What They Did to Anne Askew Before the Flames Was Pure Horror

PART 2:

 Anne wrote that the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Wriothesley, and Sir Richard Rich personally continued the operation of the rack after Kingston refused. While details vary among sources, the core event is confirmed by several contemporary accounts. The torture continued and Anne’s body was left severely injured. She was carried back to her cell because she could no longer walk.

 Even after this, she did not give them a single name. Anne’s silence had serious political consequences. The conservative faction at court needed testimony linking reformist beliefs directly to Queen Catherine Parr or her closest companions. Without such testimony, their case remained weak. At the same time, the Queen had powerful allies.

 She was known for her intelligence and for her interest in religious discussion, but she also understood the dangers of court politics. When she learned that charges might be brought against her, she approached the King carefully and presented herself as a loyal and obedient wife. According to contemporary accounts, her strategy worked.

 Henry VIII, though unpredictable, was persuaded not to proceed against her. The attempt to use an askew as a means of attacking the Queen ultimately failed. Despite this political setback, the authorities continued with Anne’s case. She was tried for heresy along with several other Protestants. At her trial, Anne maintained her beliefs.

 She refused to recant or to accept the doctrine of transubstantiation as defined by the authorities. Under the Act of Six Articles, such refusal carried a mandatory death sentence. She was condemned to be burned at the stake. On July 16th, 1546, Anne Askew was taken to Smithfield, the traditional site of executions for heresy in London.

 Because of the injuries she had suffered in the Tower, she could not walk to the stake. Contemporary witnesses recorded that she was brought in a chair. She was executed alongside three other condemned Protestants: John Lascelles, Nicholas Belenian, and John Adams. Accounts from the time describe her as calm and steadfast to the end.

 She is said to have prayed and spoken words of faith before the fire was lit. To supporters of the Reformation, her death quickly became a symbol of courage and religious conviction. Her own writings, later published as The Examinations of Anne Askew, preserved her voice in a way that was rare for women of her time. They offered a first-person account of interrogation, imprisonment, and faith under pressure, and they were widely read by Protestants across England and beyond.

 Anne Askew’s story became one of the most powerful examples of conscience in the English Reformation. She was young, educated, and determined to speak for herself in a world that rarely allowed women a public voice. Her refusal to accuse others protected people at the highest levels of court, and her death marked one of the last executions for heresy under Henry VIII.

 Within a year of her execution, the political and religious landscape of England would shift again. But Anne Askew’s name endured, remembered not only as a victim of Tudor justice, but as a woman who stood firm in her beliefs even when facing the full power of the state.