The Speaker of the House of Commons having delivered an address to the king in which he extolled his virtues, Henry replied as follows:—'Whereas you ... have both praised and extolled me for the notable qualities you have conceived to be in me, I most heartily thank you all that you put me in remembrance of my duty, which is to endeavor myself to obtain and get such excellent qualities and necessary virtues.... No prince in the world more favoreth his subjects than I do you, nor any subjects or commons more love and obey their sovereign lord than I perceive you do me. Yet, although I with you, and you with me, be in this perfect love and concord, this friendly amity can not continue except you, my lords temporal, and you, my lords spiritual, and you, my loving subjects, study and take pains to amend any thing, which is surely amiss and far out of order, ... which is, that charity and concord is not among you; but discord and dissension beareth rule in every place. St. Paul saith to the Corinthians, in the thirteenth chapter, "Charity is gentle, charity is not envious, charity is not proud," and so forth. Behold then what love and charity is amongst you when one calleth the other heretic and anabaptist; and he calleth him again papist, hypocrite, and pharisee. Be these things tokens of charity amongst you? Are these the signs of fraternal love between you? No, no, I assure you that this lack of charity amongst yourselves will be the hindrance and assuaging of the fervent love between us, except this wound be salved and clearly made whole. I must needs judge the fault and occasion of this discord to be partly by the negligence of you, the fathers and preachers of the spiritualty.... I see and hear daily that you of the clergy preach one against another, ... and few or none do preach truly and sincerely the Word of God.... Alas! how can the poor souls live in concord when you preachers sow amongst them, in your sermons, debate and discord? Of you they look for light, and you bring them to darkness. Amend these crimes, I exhort you, and set forth God's word, both by true preaching and good example-giving; or else I, whom God hath appointed his vicar and high minister here, will see these divisions extinct.... Although (as I say) the spiritual men be in some fault ... yet you of the temporalty be not clean and unspotted of malice and envy; for you rail on bishops, speak slanderously of priests, and rebuke and taunt preachers.... Although you be permitted to read Holy Scripture, and to have the Word of God in your mother tongue, you must understand that it is licensed you so to do, only to inform your own conscience, and to instruct your children and family; not to dispute and make Scripture a railing and a taunting stock against priests and preachers, as many light persons do. I am very sorry to know and hear how unreverently that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every alehouse and tavern, contrary to the true meaning and doctrine of the same.... Be in charity one with another, ... to the which I, as your supreme head and sovereign lord, exhort and require you; and then I doubt not but that love and league, which I spake of in the beginning, shall never be dissolved or broken between us.'[435]
The school-master had not spoken amiss. The parliament did not make the retort, 'Physician, heal thyself,' though it might have been applicable. One of the measures by which the king manifested his 'sweet charity' proves that, if he were not, like some old school-masters, a tyrant of words and syllables, he tyrannized over the peace and the lives of his people.
ANNE ASKEW.
There were at the court a certain number of ladies of the highest rank who loved the Gospel—the duchess of Suffolk, the countess of Sussex, the countess of Hertford, Lady Denny, Lady Fitzwilliam,[436] and above all the queen. Associated with these was a pious, lively, and beautiful young lady, of great intelligence and amiable disposition, and whose fine qualities had been improved by education. Her name was Anne Askew. She was the second daughter of Sir William Askew, member of a very ancient Lincolnshire family. She had two brothers and two sisters. Her brother Edward was one of the king's bodyguards. The queen frequently received Anne and other Christian women in her private apartments; and there prayer was made and the Word of God expounded by an evangelical minister. The king, indeed, was aware of these secret meetings, but he feigned ignorance. Anne was at this time in great need of the consolations of the Gospel. Her father, Sir William, had a rich neighbor named Kyme, with whom he was intimate; and being anxious that his eldest daughter should marry a rich man, he arranged with Kyme that she should wed his eldest son. The young lady died before the nuptials took place; and Sir William, reluctant to let slip so good a chance, compelled his second daughter Anne to marry the betrothed of her sister, and by him she became the mother of two children. The third sister, Joan, was married to Sir John Saint-Paul. The Holy Scriptures in the English version attracted Anne's attention, and ere long she became so attached to them that she meditated on them day and night. Led by them to a living faith in Jesus Christ, she renounced Romish superstitions. The priests, who were greatly annoyed, stirred up against her her young husband, a rough man and a staunch papist, who 'violently drove her out of his house.'[437] Anne said, 'Since, according to the Scripture, "if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases,"[438]—I claim my divorce.' She went to London to take the necessary proceedings; and either through her brother, one of the guards, or otherwise, made the acquaintance of the pious ladies of the court and of the queen herself.
