Anne Askew was an English poet, who was condemned as a heretic and was burnt at the stake.
Background
Born at Stallingborough into a gentry family of Lincolnshire. In 1545, Anne Askew was arrested and accused as a heretic. She was examined by church leaders regarding her beliefs and found to disagree with their doctrine oftransubstantiation. Anne Askew was put in the Tower of London, where she was tortured.She was burnt at the stake at Smithfield, London, aged 26, on 16 July 1546, with John Lascelles and two other Protestants. Those who saw her execution were impressed by her bravery, and reported that she did not scream until the flames reached her chest. The execution lasted about an hour and she was unconscious and probably dead after fifteen minutes or so.
Career
Anne wrote during imprisonment about her ordeal. A copy of this account was smuggled out to her friends. Rather than being silenced, as the authorities hoped, Anne's story found a very eager and popular readership. It was quickly embraced by other Reformers.
Her account of her ordeal and her beliefs was published as 'The Examinations' by Protestant bishop John Bale and later in John Foxe's 'Acts and Monuments' of 1563. This also proclaims her as a Protestant martyr, which helped further her cause for religious freedom.
Religion
Protestant
was condemned as a heretic
Views
against transubstantiation
Quotations:
Then they did put me on the rack because I confessed no ladies or gentlemen 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 with their own hands till I was nigh dead.