The prevailing religious culture of Anne's time, summed up by bishop Stephen Gardiner, viewed "plain speaking" with suspicion, a tactic used by the devil to spread heresy: "and where planes may deceive, he make then his pretence to speak plainly and professes simplicities".[13] The inquisitors saw in Anne a particularly threatening example of such plain speaking, her agile answers demonstrating a mastery of scriptural language that rivalled the inquisitors' own. Under questioning from the bishop Edmund Bonner, who commanded her repeatedly to "utter al thynges that burdened [her] conscience", she answered in unembellished language blended with Scriptural teachings: "God hath given me the gifts of knowledge, but not of utterance. And Salomon sayth, that a woman of few words, is a gift of God (Sirach 26:14)."[13]
Her answers infuriated the inquisitors, who found they were not able to force from her the answers they wanted to hear. Faced with Bonner's deepening rage, she repeated only that she believed "as the scripture doth teach", making it clear that she would not accept non-scriptural authorities over her own engagement with the Scriptures – which she quotes from directly – "That God dwelleth not in temples made with hands" (Acts 17:24).[14] When Christopher Dare asked for her interpretation of this saying she mocked them, invoking the Sermon on the Mount: "I answered, that I would not throw pearls among swine, for acorns were good enough" (Matthew 7:6).[13]
When questioned about the Eucharist she answered, "If the host should fall and a beast did eat it [did the] beast ... receive God or no?"
She often played upon traditional gender roles to mock her questioners telling them "it is agaynst saynt Paules lernynge, that [she] being a woman, should interpret the scriptures, specially where so many wise men were."[15]
Of particular interest to the questioners was Anne's relationship with the Holy Spirit. Asked if she acted with the Holy Spirit inside her, she answered "if I had not, I was but a reprobate or cast awaye "
Anne Askew was burnt at the stake at Smithfield, London, aged 25, on 16 July1546, with John Lascelles, Nicholas Belenian and John Adams.[22][23] She was carried to execution in a chair wearing just her shift, as she could not walk and every movement caused her severe pain.[24] She was dragged from the chair to the stake and fastened upright to the stake by a chain around her middle.[25] Foxe reports that of the four martyrs burned together that day at three stakes, at least some had gunpowder tied around their bodies to speed up death.[25]
Prior to their death, the prisoners were offered one last chance at pardon. Bishop Shaxton mounted the pulpit and began to preach to them. Askew listened attentively throughout his discourse. When he spoke anything she considered to be the truth, she audibly expressed agreement; but when he said anything contrary to what she believed scripture stated, she exclaimed: "There he misseth, and speaketh without the book ".
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