Reformation Women: Marguerite de Navarre
The first princess to become Reformed was Marguerite de Navarre. French Reformed Christians owed her much—without her influence and protection, the French Reformed church would have been crushed before it was even formed. she was an outstanding figure of the French Renaissance. Samuel Putnam called her "The First Modern Woman".
She was born on April 2, 1492, at Angoulême. Her brother Francois was in line for the French throne; Marguerite shared his education, studying languages, philosophy, history, literature, and theology.At seventeen, in 1509, she married Charles, Duke of Alençon. The marriage was politically convenient and produced no children. It seems that during this time, evangelical preaching and discussions with others brought Marguerite to saving faith.
Francois and Marguerite were unusually close siblings. As he took up the French crown in 1515, Francois had deep respect for his sister: “My sister Marguerite is the only woman I ever knew who had every virtue and every grace without any admixture of vice.” Francois’ wife was chronically ill, so Marguerite often functioned ceremonially and socially as queen. So, in the Roman Catholic court, Marguerite was able to speak of Christ. As she used her position to spread and protect Protestantism, she hoped that Francois would become the Reformation’s political defender.
WORK OF INTERCESSION
Early on in his rule, however, Francois began to see Protestantism as dangerous; individuals who pushed for reform were targeted. Once, when Marguerite was away from Paris, a friend of hers was arrested. When she returned to the city and heard of it, she begged her brother for his release; Francois granted it.
Marot, her Protestant valet, was arrested, but Marguerite soon had him freed, too. If she had not, the French church would have lost his translation of the Psalms, which it sang for centuries.
Berquin, one of the most learned French nobles, was arrested in 1523 for his evangelical ideas, but he was eventually released through Marguerite’s influence. Two years later, he was again arrested and interrogated. He expected to be burned at the stake; Marguerite again gained liberty for him. But in 1529, Berquin was arrested and imprisoned a third time for his faith. Marguerite again used all her efforts to have him released, but Francois could only be pushed so far on an issue that was so public. To Marguerite’s great sorrow, Berquin was martyred on April 22, 1529.
Grieved but still seeking to bring gospel truth to her nation, Marguerite tried to bring back Reformers who had fled from France. She went to her brother, who allowed them to return for a time. Marguerite showed herself unafraid of persecution and association with the persecuted.
Marguerite also had diplomatic ability, which Francois had cause to admire. In February 1525, Charles V captured Francois in battle and took him as a prisoner back to Spain. Marguerite traveled there and cared for her brother until his release, which she negotiated.
SECOND MARRIAGE
The same battle that left Francois a prisoner left Marguerite a widow, for the Duke of Alençon had been killed in action as well. Later that year, she married the king of Navarre, Henri d’Albret. The wedding was splendid; the marriage was not. Leaving Paris for her new capital, Nerac, she left Francois to rule alone. The marriage gave Marguerite two children, one of whom died as a baby. Her mind turned heavenward to contemplate a better marriage, and she wrote:
Lord, when shall come that festal day
So ardently desired
That I shall by love upraised
And seated at thy side,
The rapture of this nuptial joy
Denudes me quite.
Her husband’s kingdom was untouched by Reformation doctrine. Marguerite began spreading it by her example. The Roman Catholic Henri was not pleased with this, and eventually things came to a head.
Marguerite usually had private, evangelical services in her apartments. One day they celebrated the Lord’s Supper in an underground hall in the palace.
Though it was done secretly, news of it reached the king, who had been out hunting and was very much annoyed by “the fastings in the cellar.” He went to her rooms. The minister and others were warned, and they escaped, leaving Marguerite alone with her servants. Flush with anger over her theological positions and lack of submission, Henri struck her in the face, saying, “Madame, you know too much.” Marguerite reported the incident to her brother. Ever the protective sibling, Francois set out for Navarre, threatening war. Henri was terrified. He begged his wife to forgive him, and he was so penitent that he promised to allow Reformed worship and to read about Reformed doctrine himself. Francois returned to Paris, and Henri kept his bargain.
PERSECUTION
But love for a sister did not change Francois’ strengthening religious position. A visit to Madrid had a lasting effect; on his return, he banned Protestant books and socially cut off any Reformed people from court.
Marguerite’s daughter, Jeanne, had been born in France in 1528. In 1530, Francois took the child away to raise her as a French princess—a Roman Catholic—away from her mother’s Reformed ideas. So her only living child was taken away because she was Protestant. Marguerite paid a high price for her public faith, perhaps the highest price a mother can pay. Still, she did not allow this grief to end her service to the French Reformed.
Marguerite’s writing demonstrates an understanding of and love for biblical doctrine as well as a determination to show women engaged in contemporary intellectual discussions.
