Anne was sent back to prison. She was very ill, and believed herself to be near death. Never had she had to endure such attacks. She requested leave to see Latimer, who was still confined in the Tower; but this consolation was not allowed her. Resting firmly, as she did, on Scriptural grounds, she did not suffer herself to swerve. To her constitutional resolution she added that which was the fruit of communion with God; and she was thus placed by faith above the attacks which she experienced. Having a good foundation, she resolutely defended the freedom of her conscience and her full trust in Christ; and not only did she encounter her enemies without wavering, but she spoke to them with a power sufficient to awe them, and gave home-thrusts which threw them into confusion. Nevertheless she was only a weak woman, and her bodily strength began to fail. In Newgate she said,--'The Lord strengthen us in the truth. Pray, pray, pray.' She composed while in prison some stanzas which have been pronounced extraordinary, not only for simple beauty and sublime sentiment, but also for the noble structure and music of the verse.[440] By law, Anne had a right to be tried by jury; but on June 28, 1546, she was condemned by the lord chancellor and the council, without further process, to be burnt, for having denied the corporal presence of Christ. They asked her whether she wished for a priest; she smiled and said she would confess her faults unto God, for she was sure that He would hear her with favor. She added: 'I think his grace shall well perceive me to be weighed in an uneven pair of balances.... Here I take heaven and earth to record that I shall die in mine innocency.'[441] [Sidenote: ROYAL PROCLAMATION.] It was proved that Anne had derived her faith from the Holy Scriptures. Gardiner and his partisans therefore prevailed upon the government, eight days before the death of this young Christian, to issue a proclamation purporting 'that from henceforth no man, woman or person of what estate, condition or degree soever he or they be [consequently including the ladies and gentlemen of the court as well as others], shall, after the last day of August next ensuing receive, have, take or keep in their possession the text of the New Testament, of Tyndale's or Coverdale's translation in English, nor any other than is permitted by the Act of Parliament; ... nor after the said day shall receive, have, take or keep in his or their possession any manner of books printed or written in the English tongue which be or shall be set forth in the names of Fryth, Tyndale, Wycliffe, ... Barnes, Coverdale, ... or by any of them; ... and it was required that all such books should be delivered to the mayor, bailiff or chief constable of the town to be openly burned.[442] This was a remarkable proceeding on the part of Henry VIII. But events were stronger than the proclamation, and it remained a dead letter. [Sidenote: TORTURE OF ANNE ASKEW.]