At the age of 25, Anne Askew (1521-1546) became one of only two women tortured and burned as heretics in English history.
As a child, Anne was often found reading the Bible. It was said she knew the Bible better than the priests she often questioned on their beliefs and practices contrary to Scripture.
Wanting to save his family money, Anne’s father married the 15-year old to an older wealthy Roman Catholic. There was immediate conflict. As a Protestant, Anne was convinced that the Scriptures alone – and not the pope, a priesthood, or traditions – were the foundation for Christianity. After several years of marriage and having two young children, Anne’s husband cast her from the house. She went to London as a “gospeller” handing out gospel tracts and witnessing to her faith in Jesus.
Like Anne, King Henry VIII refused to be told what he could or couldn’t do. In 1532, he broke from Roman Catholicism. Henry’s break was political, his Church of England retained the teachings of Rome, but replaced the pope with the English monarch.
As the Reformation strengthened in England, Henry and his counselors attempted to consolidate the king’s power by hunting Protestants. Anne was arrested three times and questioned about her faith and knowledge of secret Protestants in Henry’s court.
In 1546, Anne was arrested for the last time and convicted of heresy for opposing the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation. The papacy teaches that when a priest calls Jesus from Heaven and repeats in Latin, this is my body and this is my blood, Jesus is re-crucified on the altar and the bread and wine literally became His flesh and blood.
Striped naked, Anne voluntarily climbed onto the rack. Her jailers tied her down and stretched her body so that her shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees, and ankles were slowly pulled from the joints. Anne still refused to give up the names of Protestants in King Henry’s court.
Every joint in her body dislocated, Anne was carried and chained to a wooden stake. A Roman bishop begged for her repentance, but with every accusation Anne either agreed with the priest’s words or contradicted him with Scripture. On July 16, 1546, she was burned alive with three other Protestants.
If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you (John 15:18).
Where Living Begins 
Great post brother Richard!
Anne Askew is only one among the thousands who suffered and died at the hands of the Great Whore, and she probably won’t be the last.
That heresy of Transubstantiation which Anne rejected is still the heart and soul of the Roman Catholic religion. And to think that NOW many so called Protestants are ignoring all this and are jumping on the ecumenical bandwagon and shaking hands with the Roman Catholics and addressing them as ‘brethren’ should tell us of the deplorable state of Christianity in the world today.
While all unbelievers wind up in Hell, there is a special place prepared for those who have tortured and slain Christ’s little lambs. Christ actually said that “whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” [Matt 18:6]
A lot of folks don’t really see this, that God is as vengeful as He is loving. In fact the apostle in one place refers to Him as the “God who taketh vengeance!” [Rom 3:5]
“The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” [Jam 1:20]
God desires all retribution to be righteous. And when we as fallen creatures take the law into our own hands and try to avenge our enemies or persecutors, we will always err, for in doing so we will either repay less than their evil deserves or more. But when God repays it will be ACCORDING to their works. Therefore saith the apostle “avenge not yourself but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” [Rom 12:9]
Our God not only remembers and repays the good done to His children but the evil as well.
Speaking to Moses He says, “Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt; How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God. THEREFORE it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.” [Deut 25:17-19]
The lukewarm ‘Protestants’ of our day may have forgotten all the evil done by the Great Whore to God’s people under the inquisition, but God has not and will not forget it.
When those slain for His Word and the word of their testimony who are dwelling in Heaven under His Altar cry with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” [Rev 6:10]
God doesn’t respond with a “Aaww come now, you guys need to forgive and forget about your persecutors” but He rather assures them, “that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.” [Rev 6:11]
And once THAT is accomplished, all Hell breaks loose for those who persecuted God’s people!
“And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God:
For true and righteous are His judgments: for He hath judged the Great Whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath AVENGED THE BLOOD OF HIS SERVANTS at her hand.” [Rev 19:1,2]
“The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily He is a God that judgeth in the earth!” [Psalm 58:10,11]
Praise the Lord!
Thank you brother Michael. I do wonder sometimes if most should give up the descriptor of “Protestant” and rather be called something like “Accordant” or “Acquiescent” because they’ve given up the protestation of un-Biblical and anti-Biblical doctrine.
Wow. This is as we should be to the world.