de bene esse: On this day

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

On this day – 14 June 1883: Edward FitzGerald died in Norfolk, aged 74. FitzGerald was a poet, student of the battle of Naseby and translator and adaptor of the collection of poems, originally in Persian, known as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

On this day – 15 June 1843: Composer and pianist Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway. He is best known for music composed for Ibsen’s allegorical drama Peer Gynt.

On this day – 17 June 1843: Twenty two Europeans and four Maori were killed when a party of armed settlers clashed with the Ngati Toa at the Wairau Valley. It was the first serious clash of arms between the Maori and British since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.

On this day – 18 June 1633: Charles I was crowned King of Scots in Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, accompanied by an Anglican service. It was one of two visits he made to the country of his birth after his accession to the throne in 1625.

18 June 1546 – Anne Askew Arraigned at Guildhall for Heresy

The Anne Askew of The Tudors preaching.

On 18th June 1546, Anne Askew, a young woman from Lincolnshire now now known as a Protestant martyr and poet, was arraigned for heresy at London’s Guildhall along with Nicholas Shaxton, Nicholas White and John Hadlam (Adlams or Adams). They were found guilty and condemned to death.

Chronicler and Windsor Herald Charles Wriothesley recorded the results of the hearing:
“The eigh tenth daie of June, 1546, were arraigned at the Guilde Certaine Hall, for heresie, Doctor Nicholas Shaxston, sometyme bishop of arraigned for Salisburie; Nicholas White, of London, gentleman; Anne Kerne[Kyme], alias Anne Askewe, gentlewoman, and wiffe of Thomas Kerne [Kyme], gentleman, of Lyncolneshire; and John Hadlam, of Essex, taylor; and were this daie first indited of heresie and after arraygned on the same, and their confessed their heresies against the sacrament of the alter without any triall of a jurie, and so had judgment to be bernt[burnt].”
Anne Askew was burned at the stake at Smithfield on 16th July 1546.

Click here to read all about her life, arrest and death.

Click here to read a ballad said to have been written by Anne Askew while she was imprisoned. You can also read martyrologist John Foxe’s record of the examinations of Anne Askew in the online version of Acts and Monuments.