Anne Askew
1521-1546 16th century
A body given over and silence kept about others; a word held to when it costs everything.
Who was Anne Askew?
A Lincolnshire gentleman's daughter, forced to marry her dead sister's betrothed, she left her husband for London to read the Bible in English and to talk about it. Twice arrested, she refused to name the court ladies who shared her views. She was tortured (almost unheard of for a woman of her rank) and burned at Smithfield at twenty-five; she could no longer stand and had to be carried to the stake in a chair.
In their own words
I had rather read five lines in the Bible than to hear five masses in the temple.
Then they did put me on the rack, because I confessed no ladies or gentlewomen to be of my opinion; and thereon they kept me a long time: and because I lay still, and did not cry, my lord chancellor and master Rich took pains to rack me in their own hands, till I was nigh dead.
Like as the armed knight, appointed to the field, with this world will I fight, and Christ shall be my shield. Faith is that weapon strong, which will not fail at need.