taste of it;" but he doubts the accuracy of the statement of Fox, the martyrologist, that the Chancellor, when the Lieutenant of the Tower refused "to stretch her more," threw off his gown, and himself "drew the rack so severely that he almost tore her body asunder." Lord Campbell gives this horrid story without noticing the doubt of Burnet, and adds that Griffin, the Solicitor-general, assisted in the detestable crime. Let us hope that in this case human nature was not so utterly degraded as the somewhat credulous historian of the English martyrs has represented. There was a disgusting scene in Smithfield which soon followed the torture of the high-minded woman, who, amidst her sufferings, would not utter one word to implicate her friends. Upon a bench under St. Bartholomew's Church sit the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Bedford, the Lord Mayor, and other dignitaries. There are three martyrs, each tied to a stake. The apostate Shaxton is to preach the sermon. It is rumoured that gunpowder has been placed about the condemned to shorten their sufferings. The Chancellor and the other high functionaries have no compunction for their victims, but they are in terror for their own safety. Will not the exploding gunpowder drive the firewood where they sit? They hold a grave consultation, and are persuaded to sit out the scene. The gentlewoman and her fellow sufferers die heroically--a noble contrast to the cowardice that quakes in the extremity of its selfishness upon the bench under St. Bartholomew's Church. Such was one of the scenes that marked the closing days of the life of Henry the Eighth.[1] Ann Askew had a son, William, who became heir to the Marsh Grange estate on the death without issue of Hugh Askew, on whom it had been bestowed by the crown in 1542. This William had a son, John, the father of Margaret Askew, who, before she had well attained to womanhood, became the wife of Lawyer Fell, and the mistress of Swarthmoor. Margaret Fell, as we shall see, proved herself a worthy great-granddaughter of the martyr Ann Askew.