and then plainly denied that it was the body of Christ. Archbishop Cranmer then, at the king's command, argued the point with him; but the answers of the prisoner were so acute, and his arguments so conclusive, that the archbishop was unable to cope with him. This greatly excited the king and amazed the people. Gardiner broke in upon the argument, with taunts and jeers; and also others, till no less than ten bishops had pressed the prisoner with their arguments. At length, wearied with his long standing, which had continued five hours, afflicted with the taunts and indignities he had received, and seeing no hope that the truth would prevail or have even a decent hearing, Lambert resolved to say no more. The king then said to him: "What sayest thou after all this pains taken with thee? Wilt thou live or die? What sayest thou? Thou hast yet free choice." He answered, "I submit myself wholly to the will of your majesty." The king replied, " Commit thyself into the hands of God, not of me." To which the martyr answered, "I commend my soul into the hands of God, but my body I wholly submit to your clemency." Then said the king, "If you commit yourself to my judgment you must die; for I will be no patron to heretics." He then commanded that the sentence of condemnation should be read. Upon the day appointed for this holy martyr to suffer, he was brought out of prison by eight o'clock in the morning. When the hour of death came, he found much joy and comfort in his soul. Coming out of the chamber into the hall, he saluted the gentlemen, and sat down. to breakfast with them, after which he was soon conveyed to Smithfield, the place of execution When his legs were burned to the stumps, the wretched tormentors withdrew the fire from him, leaving but a small fire, and coals under him: after this two of them thrust their halberds into his sides, with which they lifted him up as far as the chain would permit. At this time of extreme misery the holy sufferer lifting up his hands, while his fingers' ends were flaming with fire, said, "None but Christ-none but Christ!" Being let down, he fell into the fire, where he ended his sorrows, and his spirit fled to the joy of his Lord. 22. ANN ASKEW. SIR WILLIAM ASKEW, of Kelsay, in Lincolnshire, was blessed with several daughters. His second, named Ann, had received a genteel education, which, with an agreeable person and good understanding, rendered her a very proper person to be at the head of a family. Her father, regardless of his daughter's inclination and happiness, obliged her to marry a gentleman who had nothing to recommend him but his fortune, and who was a most bigoted papist. No sooner was he convinced of his wife's regard for the doctrines of the reformation from popery, than, by the instigation of the priests, he violently drove her from his house, though she had borne him two children, and her conduct was unexceptionable. Abandoned by her husband, she came up to London in order to procure a divorce; but here she was cruelly betrayed by him, and, upon his information, taken into custody, and examined concerning her faith. After undergoing an examination before an inquisitor, and also before Bonner, through the importunity of friends she was liberated upon bail. Some time after she was again apprehended, and carried before the king's council. The lord chancellor asked her opinion about the sacrament: she answered, that she believed, that so often as she received the bread in remembrance of Christ's death, she received the fruits of his most glorious passion. The bishop of Winchester ordered her to give a more direct reply. She answered, she would not sing the Lord's song in a strange land. The bishop told her she was a parrot. After much other debate she was imprisoned till the next day, when they again inquired what she said to the sacrament: she answered, that she had said what she could say. Gardiner with some others, earnestly persuaded her to confess the sacrament to be the flesh, blood, and bone of Christ; she told two of them, that it was a great shame for them to counsel her contrary to their own knowledge: after much other arguing, they dismissed her. The Sabbath following she was very ill, and seeming likely to die, she desired to speak with Mr. Latimer; but instead of granting this small request, ill as she was, they sent her to Newgate. She was afterwards brought to trial in Guildhall, where she was required to recant, or be condemned as a heretic; she answered that she was no heretic. They asked her if she would deny the sacrament to be Christ's body and blood? She said, "Yea, for Christ that was born of the blessed virgin is now in heaven, and will come from thence at the latter day. That," said she, "which you call your god, is but a piece of bread, and after a time will grow mouldy, and turn to nothing that's good therefore it cannot be God." They wished her to confess to a priest: she said she would confess her faults to God, for she was sure that he would hear her with favour. She was then condemned. : Soon after this she was conveyed from Newgate, and again brought before Bonner, who endeavoured in vain. to draw her from God. One Nicholas Shaxton, an apostate, advised her to recant. She told him it had been good for him if he had never been born. She was then sent to the tower. It was strongly suspected that Mrs. Askew was favoured by some ladies of high rank, and that she carried on a religious correspondence with the queen; so that the chancellor Wriothesley, hoping that he might discover something that would afford matter of impeachment against that princess, the earl of Hertford, or his countess, who all favoured the Reformation, ordered her to be put to the rack. The rack was placed in a dismal dungeon, down into which she was led and stretched on the infernal instrument of torture. But her fortitude in suffering, and her resolution not to betray her friends, were proof against that diabolical invention. Not a groan, not a word could be extorted from her. After she had endured these horrid torments, the lieutenant of the tower was about to take her out, but the chancellor bade him rack her again, which he refused to do on account of her weakness. The chancellor threatened to complain of him to the king, and he and Mr. Rich, throwing off their gowns, with their own hands, augmented her tortures with dreadful violence. She, quietly and patiently praying to God, endured their infernal cruelty till her joints and bones were pulled out of place. When taken from the rack she fainted away, but being recovered, passed above two hours on the bare floor, reasoning with the chancellor, who wished her to renounce her faith. She said, "My Lord God (I thank his everlasting goodness) gave me grace to persevere, and I hope will do so to the end." She was returned to Newgate, and condemned to the flames. While there, she wrote a confession of her faith, which she concluded with the following prayer: 66 “O Lord, I have more enemies now than there are hairs of my head; yet, Lord, let them never overcome me with vain words; but fight, Lord, thou, in my stead, for on thee cast I my care. With all the spite they can imagine, they fall upon me which am thy poor creature; yet, dear Lord, let me not set by them which are against me, for in thee is my whole delight. And, Lord, I heartily desire of thee, that thou wilt, of thy merciful goodness, forgive them that violence which they do and have done unto me. Open thou also their blind hearts, that they may hereafter do that thing in thy sight which is acceptable before thee, and set forth thy truth aright, without the vain fancies of sinful men: so be it, O Lord, so be it." 66 The day for her execution having arrived, she was carried in a chair to Smithfield, her bones being so dislocated that she was unable to walk. She was there fastened round the middle with a chain to the stake. While at it, letters were brought her from the lord chancellor, offering her the king's pardon if she would recant; but she refused to look at them, telling the messenger, that she came not thither to deny her Lord and Master." The same letters were also tendered to three other persons condemned to the same fate, and who, animated by her example, refused to accept them: whereupon the lord mayor commanded the fire to be kindled, and with savage ignorance cried out, Fiat Justitia-Let justice take its course. The fagots being lighted, she commended her soul, with the utmost composure, into the hands of her Maker, and, like the great Founder of the religion she professed, expired, praying for her murderers, July 16, 1546, about the twenty-fifth year of her age. "I do not know," observes a good writer, "if all circumstances be considered, whether the history of this or any other nation can furnish a more illustrious example than this now related. To her father's will she sacrificed her own inclinations; to a husband unworthy of her affections, she behaved with prudence, respect, and obedience. The secrets of her friends she preserved inviolable even amidst the tortures of the rack. Her constancy of suffering, considering her age and sex, was equal, at least, if not superior to anything on record, |