SOURCE: Travitsky, Betty. “Anne (Askew) Kyme (1521-1546).” In The Paradise of Women: Writings by Englishwomen of the Renaissance, compiled and edited by Betty Travitsky, pp. 167-173. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981.

[In the following essay, Travitsky offers an introduction to Askew's life, provides a historical context for her writings, and discusses the qualities of taciturnity, wit, and fearlessness that are revealed in her works.]

There were many women martyrs in Renaissance England. John Foxe compiled the names of at least forty-six women who were executed because of their religious principles.¹ Besides the Protestants, in whom, of course, Foxe was interested, there were also Catholic martyrs. Perhaps the most notable of the women among this group was Margaret Clitherow, the martyr of York (d. 1586), who was pressed to death after refusing to divulge the names of others, and who was canonized in recent years as St. Margaret.

Of the large number of women martyrs in Renaissance England, Anne Askew, the Protestant martyr, is the only woman to have left records of her experiences. Her life and writings clearly and dramatically illustrate the milieu of the early Renaissance Englishwoman. It is the hallmark of her greatness that she evinced so early the attitudes that would characterize later Englishwomen.

For although the subordination of women under law continued throughout the English Renaissance, the status of Englishwomen rose. For women, as for men, the significance accorded to religious questions during the period led to perhaps disproportionate education in religion and concern over religious questions.² Because women were affected equally with men by the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, their religious experiences became a matter of concern and interest. Such concern underlies works such as Bessie Clerksone's Conflict, the experiences of even poor women like Bessie being worthy of the prolonged attention of both her minister and the reading public. Ultimately, the theory that, in William and Malleville Haller's words, “God communicated … with wives as with husbands[,] … was the camel's head of liberty within the tent of masculine supremacy.”³ But this concession came after many years of Protestant activity and had not yet been made in Anne Askew's lifetime.

Concurrently, during the Renaissance there was a rise in the respect accorded to the state of marriage and, consequently, to the married woman, as well as to home life and the vocation of raising God-fearing children. By 1622, William Gouge, writer of perhaps the most encyclopedic of all the domestic conduct books, was writing of “that small inequality which is betwixt the husband and the wife: for of all degrees wherein there is any difference betwixt person and person there is the least disparity betwixt man and wife.”⁴ The writers of the many domestic conduct books discussed the custom of forced marriages, or the constraint of marriage choice by parents. Even those writers who argued for parental choice of mate usually counseled parents to consider their children's preferences.⁵ This advice represents an advance over the practice of earlier times and contrasts with Margaret Paston's accounts of the severe beatings administered to her daughter, and the nips and taunts complained of by Lady Jane Grey, which were in accord with the belief that parents should choose their children's mates.⁶ But the growth in the belief in the right to choice of mate and in the ideal of companionate marriage also developed in England after the time of Anne Askew.

Anne Askew, who came of an old Lincolnshire family, was the second daughter of Sir William Askew, a knight. She was educated as a girl and given to biblical study; the extent of her education is undetermined, but it equipped her to know the Bible intimately enough to dispute it with clergymen. Anne fell victim to the unfeeling conduct of her father, who forced her to marry Thomas Kyme of Kelsey after her sister, who had been engaged to him, died. Askew's motive, of course, was to retain the financial gains that were attendant on the match.

According to John Bale, who assembled and published her writings after her death, Anne Askew, although unwilling to marry Kyme, was “compelled agaynst her wyll or fre consent to marrye with hym. Notwithstandynge, the marryage ones past, she demeaned herselfe lyke a Christen wyfe, and had by him (as I am infourmed) ii chyldren.”⁷ However, problems set in following the marriage. Anne's intense interest in religious questions led first to her intense study of the Bible and finally to her becoming a Protestant. Her Catholic husband drove her out of the house, because, according to the DNB, she had “offended the priests.”⁸ The fate of her two children is not known; possibly they had died as infants.⁹ In 1545, Anne went to London, probably seeking a formal separation or divorce on the basis of St. Paul's words that, “if the unbelieving depart let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases” [1 Cor. 7:15]. Divorce on such grounds became a tenet of the Protestant reformers later on.¹⁰

In London, Anne may have served as a waiting woman to Queen Catherine Parr.¹¹ By June 1545, she was arrested and examined for heresy concerning the sacrament, very possibly at the instigation of her husband and his family.¹² However, after her arraignment at Guildhall on June 14, 1545, she was released because no witnesses appeared to testify against her. The following year, on June 18, 1546, she was again arraigned. This time, following her arraignment, Anne was subjected to torture in the Tower. She remained steadfast to her beliefs, incriminated no others, and was burned at the stake on July 16, 1546.

