Biography
Anne Askew was born around 1521 in Lincolnshire, England, to a family of the gentry. Her father, Sir William Askew, was a man of standing at the court of King Henry VIII. She was well educated for a woman of her day and learned to read and to think. As a girl she became interested in the new teaching that was spreading across England, in which ordinary people were urged to read the Bible for themselves. This was a dangerous interest, since the king had broken with Rome but still kept many of the old doctrines and was hard on those who went further.
Her family arranged for her to marry a man named Thomas Kyme, a wealthy landowner, though the match was meant for her older sister, who died. Anne was forced into the marriage against her will. She had two children, but the marriage was unhappy, and her husband disapproved of her religion. When she began to read the Bible aloud in the church and to argue with priests, he turned her out of the house. She went to London to seek a divorce on the ground that the Bible allowed it, a bold and unusual step for a woman.
In London she became known as a woman who held the Protestant faith and shared it with others. She gave out copies of banned books and talked with ladies of the court. In 1545 she was arrested and questioned about her beliefs, especially about the doctrine of the Mass. She said that God did not dwell in bread made by the hands of a priest. She replied to her examiners with sharp wit. When one of them asked what would happen if a mouse ate the bread, she asked him what would become of the mouse. She was released for a time, but she was arrested again in 1546.
In prison she was questioned by powerful men who wanted her to name others who shared her views. They were especially keen to find out whether ladies of the royal household, including Queen Catherine Parr, held the same faith. She refused to name any. She was taken to the Tower of London, where she was racked, a torture used on prisoners to make them talk. Even then she did not betray anyone. The racking left her unable to walk.
On July 16, 1546, she was carried in a chair to Smithfield, in London, to be burned at the stake. She was in her mid-twenties. With her were three other men condemned for their faith. She was offered a pardon from the king if she would recant, and she refused. She died in the fire. Some of those who watched were moved by her courage.
Before her death she wrote an account of her examinations, which was smuggled out and later published by the reformer John Bale. These writings, known as the First Examination and the Latter Examination, give a vivid and witty picture of her trials, in her own voice. They are among the earliest works in English written by a woman to be published. John Foxe included her story in his Book of Martyrs, and it became one of its most memorable chapters.
Her life shows that courage in the faith does not belong only to men or to the powerful. A young woman with little standing and no protection stood firm against the most powerful men in the kingdom, and her witness lives on.