to 1546. Now, since I find such kindness on your part towards me, I cannot choose Henry but love and favour you, affirming that no prince in the world more favoureth VIII. his subjects than I do you, nor any subjects or commons more love and obey A.D. their sovereign lord, than I perceive you do me, for whose defence my treasure 1545 shall not be hidden, nor, if necessity require, shall my person be unadventured. Yet, although I with you, and you with me, be in this perfect love and concord, this friendly amity cannot continue, except you, my lords temporal, and you, my lords spiritual, and you, my loving subjects, study and take pains to amend one thing, which is surely amiss and far out of order, to the which I most heartily require you; 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, in the said chapter. Behold then what love and charity' is amongst you, when the one calleth the other heretic, and anabaptist; and he calleth him again papist, hypocrite, and pharisee. Be these 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 hinderance and assuaging of the fervent love between us, as I said before, 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. For if I know a man which liveth in adultery, I must judge him a lecherous and carnal person. If I see a man boast and brag himself, I cannot but deem him a proud man. I see and hear daily, that you of the clergy preach one against another, teach one contrary to another, inveigh one against another, without charity or discretion. Some be too stiff in their old mumpsimus,' others be too busy and curious in their new 'sumpsimus.' Thus all men almost be in variety and discord, and few or none do preach truly and sincerely the word of God, according as they ought to do. Shall I now judge you charitable persons doing this? No, no, I cannot so do. 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, and these enormities corrected, according to my very duty; or else I am an unprofitable servant, and an untrue officer. Although (as I say) the spiritual men be in some fault, that charity is not kept amongst you, 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, both, contrary to good order and christian fraternity. If you know surely that a bishop or preacher erreth, or teacheth perverse doctrine, come and declare it to some of our council, or to us, to whom is committed by God, the authority to reform and order such causes and behaviours; and be not judges yourselves of your own fantastical opinions and vain expositions, for in such high causes ye may lightly err. And 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; and 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: and yet I am even as much sorry that the readers of the same follow it, in doing, so faintly and coldly. For of this I am (1) Charity and concord, in commonwealths, be things most necessary: but, in matters of religion, charity and concord be not enough, without verity and true worship of God. If true religion had been maintained and error reformed, these terms of variance had not need now to be reproved. (2) And wherein else consisteth all this variance, but only because God's word hath not its free course, but that those who set it forth, are condemned and therefore burned. (3) This can touch none but only the papists, who will needs be both accusers, and also judges in their own opinions and causes. (4) How are they permitted to hear God's word, when no one is permitted to read it under the degree of a gentleman. (5 St. Jerome wisheth the Scriptures not only to be read of all men, but also to be sung of women at their rocks, of ploughmen at the ploughs, of weavers at their looms, &c. VIII. A. D. 1545 to Henry sure, that charity was never so faint amongst you, and virtuous and godly living' was never less used, nor was God himself amongst Christians ever less reverenced, honoured, or served. Therefore (as I said before) be in charity one with another like brother and brother: love, dread, and fear God (to the which I, as your supreme head and sovereign lord, exhort and require you) and then, I doubt not but that that love and league which I spake of in the beginning, shall never be dissolved or broken between us. And as touching the laws which be now made and concluded, I exhort you, the makers, to be as diligent in putting them in execution, as you were in making and furthering the same; or else your labour shall be in vain, and your commonwealth nothing relieved. 