Throughout the Tudor Period, there were a huge number of executions which were carried
out in public.
During the reign of Henry VIII, a large number of religious dissidents and heretics were
executed, and Mary I continued this burning people at the stake who did not believe in
her Catholic beliefs.
Many people were made martyrs after they were executed in brutal and barbaric ways, and
some were made saints.
One of those figures who suffered during the Tudor Period, and the English Reformation
was Anne Line.
She was a victim of Queen Elizabeth I’s religious settlement, and her plans to bring
together Catholicism and Protestantism under her church.
Her religious settlement was aimed to have been a bridge between the two religions, but
often many people suffered because of these laws.
Anne Line stood up for what she believed in, but because of this she was sentenced to death
and was executed in shocking scenes.
Join us today as we look at her story and her execution, and remember to support our
channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Anne Line was born as Alice Higham and was the eldest daughter of William Higham, who
was a prominent Puritan.
William her father was the son of an MP who was also a Protestant reformer who served
in the church during the reign of the brutal King Henry VIII.
Alice’s grandfather was also involved in selling many monastic properties, lands and
estates during the Dissolutions of the Monasteries.
But around the early 1580s, Anne or Alice was converted to Catholicism although her
family were very strongly protestant.
This caused problems with some members of her family, but she was converted alongside
her brother William and also her future Husband Roger Line.
Both Roger and William were disowned and disinherited by their families, and Alice lost her dowry
payment.
Alice then seemingly changed her name to Anne around this time and started answering to
this, and she wanted to start a new life as Anne.
But things for her were not great as her brother and husband were then arrested and imprisoned
for attending Catholic mass which was considered a crime.
The pair were held for a significant amount of time and were then fined.
Anne’s brother was released but was placed under close watch by priest hunters and other
anti-catholic watchers, and her husband Roger was then banished from England and he was
forced to go and live in Flanders.
Roger stayed here in Flanders and did suffer a bout of ill health whilst in exile.
But Anne was supported by Roger as he sent money to her regularly and made sure she was
safe and well fed, and she had some money for her life.
Some of this money shockingly was paid for by the King of Spain, and then in 1594 Roger
died and Anne was left a widow.
But Father John Gerard, a Jesuit priest who would later be forced to escape from the Tower
of London, around this time opened up a house and a safe haven to keep Catholic priests
and prominent Catholics away from the authorities.
This was very dangerous, as the Religious Settlement issued by Elizabeth I banned any
behaviour such as hiding priests and allowing any catholic underground worship.
When Elizabeth I became Queen in 1558, people in England were heavily divided by religion,
and her sister Bloody Mary I had restored Catholicism as England’s official religion.
But many Protestants were persecuted, and along with a growing number of Puritains,
Elizabeth I needed to try and solve the problem of religion.
She tried to do this with there settlement, but the Catholics were not happy with her
new laws, as under Mary I they had religious freedom, but under her half sister Elizabeth
I they would not.
Many were encouraged to change their beliefs or deny their faith and worship in hiding.
The settlement caused outrage and forced many Catholics out of the country and many went
to live in Europe or Catholic countries for their own safety.
Some did change, but a number also began to plot to overthrow and kill Elizabeth I, to
oust her off the throne and replace her with Mary Queen of Scots, who was seen as a legitimate
Catholic heir to the English throne.
If someone refused to attend the new Church of England services, then they were classed
as recusants, and under Elizabeth’s laws were forced to pay a fine of a shilling a
week for their non attending on Sundays or holy days.
This fine was later raised to around what would be in today’s money £20 a month,
and this could be thousands today.
Those who were found to have persuaded or coerced someone to convert to Catholic were
deemed guilty of treason and could also be executed.
Because of this, Elizabeth’s reign was a dangerous time for Catholics, and worship
went underground and occurred in quiet and discreet places as Catholic mass was banned.
The ones who were spearheading underground Catholic worship, were treading a very dangerous
line, and hiding Catholic priests was so dangerous that many people were sentenced to death and
were executed.
One of these women who did this was Margaret Clitherow, who was executed by crushing for
her sheltering of priests.
Anne Line, the newly widowed Catholic woman was placed in charge of John Gerard’s priest
house, and hide out.
This made her liable to execution, and despite being ill herself, she managed to run the
house and home successfully for 3 years.
She kept things moving even whilst John Gerard was imprisoned at the Tower of London and
kept under brutal conditions, being tortured using the manacles.
Following his escape, he documented that, ‘After my escape from prison, Anne Line
gave up managing the house.
By then she was known to so many people that it was unsafe for me to frequent any house
she occupied.
Instead she hired apartments in another building and continued to shelter priests there.
One day however she was allowed in an unusually large number of Catholics to hear mass.
Some neighbours noticed the crowd and the constables were at the house at once.’
What Anne Line had done is to open up the house to a large mass worship of Catholic
mass, and with this it was rather foolish as she attracted a huge amount of unwanted
attention.
The guards were called as this was banned by the religious settlement, and as things
heated up, Anne managed to shelter the priests and most people escaped the house, but Anne
Line and another lady Margaret Gage were then arrested by the authorities.
Francis Page a priest managed to use a special hiding spot and evade justice, and Margaret
Gage was later pardoned for her involvement.
But Anne Line would not receive any kindness from the monarchy, and instead was placed
on trial.
She was imprisoned at the horrific Newgate Prison where there was a huge overcrowding
problem and also disease inside the prison.
But she was then tried at the Sessions House on Old Bailey Lane on the 26th February 1601,
and during her trial she was clearly ill.
She was made weak by the jail fever she had but tried to defend herself.
She said that although she had hid one first and been caught, she regrets that she could
not have housed thousands more.
The Judge then found her guilty and with this, they sentenced her to death for assisting
and hiding a banned priest.
There was no wait for Anne Line’s execution.
On the 27th February a day following her trial, she was taken to Tyburn where over the years
thousands of people were executed on the infamous triangular gallows.
She was executed before two priests, Roger Filcock and Mark Barkworth who were found
guilty of treason, and who were to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
As a woman, Anne was spared this brutal ordeal, and was hanged instead.
Whilst she was at the scaffold, she repeated what she said at her trial proclaiming, ‘I
am sentenced to die for harbouring a Catholic priest, and so far am I from repenting for
having so done, that I wish with all my soul that where I have entertained one, I could
have entertained a thousand.’
Anne Line was handed over to the executioner who placed her on a stool or a ladder, before
he placed the noose around her neck.
After this was secured, he removed the stool or ladder, and with this Anne was left hanging
and gasping for breath, and within seconds was killed by the Tyburn gallows.
Following her execution, Anne Line was beatified by the Pope, and then was canonised and she
became known as Saint Anne Line sharing a feast day with fellow Saint and Tudor martyr
Margaret Clitherow.
She was just one of many victims who was died because of Elizabeth I’s religious settlement
and rules on religion, and there were hundreds of other people who were executed for hiding
priests and concealing Catholic worship.
It was a very dangerous time if you believed in different beliefs than what the monarchy
believed.
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