Anne Askew

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AA 's fame as a Prostestant martyr was in origin dependent on her own testimony. Her accounts of her legal trials in 1545 and 1546, with torture—part debate, part autobiography, part reporting—are unique texts. Her two extant poems also deserve to be better known.
Photograph of a painting probably of Anne Askew, by Hans Eworth, 1560, inscribed "RATHER DEATHE / THEN FALSE OF FAYTHE." She is standing, seen from the waist up, at a three-quarter turn, with her hands clasped in front of her. She is plainly dressed in a heavy black gown with high neck, small ruff, and leg-of-mutton sleeves with white ruffles at the wrists. She has a flat red and gold headpiece, an elaborate pendant, and rings on her fingers. Tatton Hall, National Trust.

Milestones

1520-1

AA was born in Lincolnshire, perhaps the fifth of six siblings, though the number is uncertain.
Beilin suggests four siblings and two step-siblings, Wilson only a single step-brother, and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography two sisters and two brothers.
Wilson, Derek. A Tudor Tapestry: Men, Women and Society in Reformation England. Heinemann.
18
Beilin, Elaine V., and Anne Askew. “Introduction”. The Examinations of Anne Askew, Oxford University Press.
xvii

15 July 1546

AA is said to have composed and sung the ballad which is her best-known work, in Newgate Prison the night before her execution.
Beilin, Elaine V., and Anne Askew. “Introduction”. The Examinations of Anne Askew, Oxford University Press.
xxxii
Askew, Anne. The Examinations of Anne Askew. Editor Beilin, Elaine V., Oxford University Press.
149

16 July 1546

AA was burned alive at Smithfield, just outside London Wall.
Beilin, Elaine V., and Anne Askew. “Introduction”. The Examinations of Anne Askew, Oxford University Press.
xv

Biography

Birth and Family

1520-1

AA was born in Lincolnshire, perhaps the fifth of six siblings, though the number is uncertain.
Beilin suggests four siblings and two step-siblings, Wilson only a single step-brother, and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography two sisters and two brothers.
Wilson, Derek. A Tudor Tapestry: Men, Women and Society in Reformation England. Heinemann.
18
Beilin, Elaine V., and Anne Askew. “Introduction”. The Examinations of Anne Askew, Oxford University Press.
xvii

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