16/02/2026
“Though her body had been overcome by suffering, her conscience remained steadfast.”
Anne Askew, a young Protestant woman of Lincolnshire, was arrested in 1545 for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation and for teaching from the Scriptures.
Foxe does preserve statements from her examinations that reflect the faith she held to the end. One of the most often quoted lines attributed to her is:
“I had rather to read five lines in the Bible than to hear five masses in the temple.”
When questioned by church authorities, she refused to accuse others who shared her beliefs.
She was taken to the Tower of London, where an unlawful cruelty was committed against her. Anne Askew was laid upon the rack, and her body was stretched in an attempt to force her to speak. Sir Thomas Wriothesley and Sir Richard Rich were present, urging the torment to continue. Yet she would neither recant her faith nor betray anyone. The torture left her joints dislocated and her body so broken that she could no longer walk.
On July 16, 1546, she was carried in a chair to Smithfield, where she was burned at the stake alongside John Lascelles, Nicholas Belenian, and John Adams (three Protestant men condemned with her). Though her body had been overcome by suffering, her conscience remained steadfast.
