Anne Askew was an English writer, poet, and Protestant martyr who was condemned as a heretic in England in the reign of Henry VIII of England. Apart from Margaret Cheyney, wife of Sir John Bulmer, who was similarly tortured and executed after the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1537, she is the only other 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).
Also known as
Poet
