about to keep out the press. Upon the bench under St. Bartholomew's church, sat Wriothesly, chancellor of England, the old duke of Norfolk, the old earl of Bedford, the lord mayor, with divers others more. Before the fire. should be set unto them, one of the bench hearing that they had gunpowder about them, and being afraid lest the fagots, by strength of the gunpowder, would come flying about their ears, began to be afraid; but the earl of Bedford declared unto him how the gunpowder was not laid under the fagots, but only about their bodies to rid them out of their pain, which having vent, there was no danger to them of the fagots, so he diminished that fear. Then Wriothesly, lord chancellor, sent to Anne Askew, letters offering to her the king's pardon, if she would recant. Who, refusing once to look upon them, made this answer again; that she came not thither to deny her Lord and Master. Then were the letters likewise offered unto the others, who in like manner following the constancy of the woman, denied not only to receive them, but also to look upon them. Whereupon the lord mayor commanding fire to be put to them, cried with a loud voice, Fiat justitia ! Let justice be done! And thus the good Anne Askew with these blessed martyrs, being troubled so many manner of ways, and having passed through so many torments, having now ended the long course of her agonies, being compassed with flames of fire, as a blessed sacrifice unto God, she slept in the Lord, A. D. 1546, leaving behind her a singular example of christian constancy for all men to follow. The Ballad which Anne Askew made and sang when she was in Newgate. Like as the armed knight Faith is that weapon strong As it is had in strength And force of Christ his way, It will prevail at length Though all the devils say, Nay. Faith in the fathers old Obtained righteousness, Which makes me very bold To fear no world's distress. I now rejoice in heart, And hope bids me do so, That Christ will take my part, And ease me of my woe. Thou say'st Lord, Whoso knock To them thou wilt attend; Undo therefore the lock, And thy strong power send. More enemies now I have, I am not she that list Not oft use I to write, In prose, nor yet in rhyme, Yet will I show one sight, That I saw in my time. I saw a royal throne Where justice should have sit, But in her stead was one Of moody, cruel wit. Absorpt was righteousness Sucked up the guiltless blood. Then thought I, Jesus, Lord, On these men what will fall. Yet Lord, I thee desire, Let them not taste the hire God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound things which are mighty. Yea, and things of no reputation for to bring to nought things of reputation; that no flesh should presume in his sight, 1 Cor. i. Strype has recorded a few additional particulars respecting Anne Askew, from the relation of John Loud, a learned man of some eminence in those days, who being himself suspected of heresy, narrowly escaped the flames. His mind having been awakened to a sense of the truth, he resorted to those who were imprisoned for religion at that time. Among them was William Morrice, gentleman usher to the king, the father of archbishop Cranmer's secretary, who was possessed of considerable property in Essex.* To him Loud frequently obtained admittance privately at night, incurring all the discomforts and dangers of visiting the prison, that he might converse about religion. Loud however escaped, and lived till 1579. Loud says of Anne Askew, "I must needs confess of her, now departed to the Lord, that the day before her execution, and the same day also, she had an angel's countenance and a smiling face. For I was with Lascels, sir George Blage,† and the other (Belenian the priest, then *It is hardly necessary to say that Cranmer took no part in these persecutions. He was at that time himself in considerable danger, but protested against Gardiner's proceedings. The arrest of sir George Blage was one means of stopping this persecution. He was one of the king's privy chamber, and was apprehended by the lord chancellor Wriothesly, on the Sunday before Anne Askew suffered, for an irreverent observation upon the popish consecrated wafer, made in conversation after a sermon preached that day by Dr. Crome. On the Monday, he was condemned under the act of six articles, and ordered to be burned on the Wednesday! This proceeding excited much alarm at court, but the king learning the cause from the earl of Bedford, was much enraged, and ordered a pardon to be issued burned,) and with me were three of the Throckmortons, sir Nicholas being one, and Mr. Kellum the other. By the same token, one unknown to me said, 'Ye are all marked that come to them, take heed of your lives.' Master Lascels, a gentleman of a right worshipful house of Gatford, in Nottinghamshire, mounted up into the window of the little parlour at Newgate, and there sat, and by him sir George. Master Lascels was merry and cheerful in the Lord, being come from hearing the sentence of his condemnation, and said these words, 'My lord bishop would have me confess the Roman church to be the catholic church, but that I can not, for it is not true.' "When the hour of darkness came, and their execution, Mrs. Anne Askew had been so racked that she could not stand, but was holden up between two sergeants, sitting there in a chair. And after the sermon was ended, they put fire to the reeds; the council looking on, and leaning in a window by the hospital, and among them sir Richard Southwell, (whose tutor Loud was.) And before God, (he declares,) at the first putting to of the fire, there fell a little dew, or a few pleasant drops upon us that stood by, a pleasing noise from heaven, God knows whether I may truly term it a thunder crack, as the people did in the gospel, John xii. 29. or an angel, or rather God's own voice. But to leave every man to his own judgment, methought it seemed rather, that the angels in heaven rejoiced to receive their souls into bliss, whose bodies their popish tormentors cast into the fire." Bale relates the same circumstance from the narrative of some Dutch merchants then present. It caused considerable discussion at the time, and the papists urged that it was a testimony of the martyrs' damnation! This opinion Bale controverts with much ability immediately. "Ah! my pig!" was the familiar exclamation of the monarch on seeing his rescued favourite. "Yea," answered sir George, on again hearing the appellation usually given him by the king, “if your majesty had not been better to me than your bishops, your pig had been roasted ere now!" |