It was a great vexation to the enemies of the Reformation to see persons of the highest rank almost openly professing the evangelical faith. As they did not dare to attack them, they determined to make a beginning with Anne Askew, and thereby to terrify the rest. She had said one day, 'I would sooner read five lines in the Bible than hear five masses in the church.' On another occasion she had denied the corporal presence of the Saviour in the sacrament. She was sent to prison. When she was taken to Sadlers Hall, the judge, Dare, asked her, 'Do you not believe that the sacrament hanging over the altar was the very body of Christ really?' Anne replied, 'Wherefore was St. Stephen stoned to death?' Dare, doubtless, remembered that Stephen had said, 'I see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of God.' From this it followed that He was not in the sacrament. He preferred to answer, 'I can not tell.' It is possible, however, that his ignorance was not feigned. 'No more,' said Anne, 'will I assoil your vain question.' Anne was afterwards taken before the lord-mayor, Sir Martin Bowes, a passionate bigot. He was under-treasurer of the Mint, and in 1550 obtained the king's pardon for all the false money which he had coined. The magistrate gravely asked her whether a mouse, eating the host, received God or no? 'I made no answer, but smiled,' says Anne. The bishop's chancellor, who was present, sharply said to her, 'St. Paul forbade women to speak or to talk of the Word of God.' 'How many women,' said she in reply, 'have you seen go into the pulpit and preach?' 'Never any,' he said. 'You ought not to find fault in poor women, except they have offended the law.' She was unlawfully committed to prison, and for eleven days no one was allowed to see her. At this time she was about twenty-five years of age.
One of her cousins, named Brittayne, was admitted to see her. He immediately did every thing he could to get Anne released on bail. The lord-mayor bade him apply to the chancellor of the bishop of London. The chancellor replied to him, 'Apply to the bishop.' The bishop said, 'I will give order for her to appear before me to-morrow at three o'clock in the afternoon.' He then subjected her to a long examination. He asked her, amongst other things, 'Do you not think that private masses help the souls departed?' 'It is great idolatry,' she replied, 'to believe more in them than in the death which Christ died for us.' 'What kind of answer is this?' said the bishop of London. 'It is a weak one,' replied Anne, 'but good enough for such a question.' After the examination, at which Anne made clear and brief replies, Bonner wrote down a certain number of articles of faith, and required that Anne should set her hand to them. She wrote, 'I believe so much thereof as the Holy Scripture doth agree unto.' This was not what Bonner wanted. The bishop pressed the point, and said, 'Sign this document.' Anne then wrote, 'I, Anne Askew, do believe all manner of things contained in the faith of the Catholic Church.' The bishop, well knowing what Anne meant by this word, hurried away into an adjoining room in a great rage.[439] Her cousin Brittayne followed him and implored him to treat his kinswoman kindly. 'She is a woman,' exclaimed the bishop, 'and I am nothing deceived in her.' 'Take her as a woman,' said Brittayne, 'and do not set her weak woman's wit to your lordship's great wisdom.' At length, Anne's two sureties, to wit, Brittayne and Master Spilman of Grays Inn, were on the following day accepted, and she was set at liberty. These events took place in the year 1545.
SECOND ARREST OF ANNE ASKEW.
Anne having continued to profess the Gospel, and to have meetings with her friends, she was again arrested three months later, and was brought before the privy council at Greenwich. On the opening of the examination she refused to go into the matter before the council, and said, 'If it be the king's pleasure to hear me, I will show him the truth.' 'It is not meet,' they replied, 'for the king to be troubled with you.' She answered, 'Solomon was reckoned the wisest king that ever lived, yet misliked he not to hear two poor common women; much more his grace a single woman and his faithful subject.' 'Tell me your opinion on the sacrament,' said the lord chancellor. 'I believe,' she said, 'that so oft as I, in a Christian congregation, do receive the bread in remembrance of Christ's death, and with thanksgiving ... I receive therewith the fruits also of his most glorious passion.' 'Make a direct answer to the question,' said Gardiner. 'I will not sing a new song of the Lord,' she said, 'in a strange land.' 'You speak in parables,' said Gardiner. 'It is best for you,' she answered; 'for if I show the open truth, ye will not accept it.' 'You are a parrot,' said the incensed bishop. She replied, 'I am ready to suffer all things at your hands, not only your rebukes, but all that shall follow besides, yea, and all that gladly.'
The next day Anne once more appeared before the council. They began the examination on the subject of transubstantiation. Seeing Lord Parr, uncle to the queen, and Lord Lisle, she said to them, 'It is a great shame for you to counsel contrary to your knowledge.' 'We would gladly,' they answered, 'all things were well.' Gardiner wished to speak privately with her, but this she refused. The lord chancellor then began to examine her again. 'How long,' said Anne, 'will you halt on both sides?' 'You shall be burnt,' said the bishop of London. She replied, 'I have searched all the Scriptures, yet could I never find that either Christ or his apostles put any creature to death.'
Anne was sent back to prison. She was very ill, and believed herself to be near death. Never had she had to endure such attacks. She requested leave to see Latimer, who was still confined in the Tower; but this consolation was not allowed her. Resting firmly, as she did, on Scriptural grounds, she did not suffer herself to swerve. To her constitutional resolution she added that which was the fruit of communion with God; and she was thus placed by faith above the attacks which she experienced. Having a good foundation, she resolutely defended the freedom of her conscience and her full trust in Christ; and not only did she encounter her enemies without wavering, but she spoke to them with a power sufficient to awe them, and gave home-thrusts which threw them into confusion. Nevertheless she was only a weak woman, and her bodily strength began to fail. In Newgate she said,—'The Lord strengthen us in the truth. Pray, pray, pray.' She composed while in prison some stanzas which have been pronounced extraordinary, not only for simple beauty and sublime sentiment, but also for the noble structure and music of the verse.[440]