John Foxe describes Anne Askew's death as follows:

… [I]t remaineth that we touch somwhat as touching her end & martyrdom. She, beyng borne of such stock & kyndred, that she might have lyved in great wealth & prosperitie, if she wold rather have folowed the world then Christ, but now she was so tormented, that she could neither live long in so great distres, neither yet by the adversaries be suffred to die in secret, wherfor the daie of her execution was appointed, & she was brought into Smithfielde in a chayre, because she could not go on her feete, by meanes of her great tormentes when she was brought unto the stake, she was tied by the middle with a chaine that helde up her body, when all thinges were thus prepared to the fire, the kinges letters of pardon were brought, wherby to offer her safe garde of her life, if she would recant, which she would neither receave, neither yet vouchsafe once to look upon. Shaxton also was there present who openly that day recanting his opinions, went about with a long oration to cause her also to turne, against whome she stoutly resisted. Thus she being troubled so many maner of waies, having now ended the long course of her agonies, being compassed in with flames of fire, as a blessed sacrifice unto God, she slept in the Lorde, in An. 1546. leaving behind her a singular example of Christen constancie for all men to folowe.¹³

Anne Askew's own accounts of her interrogations are limited to religious questions, especially to questions concerning the doctrine of transubstantiation, which she denied. However, it is quite possible that her torture and death had larger political implications. Note has already been made of the intensity of religious training in the period. But this training had an areligious side. Charlotte Kohler has stated that,

the emphasis on religion covered more than an interest in the welfare of the soul, since then religious opinion was also political opinion, so inextricably intertwined that many minds were religiously educated to serve political ends. The reverse was also true and equally responsible for such results as the fires of Smithfield, and the strict surveillance of all outward expression of personal thought, which was not easily relaxed or given up by those in authority.¹⁴

Henry VIII, an acute, brilliant Tudor ruler, was well aware of the problems caused by his break from Rome. He was very sensitive to the delicacy of his position. His great personal popularity was undermined to some extent by his mistreatment of Catherine of Aragon and his subsequent execution of some dissident, or seemingly disloyal, courtiers. But while Henry was relatively secure as the legitimate and accomplished king of England who was the pride of the English people, courtiers who depended on Henry for support in their seemingly unassailable posts were often viewed with great resentment and even hatred by citizens on whom they enforced unpopular and oppressive policies, and these courtiers had much less reason to feel secure than did King Henry. Their dependence was only on the king, a rather unpredictable, mercurial, and undependable patron. Therefore, they had the personal need to suppress unsettling ideas in order to maintain their own positions. Needless to say, calculations of this type were pragmatic and political, not doctrinal.

Anne Askew was a threat in her own right to the position of Henry VIII and the conservative elements in British society. For she did not accept Henry's strictures on transubstantiation. And she, a woman no less, also attempted to gain freedom from her husband on grounds not sanctioned by the emerging English church.¹⁵ As head of the new English church, Henry had justified his separation from Catherine on the grounds that his marriage was invalid on the basis of consanguinity and should be annulled; he did not recognize the right to divorce for desertion or cruelty. Thus, ideas like Anne Askew's were inherently subversive of the social and political fabric. Ironically, by the time of Elizabeth Tudor, these ideas had gained more currency and would certainly not have resulted in martyrdom, for they no longer represented as great a political threat.¹⁶

But Anne Askew's martyrdom was not an isolated event, nor was she an isolated figure. Perhaps the full truth behind her story will never be known, but it is very likely that she was persecuted in an effort to attack more influential and powerful figures with whom she was associated—Queen Catherine Parr and her circle of ardent religious supporters.¹⁷

There was certainly a strong effort, on the part of powerful ministers of Henry's court, to discredit and topple Queen Catherine Parr because of her ardent and rather extreme religious views. She was seen as a threat to courtiers of different ideologies because of her great influence over Henry VIII. Accordingly, they schemed to discredit her with the king. But Anne Askew was apparently a member of the queen's entourage after she first traveled to London, and her torture during her second examination, administered by ministers of Henry VIII, apparently was aimed at eliciting the names of influential zealots. It is a fact that the torture of a person like Anne Askew was uncommon. The questioners broached the names of many of Catherine Parr's close associates to Anne Askew, although she refused to incriminate any. Therefore while they escaped, this “small fish” was caught in the net of the conspirators, and, as stated above, “she could neither live long in so great distres, neither yet by the adversaries be suffred to die in secret.” The substantial truth of this torture and of many other aspects of her narrative have been largely verified.¹⁸ Thus, the reader is left with the impression of an oppressive, self-serving regime that denied freedom of conscience to those intrepid enough to express their beliefs openly and to live in accordance with them. The first impression given by Anne Askew's narratives is that these accounts could not possibly be true. But petty doubts as to how this or that particular could have been written out or remembered are allayed by the independent corroboration found to support this material.¹⁹ Then, too, as Pearl Hogrefe suggests, the maid mentioned by Anne Askew, whose begging was her source of support while in prison, could easily have transported or transcribed materials from the prison.²⁰