In 1531, she became Protestantism’s first published female poet. Marguerite’s writing demonstrates an understanding of and love for biblical doctrine as well as “a determination to show women engaged in contemporary intellectual discussions.”8An underdeveloped theology shows in her treatment of Mary, but there is also evidence in her writings of a clear understanding that salvation is through Christ alone: “And what is more, I see that none other than Jesus Christ is my plaintiff. . . . He has made himself / Our advocate before God, offering up virtues of such worth / That my debt is more than paid.”9 Her poems show familiarity with Scripture’s themes and passages: “Encased in lambskin is the sacred Word / Embossed with markings of a deep blood red, Sealed with seven seals may now be heard / By those who find that law and grace are wed.”10 When the second edition came out in 1533, the faculty of theology at Sorbonne condemned the volume as “Lutheran.”11 This made things dangerous for her. Undeterred, Marguerite continued writing. Though her brother made the faculty retract their censure, this on-record commitment to Protestantism seems to have put a divide between brother and sister that slowly widened.
The next year, Francois ordered the execution of all “heretics.”12 When Marguerite found she could no longer use her influence to advance Protestantism, she worked to protect it. During the persecutions, whenever Marguerite was in Paris, her brother would not allow any Protestants to be martyred out of respect for his sister. But Marguerite’s pleadings for others no longer softened Francois, who grew more rigidly Roman Catholic.13 Persecution of the French Reformed spread through the country. God had prepared Navarre to be a refuge, and Protestant clergy, nobles, and commoners crossed the border.
Marguerite invited leading Huguenots to her palace at Nerac. At her table, they discussed passages of Scripture and doctrine, with the queen as a delighted listener. John Calvin and other Reformers found safety there as well.1
LATER YEARS
Like so many Reformed noblewomen of the time, Marguerite corresponded with Calvin. Though she trusted in Christ alone for her salvation and suffered for her belief, Marguerite remained in need of solid teaching.
In 1547, Francois died. Marguerite’s grief was deep: “At this season of his cruel death, / Lord, I await your favour that I might hear good news.”15
Marguerite continued her quiet work of reform and protection until she died. Years before, she had written: “O my God, that death is fair / That takes me from this fetid air. / By death I’m victor in the race. / By death I look upon Thy face. / By death I am to Thee conformed.”16 She died on December 21, 1549, rejoicing in hope, and calling on Jesus to save her.
She understood that her work was just a beginning: “God, I am assured, will carry forward the work He has permitted me to commence, and my place will be more than filled by my daughter, who has the energy and moral courage, in which, I fear, I have been deficient.”17 She had laid a foundation on which her daughter could build.
Jeanne d'Albret (Occitan: Joana de Labrit; Basque: Joana Albretekoa; 16 November 1528 – 9 June 1572), also known as Jeanne III, was the queen regnant of Navarre from 1555 to 1572. She married Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, and was the mother of Henry of Bourbon, who became King Henry III of Navarre and IV of France, the first Bourbon king of France. She became the Duchess of Vendôme by marriage.
Jeanne was the acknowledged spiritual and political leader of the French Huguenot movement,[2] and a key figure in the French Wars of Religion. After her public conversion to Calvinism in 1560, she joined the Huguenot side. During the first and second war she remained relatively neutral, but in the third war she fled to La Rochelle, becoming the de facto leader of the Huguenot-controlled city.
Katharina von Bora
Katharina von Bora (German: [kataˈʁiːna fɔn ˈbɔʁa]; January 29, 1499 – December 20, 1552), also referred to as "die Lutherin"[1] was the wife of Martin Luther, German leader of the Protestant Reformation. Beyond what is found in the writings of Luther and some of his contemporaries, little is known about her. Despite this, Katharina is often considered one of the most important participants of the Reformation because of her role in helping to define Protestant family life and setting the tone for clergy marriages.
Origin and family background[edit]
Katharina von Bora was the daughter to a family of Saxon landed gentry.[2] According to common belief, she was born on 29 January 1499 in hter of a Jan von Bora auf Lippendorf and his wife Margarete, 5.[6]
Life as a nun
her father sent the five-year-old Katharina to the Benedictine cloister in Brehna in 1504 for education. At the age of nine she moved to the Cistercian monastery of Marienthron (Mary's Throne) in Nimbschen, near Grimma, where her maternal aunt was already a member of the community.[8]
After several years of religious life, Katharina became interested in the growing reform movement and grew dissatisfied with her life in the monastery. Conspiring with several other nuns to flee in secrecy, she contacted Luther and begged for his assistance.
On Easter Eve, 4 April 1523, Luther sent Leonhard Köppe, a city councilman of Torgau and merchant who regularly delivered herring to the monastery. The nuns successfully escaped by hiding in Köppe's covered wagon among the fish barrels, and fled to Wittenberg. A local student wrote to a friend: 'A wagon load of vestal virgins has just come to town, all more eager for marriage than for life. God grant them husbands lest worse befall."[10]
Luther at first asked the parents and relations of the refugee nuns to admit them again into their houses, but they declined to receive them, possibly as this was participating in a crime under canon law.[11] Within two years, Luther was able to arrange homes, marriages, or employment for all of the escaped nuns—except for Katharina. She first was housed with the family of Philipp Reichenbach, the city clerk of Wittenberg. Later she went to the home of Lucas Cranach the Elder and his wife, Barbara.
