Anne Askew

c.1521-1546. Protestant martyr. Born at Stallingborough, Lincolnshire, she read the Bible avidly and came as a result to dispute transubstantiation, causing a stir in her home area. She moved to London and there made friends with Joan Bocher. In March 1545 Anne was examined for heresy and committed to prison. She was then examined by Bishop Edmund Bonner,* though the frequent Roman assertion that she recanted is untrue. In June she was charged as a sacramentarian under the Six Articles, but the jury acquitted her. Shortly after, she was again brought before Bonner and others, condemned on her own confession, and sent to the Tower to be racked into recantation. But her courage overcame her torturers, and in July 1546 she was burned at Smithfield, having refused consistently to recant. The facts about Anne Askew are to be found in Bale and Foxe.