And asked you, was the daughter of a Lincolnshire knight.

Born in 1521, she was married to a much older man, Thomas Keem, to whom she bore two children,

but with whom she shared no affinity, especially not of mind nor faith.

Chucked out of the marital home in the early 1540s, she walked into Lincolnshire Cathedral

and occupied it for six days, reading the newly translated English Bible.

This was bad enough, but when pressed after her rests in 1545 and again in 1546,

she revealed herself to be so convinced of Luther's doctrine that Scripture alone possessed authority

that she adopted a position on the nature of the sacrament of the mass that imperiled her life.

Because she could not find it in Scripture, she refused to believe that the bread eaten in the mass

became Christ's actual body, and instead argued that it is but a remembrance of Christ's death

or a sacrament of thanksgiving for it. That you call your God, she doubled down, is about a piece of

bread. In the end of the 8th England, such beliefs were heresy. Somehow, her case came to the attention

of Sir Thomas Reisley and Sir Richard Rich, key figures at Henry VIII's court. As a result of their

administrations, she became one of only two women to have been tortured in the Tower of London.

They even went as far as to turn the wheel of the rack themselves.

But we have from her something we have from so few women in the 16th century,

a written record of her words.

I now rejoice in heart and hope bid me do so, for Christ will take my part and ease me of my woe.

Thou sayest, Lord, who so knock, to them will thou attend, undo therefore the lock,

and thy strong power send.

And more enemies now I have than hairs upon my head, let them not need a grave but fight thou in my stead.

On thee my care I cast, for all their cruel spite, I set not by their haste, for thou art my delight.

...