Katharina had a number of suitors, including Wittenberg University alumnus Jerome (Hieronymus) Baumgärtner (1498–1565) of Nuremberg and a pastor, Kaspar Glatz of Orlamünde. None of the proposed matches resulted in marriage. She told Luther’s friend and fellow reformer, Nikolaus von Amsdorf, that she would be willing to marry only Luther or von Amsdorf himself.
Marriage to Luther
Martin Luther, as well as many of his friends, were at first unsure of whether he should even be married. Philipp Melanchthon thought that Luther's marriage would hurt the Reformation because of potential scandal. Luther eventually came to the conclusion that "his marriage would please his father, rile the pope, cause the angels to laugh, and the devils to weep."[12] Martin Luther married Katharina on June 13, 1525 Von Bora was 26 years old, Luther 41. 27 years together.The couple took up residence in the "Black Cloister" (Augusteum), the former dormitory and educational institution for Augustinian friars studying in Wittenberg, given as a wedding gift by the reform-minded John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, who was the son and nephew of Luther's protectors, John, Elector of Saxony and Frederick III, Elector of Saxony.[15]
Katharina immediately took on the task of administering and managing the monastery's vast holdings, breeding and selling cattle and running a brewery to provide for their family, the steady stream of students who boarded with them, and visitors seeking audiences with her husband. In times of widespread illness, Katharina operated a hospital on site, ministering to the sick alongside other nurses. Luther called her the "boss of Zulsdorf," after the name of the farm they owned, and the "morning star of Wittenberg" for her habit of rising at 4 a.m. to take care of her various responsibilities.
The marriage of Katharina von Bora to Martin Luther was extremely important to the development of the Protestant Church, specifically in regards to its stance on marriage and the roles each spouse should concern themselves with. “Although Luther was by no means the first cleric of his time to marry, his prominence, his espousal of clerical marriage, and his prolific output of printed anti-Catholic propaganda made his marriage a natural target.”[16] The way Luther described Katie’s actions and the names he gives her like “My Lord Katie” shows us that he really did feel strongly that she exhibited a great amount of control over her own life and decisions. It could even reasonably be argued that she maintained some influence in the actions of Martin Luther himself since he says explicitly, “You convince me of whatever you please. You have complete control. I concede to you the control of the household, providing my rights are preserved. Female government has never done any good”.[17]
Luther also makes the statement “If I can endure conflict with the devil, sin, and a bad conscience, then I can put up with the irritations of Katy von Bora.”[18] This again exhibits his reluctance, but overall willingness to give her control and a voice in their lives and his eventual support for all women to behave in the same way.
In addition to her busy life tending to the lands and grounds of the monastery, Katharina bore six children: Hans (7 June 1526 – 27 October 1575), Elizabeth (10 December 1527 – 3 August 1528) who died at eight months, Magdalena (4 May 1529 – 20 September 1542) who died at thirteen years, Martin (9 November 1531 – 4 March 1565), Paul (28 January 1533 – 8 March 1593), and Margarete (17 December 1534 – 1570); in addition she suffered a miscarriage on 1 November 1539. The Luthers also raised four orphan children, including Katharina's nephew, Fabian.[19]
Anecdotal evidence indicates that Katharina von Bora’s role as the wife of a critical member of the Reformation paralleled the marital teachings of Luther and the movement. Katharina depended on Luther such as for his incomes before the estate’s profits increased, thanks to her. She respected him as a higher vessel and called him formally “Sir Doctor” throughout her life. He reciprocated such respect by occasionally consulting her on church matters.[20] She assisted him with running the menial estate duties as he couldn’t complete both these and those to the church and university. Katharina also directed the renovations done to accommodate the size of their operations.[21]
When Martin Luther died in 1546, Katharina was left in difficult financial straits without Luther's salary as professor and pastor, even though she owned land, properties, and the Black Cloister. She was counselled by Martin Luther to move out of the old abbey and sell it after his death, and move into much more modest quarters with the children who remained at home, but she refused.[22] Luther had named her his sole heir in his last will. His will could not be executed because it did not conform with Saxon law.[23]
Almost immediately after, Katharina had to leave the Black Cloister (now called Lutherhaus) by herself, at the outbreak of the Schmalkaldic War, fleeing to Magdeburg. After she returned, the approaching war forced another flight in 1547, this time to Braunschweig. In July 1547, at the close of the war, she was able to return to Wittenberg.
