Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 1: From the twelfth to the eighteenth centuryGriffiths, Arthur
History
Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 1: From the twelfth to the eighteenth century
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
Foxe gives full details of her torture in the Tower. At first she was
let down into a dungeon, and the gaoler, by command of Sir Anthony
Knevet, pinched her with the rack. After this, deeming he had done
enough, he was about to take her down, but Wriottesley, the Lord
Chancellor, "commanded the lieutenant to strain her on the rack again;
which, because he denied to do, tendering the weakness of the woman,
he was threatened therefore grievously of the said Wriottesley, saying
he would signify his disobedience to the king. And so consequently
upon the same, he (Wriottesley) and Master Rich, throwing off their
gowns, would needs play the tormentors themselves. . . . And so, quietly
and patiently praying unto the Lord, she abode their tyranny till her
bones and joints were almost plucked asunder, in such sort as she was
carried away in a chair." Then the chancellor galloped off to report
the lieutenant to the king; but Sir Anthony Knevet forestalled by going
by water, and obtained the king's pardon before the complaint was made.
"King Henry," says Foxe, "seemed not very well to like of their so
extreme handling of the woman."
Soon after this Mistress Askew was again committed to Newgate, whence
she was carried in a chair to Smithfield, "because she could not walk
on her feet by means of her great torments. When called upon to recant
she refused, as did the martyrs with her." Whereupon the lord mayor,
commanding fire to be put under them, cried, "Fiat Justitia," and they
were burned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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