“What would you have me do?”, Katherine Parr is imagined to have said in a chance meeting in the woods.
“I would have you pull his head from his neck”, replies an enigmatic Erin Doherty as Anne Askew, in the trailer for the much-anticipated film Firebrand, due to be released in the UK on 6th September 2024.
Though such a conversation is purely dramatized, it alludes to the influence Anne Askew may have had on the theology of Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth wife, and Reformers, more widely.
The 16th July marked the anniversary of the death of Anne Askew, who was the first and only woman to be racked in the Tower of London, one of the first women in England to request a divorce and the last ‘martyr’ to be executed during the reign of Henry VIII.
. . .
Anne Askew was born in Lincolnshire in 1521 to Sir William Askew, a landowner, and Elizabeth Wrotessley. Anne’s family were interwoven with many other elite early modern families and her father was even a juror at the trial of Anne Boleyn’s co-accused. Anne Askew’s father had arranged for her sister Martha to marry a Thomas Kyme, however, when she died, it was decided that, to keep the profitable match, Anne would take her sister’s place. Anne would have been 15 years old at the time of her marriage.
Anne was an intelligent young woman who, through her copious biblical reading, was convinced that transubstantiation was incorrect, and she held strong Reformist (which would later be called Protestant) views her whole life. Her husband was a devout Catholic, although Anne saw no reason why her own opinions should come second to her husband's.
She publicly pronounced her views which caused embarrassment to her brother and father, subsequently throwing her out of her home. At this point Anne had two small children and was already seeking a divorce, however she moved to London and met with other like-minded Protestants and continued to study the Bible. Close scholarship of the Bible was the hallmark of Protestant practice and becoming increasingly popular in middling and upper classes, and even reached the inner royal circle as we will return to.
Though Anne would not have labelled herself a ‘feminist’, for such a definition as we identify it now did not exist, she displayed early feminist tendencies. Anne kept her maiden name throughout her life and continued the public preaching she had started before. Anne was, through her faith and pride in it, navigating the material and spiritual world in a way a man would – and she did it gladly.
In March 1545, her ex-husband had Anne arrested, however she escaped, continued preaching and was arrested again. In total she was arrested three times and, in May 1546, she was taken to the Tower of London where she was tortured, and ordered to name like minded Protestant women. Torture was actually illegal in Tudor England at this point, though it did not prohibit her own torturers from using it to gain a confession. She ardently refused, and would not submit. Her joints were pulled and dislocated, but she would not incriminate her fellow reformers, and possibly Katherine herself.
On 18th June 1546, she was convicted of Heresy, and condemned to be burned at the stake. On 16th July, Anne was burnt alive in Smithfield, London. Due to how badly she had been tortured, she was carried to her execution in a chair, and was burned with other ‘heretics’. She was only 25 years old.
So, in what world could Anne and Katherine Parr have ever met?
Well, in the last year of Henry VIII’s reign, there was a series of struggles at court between religious reformers and traditionalists. Although Henry VIII had broken from Rome and introduced a series of reforms such as the printed and chaining of a large Bible in English in every parish, his personal religion was still Catholic in nature and so was much of the country (Eamon Duffy’s The Striping of the Altars is an excellent book which captures the very complicated and layered nature of the Reformation). We have to remember that Protestantism is in essence less hierarchical, and Anne protested that one did not need a hierarchy to permit or control an individual’s personal relationship with God. A king was part of this hierarchy was Head of the Church under Christ, and therefore Anne’s preaching hit the King and establishment at its core.
Woodcut of the burning of Anne Askew, for heresy, at Smithfield in 1546, public domain.
Many at court were arrested during this tumultuous period, and even Katherine Parr and her ladies were implicated (as will be portrayed in Firebrand). It was claimed that Katherine and her ladies were suspected of harbouring Protestant beliefs, and illegal Reformist texts. That Katherine would go on to write and publish her own religious texts give testament to – whether or not it is true she was influenced by Anne’s preaching or ideas – certainly that Anne was an example of a woman proudly giving testament to her faith. I would argue the ‘firebrand’ in this film is not just Katherine but Anne herself.
Katherine Parr and Anne Askew’s dramatised meeting in Firebrand (2024).
Anne Askew was known for her ‘plain speaking’, which in essence described her ability to in her answers (during her interrogations) to get straight to the matter whilst mixing in scriptural language. She was able to justify her beliefs and preaching with passages from the Bible she had memorised, which was becoming another Protestant practice. We would argue that Anne was being punished for not only her intelligence but also for her pride and absolute faith, and that professing these things ‘plainly’ was seen almost as blasphemes to come out of the lips of a woman at this time.
Again, Anne presents her own kind of early modern feminism, in totally standing up for her right as a woman, and as she viewed child of God (therefore an equal to man) to profess and speak passionately. For this she would die.
Incredibly, she would go a step further. Anne orated an account of her experiences, ordeal and beliefs, which was published by John Bale first as The Examinations and later in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, which proclaimed Anne a Protestant martyr. Though these testimonies are Anne’s, using them as factual and historical sources has to be done with the acknowledgment that these texts were literally written by Protestant men with an agenda. Though there is no doubt Anne was brave and other sources corroborate this, it is important to remember that Anne was taken as a martyr by contemporary and later Reformers and writers and used to further their own theological cause, and these are not unbiased first-hand accounts.
Today though we remember a young woman who was a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, but also a preacher, a writer, a poet, a reformer and a martyr. Burnt for her faith, never betraying a single of her feminine Protestant circle, unashamedly speaking with her own voice against authority, we remember a trailblazer who no doubt inspired a generation of not only religious reformers but also of ordinary men and women who heard her. She was able to use her voice in a way many women were not allowed to, and she paid the price. But, today, we remember and honour a woman who died for the right to do what we today take for granted.
References:
Six Tudor Queens: Katharine Parr, The Sixth Wife, Alison Wier
The Examination of Anne Askew (https://anne-askew.humanities.uva.nl/index.htm)
The Examinations (https://anne-askew.humanities.uva.nl/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/First_Examination_Of_Anne_Askew.pdf)
Tudor Women, Alison Plowden
Acts and Monuments, John Foxe (https://ia801603.us.archive.org/0/items/actsmonumentsofj08foxe/actsmonumentsofj08foxe.pdf)
Firebrand: A Novel, Elizabeth Freemantle
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