After the war, the buildings and lands of the monastery had been torn apart and laid waste, and cattle and other farm animals had been stolen or killed. If she had sold the land and the buildings, she could have had a good financial situation. Financially, they could not remain there. Katharina was able to support herself thanks to the generosity of John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony and the princes of Anhalt.[citation needed]
She remained in Wittenberg in poverty until 1552, when an outbreak of the Black Plague and a harvest failure forced her to leave the city once again. She fled to Torgau where she was thrown from her cart into a watery ditch near the city gates. For three months she went in and out of consciousness, before dying in Torgau on December 20, 1552, at the age of 53. She was buried at Torgau's Saint Mary's Church, far from her husband's grave in Wittenberg. She is reported to have said on her deathbed, "I will stick to Christ as a burr to cloth."[24]
By the time of Katharina's death, the surviving Luther children were adults. After Katharina's death, the Black Cloister was sold back to the university in 1564 by his heirs. Hans studied law and became a court advisor. Martin studied theology but never had a regular pastoral call. Paul became a physician. He fathered six children and the male line of the Luther family continued through him to John Ernest Luther, ending in 1759.
Margareta Luther, born in Wittenberg on December 17, 1534, married into a noble, wealthy Prussian family, to Georg von Kunheim (Wehlau, July 1, 1523 – Mühlhausen, October 18, 1611, the son of Georg von Kunheim (1480–1543) and wife Margarethe, Truchsessin von Wetzhausen (1490–1527)) but died in Mühlhausen in 1570 at the age of thirty-six. Her descendants have continued to modern times, including German President Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) and the Counts zu Eulenburg and Princes zu Eulenburg und Hertefeld.[citation needed]
Idelette Calvin
Idelette Stordeur de Bure Calvin (born 1500,died 1549) was the only wife of the French reformer John Calvin (Jean Calvin).
Idelette de Bure came from Vlaminck, today Belgium and first married John Stordeur from Liège, today Belgium. At some stage they moved to Strasburg where they were recorded as being Anabaptists. Idelette and John Stordeur had two children (Charles, Judith) before Stordeur died after a brief illness, leaving Idelette a widow.[1]
Calvin was so caught up in his labors that he did not seem to consider marriage until age 30 or so. He asked friends to help him find a woman who was "chaste, obliging, not fastidious, economical, patient, and careful for (his) health".[2] His fellow laborer Martin Bucer had known Idelette and recommended her to Calvin in confidence that she would fit the bill. They married in August 1540. 40/30.Married less than 9years.
Idelette bore Calvin one son and possibly a few daughters, all of whom died in infancy.[3] In response to the slander of Catholics who took this for a judgment upon them for being heretics, Calvin said he was content with his many sons in the faith. Idelette busied herself attending to Calvin in his many illnesses, faithfully visiting the sick and afflicted, and making her home a refuge for those who fled for their lives and their faith.
Though she survived the plague when it ravaged Geneva, Idelette died after a lengthy illness in 1549. Upon her deathbed she was patient, and her words, edifying, e.g.: "O God of Abraham, and of all our fathers, in thee have the faithful trusted during so many past ages, and none of them have trusted in vain. I also will hope".[4]
Calvin on Idelette[edit]
What Calvin wrote to Pierre Viret some days after her death will illustrate her character further.
I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life, of one who, had it been so ordered, would not only have been the willing sharer of my indigence, but even of my death. During her life she was the faithful helper of my ministry.
and,
From her I never experienced the slightest hindrance. She was never troublesome to me throughout the entire course of her illness; she was more anxious about her children than about herself. As I feared these private cares might annoy her to no purpose, I took occasion, on the third day before her death to mention that I would not fail in discharging my duty to her children. Taking up the matter immediately, she said, ’I have already committed them to God.’
Anne Boleyn (/ˈbʊlɪn, bʊˈlɪn/)[3][4][5] (c. 1501[1] – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of King Henry VIII. Henry's marriage to her, and her subsequent execution by beheading, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation.
Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France, largely as a maid of honour to Queen Claude of France.
Anne returned to England in early 1522, to marry her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; the marriage plans were broken up by Cardinal Wolsey, and instead she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's wife, Catherine of Aragon.
Early in 1523 Anne was secretly betrothed to Henry Percy, son of the 5th Earl of Northumberland, but the betrothal was broken by Cardinal Wolsey in January 1524 and Anne was sent back home to Hever Castle. In February/March 1526, Henry VIII began his pursuit of Anne. ( A25, H 34. CoA 41)She resisted his attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress, which her sister Mary had been. It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to annul his marriage to Queen Catherine so he would be free to marry Anne. When it became clear that Pope Clement VII would not annul the marriage, the breaking of the Catholic Church's power in England began. In 1532, Henry granted Anne the Marquessate of Pembroke.
Henry and Anne formally married on 25 January 1533, after a secret wedding on 14 November 1532. On 23 May 1533, newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared Henry and Catherine's marriage null and void; five days later, he declared Henry and Anne's marriage valid. Shortly afterwards, the Pope decreed sentences of excommunication against Henry and Cranmer. As a result of this marriage and these excommunications, the first break between the Church of England and Rome took place and the Church of England was brought under the King's control. Anne was crowned Queen of England on 1 June 1533. On 7 September, she gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth I. Henry was disappointed to have a daughter rather than a son but hoped a son would follow and professed to love Elizabeth. Anne subsequently had three miscarriages, and by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour. In order to marry Jane Seymour, Henry had to find reasons for his marriage with Anne to end.
