Ann Askew Part 2
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Part 2

Keys jangled and the cell door swung open. The jailor who had escorted her to her torture stood there. For one terrible moment Ann thought that perhaps they were going to rack her again. She had taken so much punishment last time that she was not sure she could hold out again. But if she named the Queen! She imagined poor Queen Katherine Parr stripped to her shift being bound to a stake. Surely it would be done in private on Tower Green and not in front of a jeering crown at Smithfield.
“You are to go to Smithfield in the morning Madam. You will wear this.” He threw a black garment towards her and started to close the door. “I cannot dress myself since you racked me.” Ann said quietly. He nodded. “Very well I will send someone to help you.” The door slammed shut and Ann was left alone with her thoughts.
The poor woman slept fitfully and was awake the next morning when the cell door opened and two women entered. They were prisoners like her and had been sent to help her get ready for Smithfield. The older of the two was about 30 with hard eyes while the younger was barely 20. The older woman took the lead pulling Ann up to sit on the bed. Her face hardly registered emotion as Ann groaned with the pain of movement but the younger girl was more sympathetic. She looked at the deep wounds on Anne’s wrists and ankles where the straps had fastened her to the rack and shuddered slightly. “Go gently with her Bessy” she said.
“Why? She’s a heretic and she’ll roast for it shortly. Then she’ll have something to scream about.”
“They won’t roast her. She’s a gentlewoman. They don’t roast gentlewomen. She’ll be strangled before they light the fire to spare her the scorching of the flesh.”
“Don’t be stupid Abigail” Bessy said “they racked her didn’t they and they’ll roast her too.” Roughly she pulled Ann’s shift down to her waist and then with Abigail holding one arm and Bessy the other one they stood Ann up. The shift dropped around Ann’s ankles and they sat her on the bed again and pulled the shift away. “Pass me the execution shift” Bessy said to Abigail and as she waited her eyes examined Ann’s naked body. “I see that they spared you branding heretic. They were soft.”
“Why are you so cruel to her Bessy” said Abigail bringing the black execution shift and sliding Ann’s legs into it.
“She’s a heretic girl. She deserves what is coming. She has gone against the laws of the church. In a few weeks I will burn for coining and you will burn for murdering your husband. I was simply making a few shillings to live on and you were defending yourself from a violent man. We’ll die screaming in the flames as the crowds jeer. Why should she be any different? If she’d talked on the rack then they’d be roasting the Queen and some of her Ladies with her.” She grasped Ann under the arm again and with Abigail’s help lifted her and pulled the shift up. The sat her again, slid her arms in and tied it at the neck and laid her back down to await the guards.
Ann shuddered at what she had heard. They had treated her like an object as they moved her around and discussed her fate. She realised that know she was nothing to anyone just a body to be roasted and reduced to bubbling fat and cracking bones for the entertainment of the London crowd.
A few minutes later the guards came for her and she realised as they lifted her up that the shift she had been given was split to the waist at the back and barely come down to mid-thigh. “I cannot wear this it is not decent.” She cried out. “ Be quiet woman” one of the guards replied “the fire will strip you soon enough anyway.”
Ann was taken out to a cart which was full of bundles of different sizes of wood. Behind it and attached to it by ropes was a wicker fence hurdle. They laid her on the hurdle face up and then spread eagled her and fastened her wrists and ankles to the corners. As soon as she was secured the cart started off and Ann groaned as her already stretched muscles and joints were jerked as the hurdle bounced over the cobbles on its way to Smithfield.
Mercifully the journey only lasted 5 minutes. Then they were at Smithfield in a cleared area in the center. A huge hooded executioner came to look at her and then he cut the ropes binding her to the hurdle and lifted her over his shoulder to carry her to the stake. Ann gasped at the indignity of this but she knew that as she could not walk it was the only way. When they reached the stake he slid her off his shoulder and lowered her down onto a narrow iron bar that had been hammered into the side of the stake. Now she realised why the execution shift she was wearing had been split to the waist at the back. The hooded man held her firmly against the stake as a thick iron chain was pulled tightly around her waist and secured. Her knees and ankles were chained tightly too and the executioner released her. Poor Ann groaned as the chains and the iron bar took her full weight but she was completely unprepared for what happened next. The executioner grasped the collar of the thin black shift she was wearing and jerked it down to her waist. She cried out in shock and embarrassment and tried to cover her breasts but pressing himself against her the executioner forced her arms behind the stake where a second man bound her wrists with a tight, damp cord. Next a third iron chain was passed twice around poor Ann’s chest to hold her firmly upright. The chain coiled below her firm, full breasts lifting them slightly.
Unable to move now and red with embarrassment Ann watched as the executioner and his assistant piled wood from the cart around her and men in the crowd made ribald remarks about her body. When sufficient wood was piled the executioner went to a brazier and lit a torch. Ann’s eyes were riveted on him and that deadly torch as he approached the pyre in the midst of which she was standing. Her breaths came more quickly now that the moment had come and she winced slightly as the torch dipped and lit the wood around her. “I must be brave, be brave, be brave” she thought as the fire began to crackle and move towards her. The heat increased as the small amounts of thin wood piled close to Ann’s legs began to smoulder and then burst into a sheet of flame that for a short while completely enveloped the stake and its victim. The crowd were treated to agonised shrieks and howls as the flames roared up Ann’s body. The shift, her hair and any dignity that might have remained to her were quickly reduced to ash. The flames died back down leaving just a roasting fire burning in the thicker wood at her feet and her head twisted from side to side in agony as the flames slowly climbed up her legs blistering, blackening and finally eating away the flesh. The stench of burning flesh filled the square accompanied by the crackle of flames, the cracking of roasted bones and the shrieks of the victim.
The burning continued for a considerable time and at one point poor Ann broke and begged in a croaking voice “More wood! More wood! I beg you give me more wood and let it end!” A little extra wood was thrown onto the fire but not enough to make a real difference. Finally after what must have seemed like and age to the poor woman chained at the stake the roasting flames reached her breasts and as they sizzled and melted Ann gave a last terrible shriek, convulsed for a few moments and then slumped dead at the stake.
 
 
Hi
I'm not sure if anyone reads or likes these stories. If you would like more then let me know. If not then no problem.
Kari
 
 
Hello, i have read and like it, thanks for sharing. Sure i like to read more...
 
 
Great story!
   

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