It is about this time that the first mention is made of that most uncomfortable dungeon in the White Tower, named from the smallness of its size, “Little Ease,” Hall, in his “Chronicles,” stating that one of the officers belonging to the Sheriffs of London was placed in this prison. The disaster to the Scottish Army at Solway Moss in 1542 brought many Scottish prisoners to the Tower, thus repeating the history of the building during the reigns of the first and third Edwards. Among them were the Earls of Cassillis and Glencairn, Maxwell, Oliphant, and Somerville, together with some twenty knights; they were not long in the Tower, however, being sent to various places to undergo their terms of imprisonment. ANNE ASKEW One of the most memorable names connected with the Tower in the reign of Henry VIII. is that of Anne Askew, or Ascue, as it is sometimes spelt, the daughter of Sir William Askew, the head of an old Lincolnshire family. In early life she had married a Mr Kyme, so that when her persecution for her faith took place—a persecution which has immortalised her name—it would have been more correct to have called her by her husband’s name; however, her maiden appellation has clung to her, and will always remain the one by which she is known. Kyme appears to have been a bigoted Roman Catholic, and his wife’s strong attachment to the Reformed faith may have been increased by his conduct towards her, for he seems to have been a good-for-nothing fellow who made her life the reverse of a happy one. Amongst Anne’s friends in London who belonged to the Reformed faith, was no less a person than Catherine Howard’s successor as Henry’s wife, Queen Catherine Parr. Anne, it appears, had some post about the Queen’s person; at any rate, she was known to many of the principal ladies of the Court. An Act known as “The Six Articles,” which obtained the popular name of “The Whip with Six Strings,” had been made law in 1539. The first clause of this Act ordained that whoever disagreed with the declaration of the Statute of Transubstantiation or the Real Presence, that the “Natural Blood Body and Blood of Christ” were present in the Sacrament, should suffer death by fire. Many men and women had been barbarously killed for denying the truth of this doctrine, and amongst those who suffered martyrdom was Anne Askew. To the horror of such a death Henry and his Council added that of torture, in order to force the victim to recant; torture, although illegal, was often, nay commonly, used in Henry’s reign. Lord de Ros’s account of Anne Askew’s sufferings and death are too interesting to need an apology for my quoting it here: