The Sixth Wife_ The Story of Katherine P - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,75
her; and it was not wise to forge a false confession, for she was a fearless woman who was quite capable of exposing the fraud when she was at the stake and there would be many to hear her.
Yes, the affair was a failure, for clearly the torturing and burning of a gentlewoman had not in itself been the desire of the King or the Chancellor. The motive had been to implicate the Queen, and that had not been achieved.
On this day a fence had been erected on all sides of the square. It was necessary to keep back the press of people. He was afraid of what they might do, what sympathies they might display toward a woman who had been broken on the rack … whatever her faith. He was afraid of what words Anne Askew might speak while the flames crackled at her feet. Fervently he hoped that if she did speak, the fences would prevent the mass of sightseers from being near enough to hear her. He was, therefore, a most uneasy man.
The victims were now on their way from Newgate, whither Anne had been taken after her torturing, to await the day of her death. Anne came first. She was carried to the stake in her chair, for her limbs were useless. The people shouted when they saw her. The cry of “Heretic! To the stake with the heretics!” was distinctly heard. But so also were the words: “God bless you.” And some pressed forward to touch the garment of one who they considered would shortly be a holy martyr.
Her golden hair lay lusterless about her shoulders, but how fiercely her blue eyes burned. No torture could douse the light which burned within her. She was the fanatical and triumphant martyr. She knew that she had come successfully through the greater ordeal. Death by the flames would offer a welcome release from pain.
With her were three men—three others who had denied the Mass. None of them was considered of any importance; they were humble people. John Lascelles was the most interesting, because he had been the man who had first spread the rumors concerning Catharine Howard and so sent her to her doom.
Wriothesley thought fleetingly that every man was near to death. He who condemned today, was in his turn condemned tomorrow.
He turned to Norfolk. “A woman to die thus! It seems cruel.”
“Aye,” said Norfolk, who had seen two female relatives, wives of the King, lose their heads. “But she is nevertheless a heretic.”
“I have the King’s pardon in my pocket. It is hers if she will recant. I wish to let the people know that pardon awaits her if she will see reason.”
“Have it sent to her before the sermon starts.”
Anne received the message while, about her body, they were fixing the chain which would hold her to the stake.
“I come not hither,” she said, “to deny my Lord and Master.”
She saw that the three men who were to die with her received similar messages.
They were brave, but they lacked her spirit. They turned their agonized eyes to her, and she saw how their apprehensive bodies longed to recant, although their spirits would firmly ignore the frailty of the flesh.
She said: “My friends, we have suffered…I more than any of you. I am happy now. I long for death. I long to feel the flames. To deny your God now, would mean that you would loathe the life offered you on such terms.”
She smiled and looked almost lovingly at the faggots about her maltreated legs.
Then the men smiled with her and tried to emulate her courage.
“They are beginning the sermons,” she said. “There is Dr. Shaxton. He will preach to us, he who a short while ago was one of us. Now he has denied his faith. He has chosen life on Earth in place of the life everlasting. Do not envy him, my friends, for very soon now you and I will be in paradise. We are to die, and we die for truth. We die in the Lord. God bless you, my friends. Have no fear; for I have none.”
She held the cross in her hands. She lifted her eyes to Heaven, seeming to be unaware of the flickering flames. She heard the shrieks of agony about her; but she was smiling as the flames crept up her tortured body.
Soon there was silence, and a pall of smoke hung above Smithfield Square.