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Askew ears. But the Earl of Bedford reassured them. The gunpowder was not under the faggots, but laid about the bodies of the victims to rid them the sooner of their pain. Finally Lord Chancellor Wriothesley sent Anne Askew letters with an assurance of the king's pardon if she would even now recant. She refused to look at them, saying she came not thither to deny her Master. A like refusal was made by the other sufferers. The lord mayor then cried out 'Fiat justitia!' and ordered the fire to be laid to the faggots. Soon afterwards all was over. Anne is said by Bale to have been twenty-five years old when she suffered. She must therefore have been born in the year 1521.

There cannot be a doubt that the memory of this woman's sufferings and of her extraordinary fortitude and heroism added strength to the protestant reaction under Edward VI. The account of her martyrdom published by Bale in Germany, Strype tells us, was publicly exposed to sale at Winchester in 1549, in reproach of Bishop Gardiner, who was believed (whether justly or not is another question) to have been a great cause of her death. 'Four of these books,' says Strype (Memorials of Cranmer, 294), 'came to that bishop's own eyes, being then at Winchester; they had leaves put in as additions to the book, some glued and some unglued, which probably contained some further intelligences that the author had gathered since his first writing of the book. And herein some reflections were made freely, according to Bale's talent, upon some of the court, not sparing Paget himself, though then secretary of state.' We ought certainly to make some allowance for bias in testimony that could be manipulated after such a fashion, but we need not be sparing in sympathy for the devoted sufferer.

[Bale's two tracts, viz. 'The First Examinacyon of Anne Askewe,' and 'The Lattre Examinacyon,' both printed at Marburg in Hesse, the former in November 1546, the second in January 1547. The contents of the second, Bale says, he 'received in copy by certain Dutch merchants coming from thence,' who had been present at her execution. Bale's Scriptores; Foxe's Acts and Monuments; Strype's Eccl. Memorials, I. i. 598; Wriothesley's Chronicle (Camden Soc.).]  ASKEW, ANTHONY, M.D. (1722–1772), was born at Kendal, Westmoreland, and was the son of Dr. Adam Askew, a well-known physician of Newcastle. Anthony Askew went from Sedbergh school to the grammar school at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and thence to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he took his degree of M.B. in 1745. 'He told me,' says Dr. Parr, 'that he received part of his education from Richard Dawes of Newcastle, and described the terror which he felt at seeing a schoolmaster whose name was a μορμολύκειον in the North of England.' In those days the birch was allowed, and the father of Anthony is said to have stipulated with Dawes that his son should be only liable to strictly limited castigation.

Being intended for the medical profession, Askew studied for one year at Leyden. Alexander Carlyle, who met him there, says that he had come to collate manuscripts of Æschylus, and describes him as having some drollery, but little sense (Autobiography, p. 174). He then visited Hungary, Athens, Constantinople, Italy, and other countries. By the purchase at home and abroad of a great number of valuable books and manuscripts he laid the foundation of the extensive library, the Bibliotheca Askeviana. He commenced practice at Cambridge in 1750, in which year he took his degree of M.D., and afterwards established himself in London. He had a good practice, and was physician to St. Bartholomew's and to Christ's Hospitals, and Registrar of the College of Physicians. He was married twice, the second time to Elizabeth Halford, 'a woman,' says Dr. Parr, 'of celestial beauty and celestial virtue,' by whom he left twelve children. He died at Hampstead, 27 Feb. 1772.

He is far better known as a classical scholar than as a physician. He helped to develope the taste for curious manuscripts, scarce editions, and fine copies. Of the classical attainments of Askew Dr. Parr, his friend, speaks in high praise.

Askew appears to have contemplated a new edition of Æschylus, for a complete collection of the various published editions of this author was found in his library, some copies of which were enriched with manuscript notes by himself. In 1746, while a medical student at Leyden, he put forth a specimen of this intended edition, in a small quarto pamphlet, 'Novæ Editionis Tragœdiarum Æschyli specimen, curante Antonio Askew, 1746.' This was dedicated to Dr. Mead. It contained only twenty-nine lines of the 'Eumenides' (563-591, Schiitz ed.), accompanied with variæ lectiones. In Butler's edition of Æschylus most of Askew's collections were made use of, and a volume in his handwriting, which contained a collation of five codices, is referred to as Askew's. Bishop Blomfield discovered the volume to be a transcript from one in the handwriting of Peter Needham, and takes notice of the fact in the prefaces to his editions of the 'Prometheus' and the