1546. The ora tion ex pended with notes same. NOTES UPON THE AFORESAID EXHORTATION OF KING HENRY. Princes who exhort to concord and charity do well; but princes who seek out the causes of discord, and reform the same, do much better. The papist and protestant, heretic and pharisee, the old upon the "mumpsimus mumpsimus" and the new "sumpsimus," be terms of variance and dissension, and be, I grant, "symptomata" of a sore wound in the commonwealth. But he that will amend this wound must first begin to search out the causes, and to purge the occasion thereof: otherwise, to cure the sore outwardly, which inwardly doth fester and rankle still, it is but vain. The root and ground of all this grievance riseth hence: from the prelates and clergy of Rome, seeking, as it seemeth, altogether after riches, pomp, and honour of this world; who, to maintain the same under pretence of religion, do in very deed subvert religion. Under that title of the church, they bring into the church manifest errors and absurdities intolerable, who, pretending to be fathers of the church, if they transgressed but in manners and lightness of life, or negligence of government, they might be borne withal, for peace and concord's sake; and here modesty, civility, quietness, unity, and charity, might have place amongst modest natures. But now, they obscure the glory of the Son of God, which in no case ought to be suffered; they extinguish the light and grace of the gospel; they clog men's consciences; they set up idolatry, and maintain idols; they bring in false invocation, and restrain lawful matrimony, whereby groweth filthy pollution, adultery, and whoredom in the church unspeakable; they corrupt the sacraments; they wrest the Scripture to worldly purposes; they kill and persecute God's people: briefly their doctrine is damnable, their laws be impious, their doings are detestable. And yet, after all this, they creep craftily into the hearts of princes, under the title of the church, and colour of concord; making kings and princes believe that all be heretics and schismatics, who will not be subject to their ordinary power. Now Almighty God, who is a jealous God, and not suffering the glory of his Son to be defaced, nor his truth to be trodden under foot, stirreth up again the hearts of his people to understand his truth, and to defend his cause. Whereupon, of these two parts, as two mighty flints thus smiting together, cometh out the sparkle of this division, which can in no wise be quenched, but that one part must needs yield and give over. There is no neutrality, nor mediation of peace, nor exhortation to agreement, (1) Godly living, though it increase not with the gospel so much as we wish, yet the defect thereof is not to be imputed to the gospel: and if we well compare time with time, we shall find, by viewing the books of the old wardmote quests of whores and bawds, and wicked livers, ten presented to one now, besides priests and the common stews. VIII. that will serve between these two contrary doctrines, but either the Henry pope's errors must give place to God's word, or else the verity of. God must give place unto them. A. D. to 1546. Wherefore, as the good intent, and plausible oration of the king, 1545 in this behalf, was not to be discommended, in exhorting his subjects to charity, so had he much more deserved commendation, if he had sought the right way to work charity, and to help innocency amongst his subjects, by taking away the impious law of the Six Articles, the mother of all division and manslaughter. For what is this to the purpose, to exhort in words ever so much to charity, and indeed to give a knife to the murderer's hand, to run upon his naked brother, who never in conscience can leave his cause, nor yet hath power to defend himself? as by experience here followeth to be seen, what charity ensued after this exhortation of the king to charity, by the racking and burning of good Anne Askew, with three other poor subjects of the king, within half a year after; whereof shortly you shall hear more declared. When these chantries and colleges thus, by act of parliament, were given into the king's hands as is above remembered (which was about the month of December, A.D. 1545), the next Lent following, Dr. Crome, preaching in the Mercer's chapel, among other reasons and persuasions to rouse the people from the vain opinion of purgatory, inferred this (grounding upon the said act of parliament): that if trentals and chantry masses could avail the souls in purgatory, then did the parliament not well in giving away monasteries, colleges, and chantries, which served principally to that purpose. But, if the parliament did well (as no man could deny) in dissolving them, and bestowing the same upon the king, then is it a plain case, that such chantries and private masses do nothing to confer and relieve them in purgatory. This dilemma of Dr. Crome, no doubt, was insoluble. Crome's But, notwithstanding, the charitable prelates, for all the king's late dilemma exhortation unto charity, were so charitable unto him, that on Easter private next they brought him "coram nobis," where they so handled him, Driven to that they made him to recant. And if he had not, they would have recant. dissolved him and his argument in burning fire, so burning hot was Charity their charity, according as they burned Anne Askew and her fellows bishops. in the month of July the year following: whose tragical story and cruel handling now, consequently, the Lord willing, you shall hear. The Two Eraminations of the worthy Servant of God, Mistress Anne Askew, Daughter of Sir William Askew, knight, of Lincolnshire. MARTYRED IN SMITHFIELD FOR THE CONSTANT AND FAITHFUL *Here2 next follow the true examinations of Anne Askew, which here thou shalt have, gentle reader, according as she wrote them with her own hand, at the instant desire of certain faithful men and women by which, if thou mark diligently the communications, both of her, and of her examiners, thou mayest easily perceive the tree by the fruit, and the man by his work.