdom. If you are interested in the historical and biographical details of Anne Askew's life, including her final resting place, you might find resources like the Anne Boleyn Files and Find a Grave to be quite informative (The Anne Boleyn Files).
Why Was Anne Askew Executed?
Note: This section includes details about Anne Askew being interrogated, with some graphic details.
Anne Askew was executed for the same reason many reformists were in the sixteenth century. They were seen as a threat because their faith did not depend on clergy to read or understand the Bible, supposedly undermining the respect of powerful officials.
Even though it was unlawful for a woman to be tortured, Anne Askew was the first woman placed on the rack when flattery didn’t produce secrets to incriminate the Queen and other influential reformists. The Lieutenant of the Tower was ordered to operate the dreaded torture device that slowly separated joints, but he refused because it was unlawful and left to petition the king.
While away, Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley and Sir Richard Rich wasted no time torturing Anne. Sickening popping sounds echoed through the chambers as her shoulders, elbows, knees, and hips dislocated. In her writings, she reports that she fainted from the pain but was revived only to lay on a bare floor while the questioning continued for two hours.
After refusing a final offer to confess the names of influential reformists, she was transferred to prison to await her execution several weeks later. During this time, she penned her experiences of being interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned. One year later, The Examinations of Anne Askew was published by John Bale. You can also read Dan Graves' description of her trial and questioning below, “Anne Askew Condemned to Fire.”
On July 16, 1546, at age twenty-five, Anne Askew was carried on a chair to the stake to burn along with three other protestants. A small perch was built for her to sit on while her neck, chest, and ankles were chained to the stake. The executioner, perhaps a sympathizer, tied a bag of gunpowder around her neck to help her die quickly.
In The Examinations of Anne Askew, John Bale writes, “Credibly am I informed by Dutch merchants who were present there, that in the time of their sufferings, the sky, and abhorring so wicked an act, suddenly altered colour, and the clouds from above gave a thunder clap, not unlike the one written in Psalm 76. The elements both declared wherein the high displeasure of God for so tyrannous a murder of innocents.”
Inspiring Quotes by Anne Askew
“Then he asked me, why I had so few words? And I answered, ‘God hath given me the gift of knowledge, but not of utterance: and Solomon saith, that a woman of few words is the gift of God.’”
“Then was I brought to a house, and laid in a bed, with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job; I thank my Lord God there-for. Then my lord chancellor sent me word, if I would leave my opinion, I should want nothing: if I would not, I should forthwith to Newgate, and so be burned. I sent him again word, that I would rather die, than break my faith.”
“Thus the Lord open the eyes of their blind hearts, that the truth may take place. Farewell, dear friend, and pray, pray, pray!”
“I, Anne Askew, of good memory, although my merciful Father hath given me the bread of adversity, and the water of trouble, yet not so much as my sins have deserved, confess myself here a sinner before the throne of his heavenly Majesty, desiring his forgiveness and mercy. And forasmuch as I am by the law unrighteously condemned for an evil doer concerning opinions, I take the same most merciful God of mine, who hath made both heaven and earth, to record, that I hold no opinions contrary to his most holy word. And I trust in my merciful Lord, who is the giver of all grace, that he will graciously assist me against all evil opinions which are contrary to his blessed verity. For I take him to witness, that I have done, and will, unto my life’s end, utterly abhor them to the uttermost of my power.”
All of these quotes are from The Examinations of Anne Askew.
What Can We Learn from Anne Askew?
There’s much to learn from the martyred, including the life and death of Anne Askew.
1. We can endure times of suffering when we prepare our hearts in the quiet ones. Anne faithfully read and studied Scripture, prayed, and enjoyed community with other believers, cultivating an unwavering faith that stood ready to withstand whatever was required to defend it.
2. Reading and studying the Word without needing another human to interpret Scripture for us is a privilege. Jesus says in John 14:16 that He will pray to the Father who will give us a Helper, the Spirit of truth, who will abide in us forever. And in John 16:13, Jesus says the Spirit of truth will guide us into all truth.
3. How we choose to live today will influence the generations to come. In addition to helping to preserve Queen Katherine Parr’s influence to end the persecution of Protestants, Anne Askew’s great-granddaughter, Margaret Fell (or Margaret Fox), became known as the “mother of Quakerism.” According to Quakers in the World, she is “considered one of the Valiant Sixty early Quaker preachers and missionaries.”
If a king were to take note of our faith walk, would our love for Christ and His Word be so persuasive that he would hire a spy to follow us around? Yes, it’s a fictitious scenario, but will it always be?
“Keep alert. Be firm in your faith. Stay brave and strong.” (1 Corinthians 16:13 CEV)
Bibliography:
1. Bainton, Roland H. Women of the Reformation in France and England. Boston: Beacon Press, 1973.
2. Bale, John. Select works of John Bale ... Containing the examinations of Lord Cobham, William Thorpe, and Anne Askewe, and The image of both churches. Edited for the Parker society, by the Rev. Henry Christmas ... Cambridge [England]: Printed at the University press, 1849.
3. Deen, Edith. Great Women of the Christian Faith. New York: Harper, 1959.
4. Foxe, John. Book of Martyrs. Various editions.
5. Various encyclopedia and internet articles and Baptist histories.
(Reprinted from "Anne Askew Condemned to Fire" by Dan Graves, first published on Christianity.com on April 28, 2010.)
Photo Credit: Portrait by Hans Eworth, via Wikimedia Commons
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