Prize for the Fire: A Novel by Rilla Askew (review)

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• Prize for the Fire: A Novel by Rilla Askew
• Ken Hada (bio)

prize for the fire: a novel
Rilla Askew
University of Oklahoma Press
https://www.oupress.com/9780806190723/prize-for-the-fire/
384 pages; cloth, $26.95

Prize for the Fire is set during the reign of King Henry VIII. The climactic scene of the novel, the burning of condemned reformist heretic Anne Askew, occurs in 1546, one year before Henry's death. In this historical fiction, Rilla Askew faces the artistic challenge of avoiding exposition when authentically embodying multiple historical personalities and information, while also bringing her imaginative characters and scenes realistically into that history. The complexity of the history surrounding Henry's reign could easily provide readers with an indecipherable maze were it rendered by a less skilled author. Moreover, the distance between contemporary readers and the mid-sixteenth century also presents a serious challenge. So, considerable research and great care had to be exercised by the novelist to have the book make sense, let alone make it appealing. Among multiple relevant sources, the author consulted The Examinations of Anne Askew, a collection that contains a firsthand written record of the experiences of the protagonist.

The novel follows two overlapping strains that eventually conspire to bring Anne to her public execution. The first concerns historical context, with its whims and reversals of King Henry and a host of figures contributing to and/or affected by his actions. Within this strain, Anne winds up in London in 1544 and for a time serves Queen Katheryn Parr. Anne is discovered to be a skillful translator of Latin and is admired for her ability to argue scripture. These attributes place her in good company with the queen, who has been appointed regent while Henry is away at war in France. Although the royal [End Page 63] court is not free from suspicion and self-seeking politicians who oppose reformist theology, Anne finds her purpose in the service of Katheryn, a reformist sympathizer. She helps the queen and her ladies translate texts from Thomas à Kempis and Erasmus, and in secret they illegally read, interpret, and translate the Coverdale translation of the Bible.

This experience with Katheryn, along with her regular fellowship with other Protestant believers in secret meetings, in conjunction with Anne's prior insistence on publicly reading the Bible, builds the case against her in public examinations before Bishops Wriothesley and Gardiner. Refusing to recant or to identify fellow reformists, she is racked, then burned at the stake.

Convinced that she should not be "unevenly yoked" with an unbeliever, Anne seeks annulment of her marriage. Her husband, a papist, eventually contributes to the public condemnation of Anne as a heretic. Frustrated that his wife will not obey him, will not attend to "wifely duties," he frequently complains to his vicar and to Anne's brother Francis. All the men in Anne's life, friendly or adversarial, worry about her public defiance of law concerning females reading the Bible. They try, with various motives and tactics, to restrain her, but Anne becomes increasingly assured of the rightness of her position. Following her tenure at Katheryn's court, Anne realizes she must be cautious; however, she determines never to abandon her reformist views of scripture. Anne is increasingly respected as a leading explicator of scripture in the secret meetings of reformists, in the mixed company of men and women. She earns the title "the fair gospeller."

The second strain of the novel emphasizes the domestic story of Anne, though it is enmeshed with the first. The historical Anne did seek annulment, and she was accused of abandoning her children. Another historical point connecting the public and domestic strains is the fact that Anne was a replacement wife in an unwanted marriage. Her beloved sister Maddie (also a clandestine Bible reader) died before her arranged marriage to Thomas Kyme. Anne's father forced fifteen-year-old Anne to take Maddie's place. Anne endures a brutal existence trying to survive a violent marriage. Here, the author employs considerable imagination to develop several scenes where Anne suffers violent attacks from her frustrated, abusive husband. Although her brothers and cousin helped her financially...