* (1) Not the year following,' but the same year to which Foxe had just referred, viz. 1546 -ED. (2) See Edition 1563, p. 669.-ED. against masses. of the Henry The First Examination before the Inquisitors, A.D. 1545. A. D. To satisfy your expectation, good people (said she), this was my first exami1545 nation, in the year of our Lord 1545, and in the month of March. to First Christopher Dare examined me at Sadler's Hall, being one of the 1546. quest, and asked, if I did not believe that the sacrament hanging over the altar was the very body of Christ really. Then I demanded this question of him, Wherefore was St. Stephen stoned to death? and he said, he could not tell. Dare, in- Then I answered that no more would I assoil his vain question. Christopher quisitor. Ill condi tions of the ministers hurt not the faith of the Secondly, he said, that there was a woman who did testify that I should read, how God was not in temples made with hands. Then I showed him chapters vii. and xvii. of the Acts of the Apostles; what Stephen and Paul had said therein. Whereupon he asked me how I took those sentences? I answered, I would not throw pearls amongst swine, for acorns were good enough. Thirdly, he asked me, wherefore I said, I had rather to read five lines in the Bible, than to hear five masses in the temple. I confessed that I said no less; not for the dispraise of either the epistle or the gospel, but because the one did greatly edify me, and the other nothing at all. As St. Paul doth witness in 1 Cor. xiv., where he saith, 'If the trumpet giveth an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself to the battle?' Fourthly, he laid unto my charge, that I should say, If an ill priest ministered, it was the devil and not God. My answer was, that I never spake any such thing. But this was my saying that whosoever he were that ministered unto me, his ill conditions could not hurt my faith, but in spirit I received, nevertheless, the body and blood of Christ. Fifthly, he asked me what I said concerning confession. 1 answered him my receivers. meaning, which was, as St. James saith, that every man ought to acknowledge his faults to other, and the one to pray for the other. A priest brought to examine Anne Askew. Private masses idolatry. Anne Askew brought to the lord mayor. Women in the Sixthly, he asked me what I said to the king's book: and I answered him that I could say nothing to it, because I never saw it. Seventhly, he asked me if I had the Spirit of God in me. I answered, if I had not, I was but a reprobate or castaway. Then he said, he had sent for a priest to examine me, who was there at hand. The priest asked me what I said to the sacrament of the altar, and required much to know my meaning therein. But I desired him again to hold me excused concerning that matter: none other answer would I make him, because I perceived him to be a papist. Eighthly, he asked me, if I did not think that private masses did help the souls departed. I said, it was great idolatry to believe more in them, than in the death which Christ died for us. Then they had me thence unto my lord mayor, and he examined me, as they had before, and I answered him directly in all things, as I answered the quest before. Besides this, my lord mayor laid one thing to my charge, which was never spoken of me, but by them; and that was, whether a mouse, eating the host, received God or no? This question did I never ask, but indeed they asked it of me, whereunto I made them no answer, but smiled. Then the bishop's chancellor rebuked me, and said that I was much to blame forbidden for uttering the Scriptures. For St. Paul, he said, forbade women to speak or to speak to talk of the word of God I answered him that I knew Paul's meaning as congrega- well as he, which is, in 1 Cor. xiv., that a woman ought not to speak in the conhow. gregation by the way of teaching: and then I asked him how many women he had seen go into the pulpit and preach? He said he never saw any. Then I said, he ought to find no fault in poor women, except they had offended the law. tion, and Anne Askew com Then my lord mayor commanded me to ward. I asked him if sureties would not serve me; and he made me short answer, that he would take none. Then was I had to the Compter, and there remained eleven days, no friend admitted to speak with me. But, in the meantime, there was a priest sent unto me, who compter. said