A more studied reaction to the narrative brings some of the qualities of Anne Askew to the fore; first, her taciturnity. While she was very voluble concerning her beliefs, she had little to say on some subjects which arouse the interest and sympathy of the reader. Concerning her torture, she says only, “Then they ded put me on the racke, bycause I confessed no ladyes nor gentyllwomen to be of my opynyon, and theron they kepte me a longe tyme. And bycause I laye styll and ded not crye, my lorde Chauncellour and mastre Ryche, toke paynes to racke me their owne handes, tyll I was nygh dead.”²¹ When removed from the rack, Anne “swounded, and then they recovered me agayne.” Following further interrogation, on the bare floor of the Tower, she was “brought to an howse, and layed in a bed, with as werye and payneful bones, as ever had pacynct Job, I thanke my lorde God therof” (p. 49). That is all she has to say on the subject. Similarly, when questioned about her husband, she says only, “I answered, that my lorde chancellour knewe all redye my mynde in that matter. They with that answere were not contented, but sayd, it was the kynges pleasure, that I shuld open the matter to them. I answered them playnely that I wolde not so do” (p. 15). More poignantly, she ends a letter, written shortly before her death, with the commands, “[F]are wele dere frynde, and praye, praye, praye” (p. 49). Finally, the complaint by one of her inquisitors that she “had so fewe wordes” is answered, “God hath geven me the gyfte of knowledge, but not of utteraunce. And Salomon sayth, that a woman of fewe wordes, is a gyfte of God.”²²

Another outstanding quality is her quick wit, evinced both in her replies themselves and in her asides concerning events. Thus she writes, “But he sayd agayne unto me. I sent one to geve yow good counsell, and at the first worde ye called hym papyst. That I denyed not, for I perceyved, he was no lesse, yet made I non answere unto it” (p. 33). Similarly, when she is asked whether a mouse that eats the consecrated wafer “receyved God or no? Thys questyon ded I never aske, but in dede they asked it of me, wherunto I made them no answere, but smyled” (p. 9). To a protest by a questioner to one of her answers, she replies, “Though it were but meane (sayd I) yet was it good ynough for the questyon” (p. 30).

Probably the most amazing of her qualities has already been demonstrated in part by the foregoing remarks—fearlessness. Her courage united with the strength of her convictions to support her. Despite her efforts to avoid antagonizing her judges, the reader is left with no doubt that she was unafraid to speak her mind whenever tact would not carry the day. Thus, in answer to the first accusation at her first examination that she did not believe in transubstantiation, she “demaunded [rather than answering] thys questyon of hym, wherfore S. Steven was stoned to deathe: And he sayd, he coulde not tell. Then I answered, that nomore walde I assoyle hys vayne questyon” (p. 2). This was hardly an auspicious or a timid beginning. When told that “a woman ought not to speake in the congregacyon … [she] asked hym how manye women he had seane, go into the pulpett and preache. he sayde, he never sawe non. Then I sayd, he ought to fynde no faute in poore women, except they had offended the lawe” (p. 11). Were the stakes not so deadly and earnest, the sport would indeed have been great! Anne Askew's utter intrepidity is displayed very clearly in the letter she sent to her “fire fellow,” John Lascels, who had been her instructor in religion. He had been told that she had recanted after her torture, and to his anxious inquiries on that score she replied: “I marvele not a lyttle, what shuld move yow, to judge in me so slendre a faythe, as to feare deathe, whych is the ende of all myserye. In the lorde I desyre yow, not to beleve of me soch wyckednesse.”²³ Finally, she did not hesitate to try to put her case to King Henry himself. With a naiveté that causes the reader to pity her all the more, she refused to answer some of the questions of her interrogators, but offered “that if it were the kynges pleasure to heare me, I wolde shewe hym the truthe.” When told that she was too insignificant to be heard by the king, she answered, “that Salomon was reckened the wysest kynge that ever lyved, yet myslyked not he to heare ii. poore comon women, moch more hys grace a symple woman and hys faythfull subject” (p. 15). When one of the king's officials told her that Christ was present “in that bread … in a boxe” and “compared it unto the kynge, and sayd, that the more hys majestees honour is set forth, the more commendable it is. Then sayd I, that it was an abhomynable shame unto hym, to make no better of the eternall worde of God, than of hys slenderlye conceyved fantasye” (p. 23). Finally, she did not hesitate to request that she be allowed to present her case to King Henry (p. 36).

Perhaps the greatest proof of the respect felt by others for Anne Askew is the fact that they addressed her and spoke of her as Anne Askew, that is, by her maiden name, thus according recognition to her independence.

