XI first matter about which she was questioned. She CHAP declined as these people almost always did-to give a straightforward answer, but told the Chancellor that he already knew her mind on the subject. On further demands for her explanation of such conduct, she said that she would explain to the King; and when told that the King could not be personally troubled with her cause a most reasonable reply-she quoted Scripture about the wisest king hearing two poor women, &c. &c. In the register of the Privy Council this examination is recorded as follows: "At Greenwich, June 19th, 1546.-Thomas Keyme, of Lincolnshire, who had married one Anne Ascue, called hither, and likewise his wife, who refused him to be her husband without any honest allegation, was appointed to return to his country till he should be eftesoones sent for, and for that she was very obstinate and heady in reasoning of matters of religion wherein she showed herself to be of a naughty opinion. Seeing no persuasion of good reason could take place, she was sent to Newgate to remain there to answer to the law. Like as also one [Christopher] White, who attempted to make an erroneous book, was sent to Newgate, after debating with him of the matter, who showed himself of a wrong opinion concerning the blessed sacrament." Mrs. Kyme, alias Askew, seems to have had secret communications with Queen Catherine Parr, the Duchess of Suffolk (Catherine Baroness Willoughby d'Eresby, not the King's sister), the Countess of Sussex (herself also separated from her husband, and charged with endeavouring to marry Sir Edmund Knyvett while her husband was living), the Duchess of Somerset, and other ladies of In Edward VI.'s reign (1552) prisoned with Anne Hartlepool on this Countess of Sussex was im- a charge of sorcery and of asserting XI CHAP the court. These communications she denied, but Henry VIII. had evidence of them, and supposing them to be of a treasonable nature, had her examined (some say with torture, but on no very good evidence) in the Tower, for the purpose of eliciting all she knew on the subject. There was, no doubt, something mysterious about Queen Catherine Parr's conduct towards the close of Henry's life, and that astute head of hers may have been scheming to countermine by some plot Henry's usual treatment of his wives. Extreme cruelty of Henry these years Whether Anne Askew was really guilty of the treason alleged against her, it is impossible to say certainly. By dragging in her religious opinions, which were Anabaptist, she diverted in some degree the charge of treason, and acquired a claim to the veneration of those who then and afterwards craned up all the misbelievers of this period to the dignity of witnesses for the truth. She was burned in Smithfield, July 16, 1546, with John Lascelles, a gentleman of the court, and two others. 8 In considering these cases of execution for alleged heresy it must be remembered that they took place VIII. in in that part of King Henry VIII.'s reign which was otherwise so fearfully stained with judicial slaughter. Foxe narrates twenty-six such executions between 1533 and 1546. During those thirteen years the King sent to the scaffold an infinite number of the that a son of Edward IV. was yet 7 See it summed up in Nicholls' Narratives of the Reformation, pp. 303-309. This name is mixed up with the proceedings in the Privy Council against Queen Catherine Howard. XI nobility, clergy, country gentry, and persons of all CHAP other classes. His own queens, Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, Cromwell, the good old Abbot of Glastonbury, all the other victims of the Dissolution, all those of the Pilgrimage of Grace; these, and a vast number of others, were all sacrificed, justly or unjustly, during this time: and thus, even the burning of twenty-six "heretics" was but one painful episode among many of this fearful slaughter. loveable or The instances given above are those of the persons The "marabout whom most is known; and they have been tyrs" not given for the purpose of showing what kind of venerable persons they were who set themselves up in opposition to the Church and its authorities. The historian, however much he may try to be impartial, is tempted to write tenderly about them because of their piteous fate, or rather because of the manner of it. But dissociated from this, there is little to love, or to respect in the so-called "martyrs" of this reign. They were harsh, ungentle persons; disloyal to all that Englishmen loved and venerated; contentious to the last degree; strong partizans in religion, but giving evidence of little practical holiness: and, in short, persons who, if they had not suffered the cruel deaths they did, would have had no claims to the respect or sympathy of posterity. All that can be said in their favour is that they were among the best of their party, and that wrongheaded as they were, nothing which we should now call criminal was alleged against them. They were representatives of the antiChurch party, and circumstances brought forward some of the least odious of that party to represent it." • A prominent member of the party was Nicolas Udal, Head Master of Eton. He was made CHAP XI Altera tions in heresy laws As to the actual principles of the anti-Church party something more must be said further on. It is sufficient now to remark that they fully justified the name here given to them by the abusive terms in which they almost invariably spoke of the doctrines and government of the Church of England, and by the continual and virulent hostility which they exhibited towards it. The laws against heresy underwent some modifications (as was mentioned in the beginning of this chapter) during the latter years of Henry VIII.'s reign. Until the year 1533, they continued on the footing on which they had been left by the Act [2 Hen. V. cap. 7] passed in 1414. But at the time when Henry VIII. was remodelling the laws which were associated with the Pope's jurisdiction, he caused the original Statute de hæreticis comburendis to be repealed and a new one to be passed through Parliament. This new Statute [25 Hen. VIII. cap. 14] of the year 1533, confirmed those of 1382 and 1414, and re-enacted the punishment of burning. The preamble seems to intimate an intention of softening Colborne, and otherwise preferred have been an accomplice in the robbery. The youth was bailed off by his father, but a few months afterwards actually accused that father to the Privy Council of treason! On examination the charge proved to be founded on the fact of Sir Thomas Cheyney having images in his chapel; and it is satisfactory to read of the young villain and would-be parricide-"For that it was thought this accusation proceeded rather of pride than of any just matter, for an example he was committed to the Tower." These facts are drawn from the Acts of the Privy Council, pp. 152, 153, 273. 66 tion XI the law respecting heretics, and in the fashion of the CHAP times accuses the ordinaries of having entangled men by captious interrogatories:" declaring also that heresy had never been defined by Statute, and that many things were declared heresy as being against canons of the Church which were only human laws. The only attempt at definition in this Pretence Act is, however, of a negative kind, the sixth of mitiga clause declaring that it shall no longer be heresy to speak against the power of the Bishop of Rome. Certainly no one had ever been burned for speaking against the Bishop of Rome hitherto, so that no practical amelioration of the law was introduced. Nor indeed was the effect of this Act of 1533 at all of an ameliorating character, for it much enlarged the class of informers, reducing the qualification of such persons from an income of 100 shillings a year to an income of 40 shillings a year, and much facilitating the legal process by which the informers were to carry their charges against heretics before the ordinaries. It may well be doubted whether this Statute had any other object than that of strengthening the King's hands against the Pope: and the merciful intentions which seem to be implied in the preamble are altogether missed in the enacting clauses. first de The "Act of the Six Articles" [31 Hen. VIII. Heresy cap. 14] was passed in the year 1539, and was the fined by strictest law ever passed respecting Protestant Dis- statute senters.1 So much has been said about this in the eighth Chapter of this volume, that it is not neces sary to go into details respecting it here. It may be repeated, however, that it was the first Statute 1 It was somewhat modified by 35 Hen. VIII. cap. 5. |