Henry had Anne investigated for high treason in April 1536. On 2 May she was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, where she was tried before a jury of peers – which included Henry Percy, her former betrothed, and her own uncle, Thomas Howard – and found guilty on 15 May. She was beheaded four days later. Modern historians view the charges against her, which included adultery, incest and plotting to kill the king, as unconvincing. Some say that Anne was accused of witchcraft but the indictments make no mention of this charge.[6][7]
After the coronation as queen of her daughter, Elizabeth, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the works of John Foxe.[8] Over the centuries, she has inspired, or been mentioned, in many artistic and cultural works and thereby retained her hold on the popular imagination. She has been called "the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had",[9] for she provided the occasion for Henry VIII to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and declare his independence from the Holy See.
Early years
Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, later Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Boleyn was a well respected diplomat with a gift for languages; he was also a favourite of King Henry VII, who sent him on many diplomatic missions abroad. Anne and her siblings grew up at Hever Castle in Kent.
Anne's early education was typical for women of her class. In 1513, Anne was invited to join the schoolroom of Margaret of Austria and her four wards. Her academic education was limited to arithmetic, her family genealogy, grammar, history, reading, spelling, and writing. She developed domestic skills such as dancing, embroidery, good manners, household management, music, needlework, and singing. Anne learned to play games, such as cards, chess, and dice. She was also taught archery, falconry, horseback riding, and hunting.[24]
her father arranged for her to attend Henry VIII's sister Mary, who was about to marry Louis XII of France in October 1514.
In France, Anne was a maid of honour to Queen Mary, and then to Mary's 15-year-old stepdaughter Queen Claude, with whom she stayed nearly seven years.[27][28] In the Queen's household, she completed her study of French and developed interests in art, fashion, illuminated manuscripts, literature, music, poetry, and religious philosophy. She also acquired knowledge of French culture, dance, etiquette, literature, music, and poetry and came to gain experience in flirtation and the game of courtly love.[29] Though all knowledge about Anne's experiences in the French court are conjecture, even Eric Ives, in his latest edition of the biography, conjectures that she was likely to have made the acquaintance of King Francis I's sister, Marguerite de Navarre, a patron of humanists and reformers. Marguerite de Navarre was also an author in her own right, and her works include elements of Christian mysticism and reform that verged on heresy, though she was protected by her status as the French king's beloved sister. She or her circle may have encouraged Anne's interest in reform, as well as in poetry and literature.
Anne's experience in France made her a devout Christian in the new tradition of Renaissance humanism. Anne knew little Latin and, trained at a French court, she was influenced by an "evangelical variety of French humanism" which led her to champion the vernacular Bible.[38] While she would later hold the reformist position that the papacy was a corrupting influence on Christianity, her conservative tendencies could be seen in her devotion to the Virgin Mary.[39] Anne's European education ended in 1521, when her father summoned her back to England. She sailed from Calais in January 1522.[40]
At the court of Henry VIII: 1522–1533
Anne was recalled to marry her Irish cousin, James Butler, a young man who was several years older than she and who was living at the English court,[41] in an attempt to settle a dispute over the title and estates of the Earldom of Ormond.
Mary Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's older sister, had earlier been recalled from France in late 1519, ostensibly for her affairs with the French king and his courtiers.
In 1526, King Henry became enamoured with Anne and began his pursuit.[50] Anne was a skillful player at the game of courtly love, which was often played in the antechambers. This may have been how she caught the eye of Henry, who was also an experienced player.[51] Some say that Anne resisted the King's attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress, often leaving court for the seclusion of Hever Castle. But within a year, he proposed marriage to her, and she accepted. Both assumed an annulment could be obtained within a matter of months. There is no evidence to suggest that they engaged in a sexual relationship until very shortly before their marriage; Henry's love letters to Anne suggest that their love affair remained unconsummated for much of their seven-year courtship.
