which they had exercised their cruelty upon her, as if to make her taste again and again the bitterness of death before they committed her to the excruciating flames, deeply oppressed her spirit-for this, to a pure mind, must ever give dark distressing views of human nature and extorted from her earnest appeals to the justice and compassion of God. But it is delightful to witness the meekness of spirit she cherished towards these miserable and hardened men, even when she most agonizingly felt the iron entering her soul. She cannot make her appeal to God against their injustice and cruelty, without, like Christ in his passion, and like the proto-Christian martyr Stephen, earnestly praying for their forgiveness, and that their understandings might be enlightened by the knowledge of the truth, and their hearts changed by Divine grace. "O Lord," says she, in a brief prayer which she composed and committed to writing when in prison, "I have more enemies now than there be hairs on my head; yet, Lord, let them never overcome me with vain words, but fight thou, Lord, in my stead, for on thee cast I my care. With all the spite they can imagine, they fall upon me, who am thy poor creature. Yet, sweet Lord, let me not set by them that are against me; for in thee is my whole delight. And, Lord, I heartily desire of thee that thou wilt, of thy most merciful goodness, forgive them that violence which they do and have done unto me. Open also thou their blind hearts, that they may hereafter do that thing in thy sight which is only acceptable before thee, and to set thy verity aright without all vain fantasies of sinful men. So be it, O Lord, so be it!"

When in Newgate she drew up a confession of her faith, probably with the intention of leaving it as a memorial to her Christian friends. In this confession, while acknowledging herself to be a sinner before God, though not a heretic, and while maintaining that she was unjustly condemned to suffer death, she denies the doctrine of transubstantiation, repudiates the authority of traditions, defends the sufficiency of the Scriptures in all matters of Christian faith and practice, and asserts the offering of the mass to be idolatry. Of this document the following is a copy :-" I, Anne Askew, of good memory, although

my merciful Father hath given me the bread of adversity and the water of trouble, yet not so much as my sins have deserved, do confess myself here a sinner before the throne of his heavenly Majesty, desiring his eternal mercy. And forasmuch as I am by the law unrighteously condemned for an evil-doer concerning opinions, I take the same most merciful God of mine, who hath made both heaven and earth, to record that I hold no opinions contrary to his Holy Wrd. And I trust in my merciful Lord, who is the giver of all grace, that he will graciously assist me against all evil opinions, which are contrary to his most blessed verity. For I take him to witness that I do, and will unto my life's end, utterly abhor them to the termost of my power.

Eat this is the heresy which they report me to hold: that after the priest hath spoken the words of consecration, there remaineth bread still. They both say, and also teach it for a necessary article of faith, that after those words are once spoken, there remaineth no bread, but even the self-same body that hung upon the cross on Good Friday, both flesh, blood, and bone. To this belief of theirs my I nay. For then were our common creed false, which saith, *that be sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.' Lo, this is the heresy that I hold, and for it must suffer the death. But as toathing the holy and blessed supper of the Lord, I believe it to be a most necessary remembrance of his glorious sufferings and death. M.reover, I believe as much therein as my eternal and only Redeemer, Jesus Christ, would I should believe.

Finally, I believe all those Scriptures to be true which he hath eccfirmed with his most precious blood. Yea, and as St. Paul saith, those Scriptures are sufficient for our learning and salvation that Christ hath left here with us; so that I believe we need no unwritten verities to rule his church with. Therefore, look, what he hath said to me with his own mouth in his holy gospel, that have I, with God's grace, closed up in my heart. And my full trust is, as David saith, that it shall be 'a lantern to my footsteps' (Psalm cxix. 105).

"There be some that do say that I deny the eucharist, or sacrament of thanksgiving; but those people do untruly report of me. For I both say and believe it, that if it were ordered like as Christ instituted it and left it, a most singular comfort it were unto us all. But as concerning your mass, as it is now used in our days, I do say and believe it to be the most abominable idol that is in the world; for my God will not be eaten with teeth, neither yet dieth he again. And upon these words that I have now spoken will I suffer death."

The day of her execution having arrived,' she was brought to Smithfield in a chair; for she had been racked till the dreadful torture had deprived her limbs of the power to carry her. Three others were executed with her for the same opinions, Nicolas Belenean, a priest of Shropshire, John Adams, a tailor, and John Lacels, a gentleman of the family of Gatford in Nottinghamshire, and of the king's household. The four martyrs were bound to three separate stakes; Anne to one stake, to which she was fastened by a chain passing round her middle; one of her fellow-sufferers to a second, and the other two to a third. They mutually encouraged one another to a calm and willing self-immolation. Anne in particular confirmed the rest, who, though not deficient in fortitude, became more intrepid

1 According to Foxe, in his Acts and Monuments, she was executed about the month of June; according to Bishop Bale, in his work, De Scriptoribus Britannicis, fol. ed., p. 670, on the 16th of July. Southey, in his Book of the Church (vol. ii., p. 92), says, "The execution was delayed till darkness closed, that it might appear the more dreadful" This, there is reason to believe, is a mistake. Executions of this kind in England, so far as we have discovered, uniformly took place in the broad light of day, and generally in the morning. Southey, even in his second edition, in which he supplies an omission in the first-an entire want of references-does not note his authority for this statement; but we apprehend it rests solely on an indefinite expression used in a brief notice of the martyrdom by an eye-witness, found among Foxe's MSS., and printed in Strype's Memorials, vol. i., part i., p. 599. The expression is, hour of darkness came and their execution," the allusion of the writer, there can be little doubt, being to these words of Christ to his enemies, "This is your hour and the power of darkness."

"When the

2 Lacels, on returning to prison after his condemnation, was not only tranquil, but cheerful. To some Christian friends who paid him a visit, though at the risk of their personal safety, he said, "My Lord Bishop would have me confess the Roman Church to be the Catholic Church; but that I cannot do, for it is not true."-Strype's Mem. Eccl., vol. i., part i, pp. 599, 600. A letter, which he wrote when in prison, refuting