that he was commanded of the bishop to examine me, and to give me good counsel, which he did not. But, first, he asked me for what cause I was put in manded to the the Compter; and I told him, I could not tell. Then he said, it was great pity Henry that I should be there without cause, and concluded, that he was very sorry for me. Secondly he said, it was told him that I should deny the sacrament of the altar. And I answered him again, that what I had said, I had said. Thirdly he asked me, if I were content to be shriven. I told him, so that I might have one of these three, that is to say, Dr. Crome, sir Guillam, or Huntington, I was contented, because I knew them to be men of wisdom. As for you, or any other, I will not dispraise, because I know you not. Then, said he, 'I would not have you think but that I, or any other that shall be brought you, shall be as honest as they for if we were not, you may be sure the king would not suffer us to preach.' Then I answered with the saying of Solomon, By communing with the wise 1 may learn wisdom, but by talking with a fool I shall take scathe.' [Prov. i. 5.] VIII. A. D. 1545 to 1546. may eat Fourthly he asked, If the host should fall, and a beast did eat it, whether the Whether beast did receive God or no? I answered, 'Seeing that you have taken the a mouse pains to ask the question, I desire you also to assoil it yourself: for I will not Christ's do it, because I perceive you come to tempt me.' And he said it was against body in the order of schools, that he who asked the question should answer it. I told him I was but a woman, and knew not the course of schools. Fifthly he asked me, if I intended to receive the sacrament at Easter, or no? I answered, that else I were no christian woman; and thereat I did rejoice, that the time was so near at hand. And then he departed thence with many fair words. The 23d day of March, my cousin Brittayne came into the Compter unto me, and asked me whether I might be put to bail, or no? Then went he immediately unto my lord mayor, desiring him to be so good unto me, that I might be bailed. My lord answered him and said, that he would be glad to do the best that in him lay; howbeit he could not bail me, without the consent of a spiritual officer: requiring him to go and speak with the chancellor of London. For, he said, like as he could not commit me to prison without the consent of a spiritual officer, no more could he bail me without the consent of the same. the sacrament, or 110. seeks to cousin : is sent to So, upon that, he went to the chancellor, requiring of him as he did before Master of my lord mayor. He answered him, that the matter was so heinous, that he Brittain durst not of himself do it, without my lord of London were made privy there- bail Anne unto. But, he said, he would speak unto my lord in it, and bade him repair Askewhis unto him the next morrow, and he should well know my lord's pleasure. And upon the morrow after, he came thither, and spake both with the chancellor the and with my lord bishop of London. The bishop declared unto him, that he was bishop. very well contented that I should come forth to communication; and appointed me to appear before him the next day after, at three of the clock at afternoon. Moreover he said unto him, that he would there should be at the examination such learned men as I was affectioned to, that they might see, and also make report, that I was handled with no rigour. He answered him, that he knew no man that I had more affection to, than to other. Then said the bishop, Yes, as I understand, she is affectioned to Dr. Crome, sir Guillam Whitehead, and Huntington, that they might hear the matter, for she doth know them to be learned and of a godly judgment.' Also he required my cousin Brittayne, that he should earnestly persuade me to utter even the very bottom of my heart; and he sware by his fidelity, that no man should take any advantage of my Bonner's words, neither yet would he lay ought to my charge for any thing that I should promise there speak; but, if I said any manner of thing amiss, he, with others more, would be glad to reform me therein, with most godly counsel. to him. Askew On the morrow after, the bishop of London sent for me at one of the clock, Anne his hour being appointed at three; and as I came before him, he said he was brought very sorry for my trouble, and desired to know my opinions in such matters as before were laid against me. He required me also, in any wise, boldly to utter the Bonner. secrets of my heart, bidding me not to fear in any point, for whatsoever I did say in his house, no man should hurt me for it. I answered, forasmuch as your lordship appointed three of the clock, and my friends will not come till that hour, I desire you to pardon me of giving answer till they come. Then said he, that he thought it meet to send for those four men who were aforenamed and appointed. Then I desired him not to put them to pain, for it should not |