It is probable that the idea of annulment (not divorce as commonly assumed) had suggested itself to Henry much earlier than this and was motivated by his desire for an heir to secure the Tudor claim to the crown. Before Henry's father Henry VII ascended the throne, England was beset by civil warfare over rival claims to the crown and Henry wanted to avoid a similar uncertainty over the succession. He and Catherine had no living sons: all Catherine's children except Mary died in infancy.[53] Catherine of Aragon had first come to England to be bride to Henry's brother Arthur who died soon after their marriage. Since Spain and England still wanted an alliance, a dispensation was granted by Pope Julius II on the grounds that Catherine was still a virgin. The marriage of Catherine and Henry took place in 1509, but eventually he became dubious about its validity, due to Catherine's inability to provide an heir being seen as a sign of God's displeasure. His feelings for Anne, and her refusals to become his mistress, probably contributed to Henry's decision that no Pope had a right to overrule the Bible. This meant that he had been living in sin with Catherine of Aragon all these years, though Catherine hotly contested this and refused to concede that her marriage to Arthur had been consummated. It also meant that his daughter Mary was a bastard, and that the new Pope (Clement VII) would have to admit the previous Pope's mistake and annul the marriage. Henry's quest for an annulment became euphemistically known as the "King's Great Matter".[54]
Anne saw an opportunity in Henry's infatuation and the convenient moral quandary. She determined that she would yield to his embraces only as his acknowledged queen. She began to take her place at his side in policy and in state, but not yet in his bed.[55]
Scholars and historians hold various opinions as to how deep Anne's commitment to the Reformation was, how much she was perhaps only personally ambitious, and how much she had to do with Henry's defiance of papal power. There is anecdotal evidence, related to biographer George Wyatt by her former lady-in-waiting Anne Gainsford,[56] that Anne brought to Henry's attention a heretical pamphlet, perhaps Tyndale's "The Obedience of a Christian Man" or one by Simon Fish called "Supplication for Beggars," which cried out to monarchs to rein in the evil excesses of the Catholic Church. She was sympathetic to those seeking further reformation of the Church, and actively protected scholars working on English translations of the scriptures. According to Maria Dowling, "Anne tried to educate her waiting-women in scriptural piety” and is believed to have reproved her cousin, Mary Shelton, for “having 'idle poesies' written in her prayer book.”[57] If Cavendish is to be believed, Anne's outrage at Wolsey may have personalised whatever philosophical defiance she brought with her from France. Further, the most recent edition of Ives's biography admits that Anne may very well have had a personal spiritual awakening in her youth which spurred her on, not just as catalyst but expediter for Henry's Reformation, though the process took a number of years.
1529. George Cavendish, Wolsey's chamberlain, records that the servants who waited on the king and Anne at dinner in 1529 in Grafton heard her say that the dishonour that Wolsey had brought upon the realm would have cost any other Englishman his head. Henry replied, "Why then I perceive...you are not the Cardinal's friend." Henry finally agreed to Wolsey's arrest on grounds of praemunire.[64] Had it not been for his death from illness in 1530, he might have been executed for treason.[65] A year later in 1531 (fully two years before Henry's marriage to Anne), Queen Catherine was banished from court and her rooms were given to Anne.
Public support remained with Queen Catherine. One evening in the autumn of 1531, Anne was dining at a manor house on the river Thames and was almost seized by a crowd of angry women. Anne just managed to escape by boat.[66]
When Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham died in 1532, the Boleyn family chaplain, Thomas Cranmer, was appointed, with papal approval.[67]
In 1532, Thomas Cromwell brought before Parliament a number of acts including the Supplication against the Ordinaries and Submission of the Clergy, which recognised royal supremacy over the church, thus finalising the break with Rome. Following these acts, Thomas More resigned as Chancellor, leaving Cromwell as Henry's chief minister.[68]
The conference at Calais was something of a political triumph, but even though the French government gave implicit support for Henry's remarriage and Francis I himself held private conference with Anne, the French King maintained alliances with the Pope which he could not explicitly defy.[73]
Soon after returning to Dover, Henry and Anne married in a secret ceremony on November 14, 1532.[74] She soon became pregnant and, to legalise the first wedding considered to be unlawful at the time, there was a second wedding service, also private in accordance with The Royal Book,[75] which took place in London on 25 January 1533. Events now began to move at a quick pace. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer (who had been hastened, with the Pope's assent, into the position of Archbishop of Canterbury recently vacated by the death of Warham) sat in judgment at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory to rule on the validity of the King's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. He thereupon declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void. Five days later, on 28 May 1533, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be good and valid.[76]
On 14 May 1534, in one of the realm's first official acts protecting Protestant Reformers, Anne wrote a letter to Thomas Cromwell seeking his aid in ensuring that English merchant Richard Herman be reinstated a member of the merchant adventurers in Antwerp and no longer persecuted simply because he had helped in "setting forth of the New testament in English."[85] Before and after her coronation, Anne protected and promoted evangelicals and those wishing to study the scriptures of William Tyndale.[86] She had a decisive role in influencing the Protestant reformer Matthew Parker to attend court as her chaplain, and prior to her death entrusted her daughter to Parker's care.[87]
98]
Downfall and execution: 1536
Thomas Cranmer, who was the sole supporter of Anne in the council.
