Faith On The Line - Stress, Stress Go Away Vol 19 | Page 38

ANNE ASKEW - Continued from page 37

Finding it impossible to make her utter anything
for which she could be punished, the bishop drew
up a confession, which he ordered her to sign. This
confession would have committed her to the very
doctrines she condemned, and she refused to sign
it. At length, in compliance
with the entreaties of her
friends who were seeking her
release, she wrote under the
confession: “I, Anne Askew,
do believe all the things
contained in the faith of the
Catholic Church.” Bonner
burst into a furious passion as
he read this subscription, well
knowing that by it she did
not mean the Roman Catholic
Church, and it was with
difficulty that he could be
brought to a sufficient degree
of calmness to consent to her
release. Bail was given, and
she was set at liberty.
But the priests were resolved
that she should not escape
them. Her youth, her beauty,
her intellectual attainments,
and her virtues were winning her too many friends,
and she was too dangerous a heretic to be suffered
to live.
In less than three months she was again a prisoner
in their hands. She was brought before the Lords of
the Privy Council at Greenwich, and by them sent to
Newgate prison, to be dealt with according to the law.
The Lord Chancellor of England at this time was
Thomas Wriothesley, one of the cruellest and

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“I believe that as oft as I, in a Christian congregation, receive the bread in
remembrance of Christ’s death, and with thanksgiving, according to His holy
institution, I receive therewith the fruits also of His most glorious passion.”
Bishop Gardiner interrupted her, angrily, and ordered her to give a direct answer,
and not to speak in parables, at the same time calling her a parrot.
“I am ready,” she said, calmly, “to suffer all things at your hands; not only your
rebukes, but all that shall follow besides, yea, all that gladly.”
The next day her examination was resumed, and her answers not being
satisfactory to Gardiner, that merciless prelate cried out to her, “You will be
burned.” She answered: “I have searched all the Scriptures, yet could I never find
that Christ or His apostles put any creature to death.”
Mr. Paget, one of the council, now asked her, more kindly than the others had
done: “How can you avoid the very words of Christ, ‘Take, eat, this is my body
which is broken for you?’ “
“Christ’s meaning in that passage,” she replied, “is similar to the meaning of those
other places of Scripture, ‘ I am the door,’ ‘I am the vine,’ ‘Behold the Lamb of God,’
‘That rock was Christ,’ and such like. You are not in these texts to take Christ for
the material thing
which He is signified
by, for then you will
make Him a very door,
a vine, a lamb, a stone,
quite contrary to the
Holy Ghost’s meaning.
All these indeed do
signify Christ, even
as the bread signifies
His body in that place.
And though He said
there, ‘Take, eat this in
remembrance of me,’
yet did He not bid them
hang up that bread
in a pix and make it a
god, or
bow to it.”
She was sent back
to Newgate, and the
next day was very ill.
Believing that she was dying, she requested leave to receive a visit from the good
Hugh Latimer, who afterwards proved so faithful a witness for Christ, that he
might comfort her with his godly counsel, but her request
was refused.
It was now very plain to her that her enemies were resolved upon her death. She
was a brave woman, as all her history proves, and she was a sincere Christian
as well. She turned for support and comfort to the only true source, and she
found strength to bear all her trials with Christian fortitude and meekness. Her
feelings are well described in the following poem, written by her during her
imprisonment in Newgate:
Answer: 39

“I would, my lord, that all men knew my conversation
and living in all points; for I am so sure of myself this
hour, that there is none able to prove any dishonesty
in me. If you know any that could do it, I pray you
bring them forth.”

most bigoted Romanists that ever held power in England. He was intimately
associated with the old Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner in all the measures
brought forward by the Romanist party to throttle the Reformation. He now
undertook the prosecution of the beautiful woman whose innocence and pure
womanliness had no power to touch his cruel heart. He caused her to be brought
before the council on the 25th of June, and subjected her to an examination
which lasted for five hours. He asked her what was her opinion as to the bread in
the Eucharist. She replied:

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Her cousin Brittayne, who was much attached to
her, now endeavoured