The materials written by Anne Askew are contained in the examinations or records of her two arrests. These records are introduced, interpolated, and summarized by John Bale, who sets his own statements apart from those by Anne Askew by prefacing them with his own name and those of Anne Askew with hers, and by the use of different typefaces. He breaks up her statements at times with material he thinks should be interpolated. … The examinations include letters written by Anne Askew to several persons, her confession of faith, her prayer before her death, her translation of Psalm 54,²⁴ and an original ballad.

The ballad places her among the minor poets of the sixteenth century, and marks her as the first woman to have composed original verses in English.²⁵ Furthermore, it is informed, as are her examinations, with the force of her faith, and both documents are striking and moving. “Not oft use I to write,”²⁶ she states, and this fact gives special force to lines she felt impelled to write after having undergone torture. The powerful image of displaced justice and her strong religious feelings are demonstrated by her somber drawing of religious bigotry. Her sufferings are recaptured skillfully and movingly. The reader can only admire the caliber of a woman who can, when being tortured for following her convictions, wish mercy for her tormentors. The strength of the last verses of her ballad leaves the reader with profound respect for the intellect, independence, and courage of Anne Askew.

Notes

1. John Foxe, Actes and monuments of these latter and perillous dayes … (London: John Daye, 1563). See also DNB, II, 748-49 (Joan Bocher); DNB, IV, 559 (Margaret Clitherow); and DNB, XI, 1069-70 (Joyce Lewis).

2. Louis B. Wright, Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1935), pp. 49, 106-7, and 204.

3. William and Malleville Haller, “The Puritan Art of Love,” HLQ 5 (1941-42):252.

4. William Gouge, Of Domesticall Duties, Eight Treatises (London: John Haviland, 1622), p. 273.

5. Chilton Powell, English Domestic Relations 1485-1653 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1917), p. 124.

6. Cited by Pearl Hogrefe, Tudor Women: Commoners and Queens (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1975), p. 17 (from the Paston Letters, ed. James Gardiner, and from Roger Ascham's The Scholemaster).

7. Anne Askew, The lattre examinacyon of Anne Askew, … (Wesel: D. van der Straten, 1547), p. 15.

8. “Askew, Anne (1521-1546),” DNB, I, 662.

9. Maria Lamb Webb, The Fells of Swarthmoor Hall and their Friends, with an account of their ancestor Anne Askewe, the Martyr. … (London: Alfred W. Bennett, 1865), p. 6. There is a reference here to a son of Anne Askew's named William, but no further details or corroboration.

10. Sherrin Marshall Wyntjes, “Women in the Reformation Era,” Becoming Visible: Women in European History, ed., Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Company, 1977), p. 173.

11. Writings of Edward VI, William Hugh, Queen Catherine Parr, Anne Askew, Lady Jane Grey, Hamilton and Balnaves (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1842), p. 238.

12. Webb, p. 9.

13. Foxe, p. 680.

14. Charlotte Kohler, “Elizabethan Woman of Letters, the extent of her literary activities” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1936), p. 65.

15. Wyntjes, p. 173.

16. Ibid., pp. 184-85.

17. Writings, pp. 176-84 and 238; John Bowle, Henry VIII (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1964), p. 292; Lacey Baldwin Smith, Henry VIII: The Mask of Royalty (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Company, 1971), p. 240.

18. Smith, p. 240.

19. Hogrefe, pp. 80-81.

20. Ibid.

21. Anne Askew, The lattre examinacyon, p. 45.

22. Anne Askew, The first examinacyon of Anne Askewe, lately martyred in Smythefeld, … (Wesel: D. van der Straten, 1546), p. 29.

23. Anne Askew, The lattre examinacyon, p. 50.

24. Anne Askew, “The voyce of Anne Askewe out of the 54 Psalme of David, called Deus in nomine tuo,” in The first examinacyon … (1546). The translation, which is not included here, is skillfully done in rimed couplets.

25. Jane Williams, Literary Women of England, including a Biographical Epitome of all the most eminent to the year 1700 and sketches of the poetesses to the year 1850 (London: Saunders, Otley and Co., 1861), pp. 43-44.

26. Anne Askew, “The Balade whych Anne Askewe made and sange when she was in Newgate,” in The lattre examinacyon (1547). Mention should be made of a folk ballad that celebrates the staunch faith of Anne Askew. The ballad (“An Askew, Intituled, I am a Woman Poor and Blind”) was apparently first printed in Roxburghe Ballads, I (London 1635), p. 8. According to William Chappell, editor of a later edition of these ballads (Roxburghe Ballads [London: Printed for the Ballad Society, 1871]), John Bale states that Anne Askew wrote many songs and ballads (Illustrium Scriptorium Brittanae Summarium, 1548, fol. 229); Chappell ascribes this second ballad to Anne Askew; however its tone, style, and sentiments differ markedly from those of her other writings.