The ermine mantle was removed and Anne lifted off her headdress, tucking her hair under a coif.[144] After a brief farewell to her weeping ladies and a request for prayers, she kneeled down and one of her ladies tied a blindfold over her eyes.[144] She knelt upright, in the French style of executions.[145] Her final prayer consisted of her repeating continually, "Jesu receive my soul; O Lord God have pity on my soul."[146]
The execution consisted of a single stroke.[1
Anne Askew
1521 – 16 July 1546)[1] was an English writer, poet, and Protestant martyr who was condemned as a heretic in England in the reign of Henry VIII of England. She is the only woman on record known to have been both tortured in the Tower of London and burnt at the stake. She is also one of the earliest-known female poets to compose in the English language and the first Englishwoman to demand a divorce (especially as an innocent party on scriptural grounds).[2]
Contents
L
|
Life
|
nne Askew was born in 1521 in Lincolnshire, England. William Askew, a wealthy landowner, was her father. William was a gentleman in the court of King Henry VIII, as well as a juror in the trial of Anne Boleyn's co-accused.[3] Her mother was Elizabeth Wrotessley, of Reading, Berkshire. Askew was the fourth of their five children,]
William Askew had arranged that his eldest daughter, Martha, be married to Thomas Kyme. When Anne was 15 years old, Martha died. Her father decided Anne would take Martha's place in the marriage to Thomas to save money.[6]
Askew was a devout Protestant, studying the Bible and memorizing verses, and remained true to her belief for the entirety of her life. Her reading convinced her of the falsity of the doctrine of transubstantiation, and her pronouncements created some controversy in Lincoln.[6] Her husband was a Catholic, and the resultant marriage was brutal. Askew had two children with Kyme before he threw her out for being Protestant, although it is unclear if these children survived past infancy, as they have not been mentioned by any of Askew's contemporaries but Bale. It is alleged that Askew was seeking to divorce Kyme, so this did not upset her.[5]
Upon being thrown out, Askew moved to London. Here she met other Protestants, including the Anabaptist Joan Bocher,[6] and studied the Bible. Askew stuck to her maiden name, rather than her husband's name. While in London, she became a "gospeller" or a preacher.[7]
In March 1545, Kyme had Askew arrested. She was brought back to Lincolnshire, where he demanded that she stay. The order was short lived; she escaped and returned to London to continue preaching. In early 1546 she was arrested again, but released. In May 1546 she was arrested again, and tortured in the Tower of London. (She is the only woman recorded to have been tortured there.) She was ordered to name like-minded women, but refused. The torturers, Lord Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley and Sir Richard Rich, used the rack, but Askew refused to renounce her beliefs. On 18 June 1546, she was convicted of heresy, and was condemned to be burned at the stake.[5]
On 16 July 1546 Askew was martyred in Smithfield, London. Because of the torture she had endured, she had to be carried to the stake on a chair. She burned to death, along with three other Protestants,[5] John Lassells, Nicholas Belenian also known as John Hemsley ('a priest') and John Adams aka John Hadlam ('a tailor').
The traditionalist party included Thomas Wriothesley and Richard Rich, who racked Anne Askew in the Tower, Edmund Bonner and Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. The intention of her interrogators may have been to implicate the Queen, Catherine Parr, through the latter's ladies-in-waiting and close friends, who were suspected of having also harboured Protestant beliefs. These ladies included the Queen's sister, Anne Parr, Katherine Willoughby, Anne Stanhope, and Anne Calthorpe. Other targets were Lady Denny and Lady Hertford, wives of evangelicals at court.[9]
A
|
Arrest and interrogation
|
nne Askew underwent two "examinations" before she was finally burned at the stake for heresy. On 10 March 1545, the aldermen of London ordered for her to be detained under the Six Articles Act. Askew stood trial before the "quest", which was an official heresy hearing commission. She was then cross examined by the chancellor of the Bishop of London, Edmund Bonner. He ordered that she be imprisoned for 12 days. During this time she refused to make any sort of confession. Her cousin Brittayn was finally allowed to visit her after the 12 days to bail her out.[10]
On 19 June 1546, Askew was, yet again, locked away in prison. She was then subject to a two-day-long period of cross examination led by Chancellor Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Stephen Gardiner, The Bishop of Winchester (John Dudley), and Sir William Paget (the king's principal secretary). They threatened her with execution, but she still refused to confess or to name fellow Protestants. She was then ordered to be tortured. Her torturers did so, probably motivated by the desire for Askew to admit that Queen Catherine was also a practicing Protestant.[10] According to her own account, and that of gaolers within the Tower, she was tortured only once. She was taken from her cell, at about ten o'clock in the morning, to the lower room of the White Tower. She was shown the rack and asked if she would name those who believed as she did. Askew declined to name anyone at all, so she was asked to remove all her clothing except her shift. Askew then climbed onto the rack, and her wrists and ankles were fastened. Again, she was asked for names, but she would say nothing.[11] The wheel of the rack was turned, pulling Askew along the device and lifting her so that she was held taut about 5 inches above its bed and slowly stretched. In her own account written from prison, Askew said she fainted from pain, and was lowered and revived.[12] This procedure was repeated twice. Sir Anthony Kingston, then Constable of the Tower of London, refused to carry on torturing her, left the tower, and sought a meeting with the king at his earliest convenience to explain his position and also to seek his pardon, which the king granted. Wriothesley and Rich set to work themselves.[11] They turned the handles so hard that Anne was drawn apart, her shoulders and hips were pulled from their sockets and her elbows and knees were dislocated. Askew's cries could be heard in the garden next to the White Tower where the Lieutenant's wife and daughter were walking. Askew gave no names, and her ordeal ended when the Lieutenant ordered her to be returned to her cell.[13]
