Anne Askew is actually a pretty interesting character in Tudor history. She was known as the "Fair Gospeler," which infers that she may have been quite pretty, and it seems she was well-liked by those who opposed the Catholics and the Church of England. At the time of her death, Anne was only 25, which says a lot about her bravery and convictions, and her devotion to spreading her beliefs about such a delicate and dangerous topic. Surely she would have known that she could die for her actions, but she was passionate about it, and like so many others (Catholic and Protestant), she hated seeing the religious turmoil that England had been experiencing for the past several years.
Anne had been arrested once before in 1545, but was acquitted when no necessary evidence was found against her. The thing she disagreed most with, when questioned by church officials, was the process of transubstantiation in the mass (the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ). In The Tudors, Anne Askew says while preaching, "the bread will still grow mold!" which only enraged church men of both the Catholic Church and the Church of England (which were still quite similar). Those people were determined to see her burned, but when they could not properly incriminate her, they were forced to let her go - but they clearly kept their eyes on her after that.
The torture of the rack was repeated twice, resulting in nothing but Anne fainting and having to be revived on the floor. After that, Kingston refused to continue torturing her and sent her back to her cell. Anne later gave her testimony of her experience with torture, saying,
"Then they did put me on the rack, because I confessed no ladies or gentlemen, to be of my opinion...the Lord Chancellor and Master Rich took pains to rack me with their own hands, till I was nearly dead. I fainted...and then they recovered me again. After that I sat two long hours arguing with the Lord Chancellor, upon the bare floor...With many flattering words, he tried to persuade me to leave my opinion... I said that I would rather die than break my faith."
So on this day, poor Anne Askew was found guilty of heresy once and for all and sentenced to die by burning in roughly a month. Her story is a very sad one, as she is remembered and known for being a brave and passionate woman - the only woman to be tortured in the Tower for her beliefs.