the Lieutenant of the Tower, lifted her off in his arms. She swooned, and was laid on the floor; and when she recovered, the chancellor remained two hours longer labouring to persuade her to recant. But, as she said, she thanked God she had strength left to persevere; she preferred to die, and to death they left her.[1]
July.On the 16th of July she was carried out with her three companions to the scene of so many horrors, and chained to a stake. Four members of the council, brought thither, it is to be said, by duty, not by curiosity or vindictiveness, took their places on a raised bench in front of St Bartholomew's Church, and when all preparations were completed, Shaxton, once the most troublesome of the Protestants, now, in the recoil of cowardice degenerate into a persecutor, preached a sermon. The sufferers listened calmly, and when the preacher ceased Wriothesley sent them their pardons on condition of recantation. But neither Anne nor
- ↑ Foxe adds that Knyvet, as soon as they were gone, sprung immediately into a boat and hurried to Whitehall to the King, who expressed himself 'not pleased at the extreme handling of the woman.' Anne herself, however, as may be seen in the last note, said, that the council were afraid lest the King should hear how she had been treated.
him to till feelings of humanity. It is possible that the rack was, as he said, employed rather to terrify than to torture, and he may have himself taken charge of it to prevent rather than to insure the active infliction of pain. Anne Ascue may have swooned from fear as well as suffering; and it is to be remarked that ehe sat two hours with Wriothesley immediately afterwards, 'reasoning with him,' which she could not have done if the screws had been severely strained. Foxe indeed says, that she had been so tortured that she was carried in a chair to the place of execution: but she may have been exhausted by general ill-treatment, and the fact of her two hours' conversation rests on her own authority.