E
|
Execution
|
nne Askew was burned at the stake at Smithfield, London, aged 26, on 16 July 1546, with John Lascelles, Nicholas Belenian and John Adams.[14][15] She was carried to execution in a chair wearing just her shift as she could not walk and every movement caused her severe pain.[16] She was dragged from the chair to the stake which had a small seat attached to it, on which she sat astride. Chains were used to bind her body firmly to the stake at the ankles, knees, waist, chest and neck. Because of her recalcitrance she was burned alive slowly rather than being strangled first or burned quickly.[citation needed]
Those who saw her execution were impressed by her bravery, and reported that she did not scream until the flames reached her chest.[citation needed] The execution lasted about an hour, and she was unconscious and probably dead after fifteen minutes or so.[citation needed] Prior to their death, the prisoners were offered one last chance at pardon. Bishop Shaxton mounted the pulpit and began to preach to them. His words were in vain, however. Askew listened attentively throughout his discourse. When he spoke anything she considered to be the truth, she audibly expressed agreement; but when he said anything contrary to what she believed Scripture stated, she exclaimed: "There he misseth, and speaketh without the book."[17]
L
|
Legacy
|
skew wrote a first-person account of her ordeal and her beliefs, which was published as The Examinations by John Bale, and later in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments of 1563, which proclaims her as a Protestant martyr. The story of Askew's martyrdom was thus written into the Protestant hagiography; but as MacCulloch comments, it is written under a version of her unmarried name (which he attributes to some embarrassment over her desertion of her husband Kyme).[18] MacCulloch notes that Robert Parsons picked up on this aspect of the story.[19]
John Bale and John Foxe's writings on Askew are the most well-known accounts of her life, but a closer look at their writing causes some critics to question whether these editors help or hurt readers' understanding of Anne Askew. John Bale was the first to publish any work commemorating Askew's life, and he claimed to have solely taken Askew's writings and added only a preface and notes; but critics Thomas S. Freeman and Sarah Elizabeth Wall contest this claim (1169). It is unlikely that Bale invented the entire text, but they find that certain quotes within Askew's narrative have a Baleian tone (1169), and some sections may have been deleted (1170). The exacts are unknown, but Bale seems to have made considerable changes to the account. They also point out that Bale's work has imposed a misogynistic (or adverse towards women) misreading on the narrative. Askew is a woman who is remembered for taking a stand against the church's oppression, but Bale insists on her being a "weak vessel of the lord" (1166). Her narrative clearly disproves this, and shows that she was an educated woman who actively fought and challenged male control. Because of these criticisms, some argue that Askew's story is improved if read independently of Bale's notes and additions in order to understand her legacy without the distraction of an intrusive author (1167). Foxe's translation and interpretation are often considered an improvement from Bale's original. He eliminated Bale's notes and frames the story more around Askew's narrative (1167). But Foxe also took some artistic liberties by altering language to make certain allusions more obvious (1171) and breaking the narrative into paragraphs (1177). Critics have noted six clear Biblical citation errors within the work (1171); and Foxe also added new information that may have become known through eyewitnesses coming forward with new details, but the exact sources are unclear (1185). While Bale is criticized and Foxe is often commended for doing a better job with capturing her narrative, it is important to point out the accuracy issues of the two texts principally responsible for Askew's legacy.[20] It is also important to notice the impact that Bale and Foxe had on the overall reputation of martyrs of the 16th century; with Anne Askew serving as a prime example.
E
|
Examinations
|
nne Askew's autobiographical and published Examinations chronicle her persecution and offer a unique look into sixteenth century femininity, religion, and faith. Her writing is revolutionary because it deviates completely from what we think and expect from "Tudor women or, more specifically, Tudor women martyrs" (51). It depicts her confrontations with male authority figures of the time who challenged every aspect of life: from her progressive divorce, which she initiated, to her religious beliefs, which set her apart in England as a devout Protestant woman. Her ability to avoid indictment in 1545 points to what Paula McQuade calls Askew's "real brilliance", showing "her being familiar enough with English law to attempt to use the system to her benefit" (52). While her Examinations are a rare record of her experiences as a woman in Tudor England, they also show her unique position in this world as an educated woman. Not only was she able to write down her experiences, she was also able to correspond with select learned men of the time, such as John Lascelles and Dr. Edward Crome who was also arrested for heresy. As stated above, Askew's Examinations are imperfect and were altered by John Bale and John Foxe, but read as they were originally intended, Anne Askew's writing is one of the most important autobiographical accounts of 16th century religious turmoil we have to date, and is a testament to her intelligence and outstanding bravery.[21]
No comments:
Post a Comment