Anne Line (''c.'' 1563 – 27 February 1601) was an English Catholic martyr. After losing her husband, she became very active in sheltering clandestine Catholic priests, which was illegal in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Finally arrested, she was condemned to death and executed at Tyburn. The Catholic Church declared her a martyr, and Pope Paul VI canonised her in 1970.

Biography

Anne is believed to have been born as "Alice Higham" or "Heigham", the eldest daughter of the Puritan William Higham of Jenkyn Maldon. William Higham was the son of

Roger Heigham Roger Heigham (by 1515 – 29 August 1558), also spelt Roger Higham, was an English politician and Tudor administrator. He was a Member (MP) of the Parliament of England for Gatton in 1545. A Protestant reformer under Henry VIII of England he ...

, MP, a Protestant reformer under

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

.Martin Dodwell, "Revisiting Anne Line: Who Was She and Where Did She Come from", ''Recusant History'', Vol. 31, No. 3 (May 2013), pp. 375-89. London: Catholic Record Society. A recently scholarly and extensively annotated biography has been published by Roger Scully S.J. She was born circa the early 1560s, and at some time in the early 1580s converted to the Roman Catholic Church along with her brother William and Roger Line, the man she married in February 1583. Both Roger Line and William Higham were disinherited for converting to the Roman Catholic Church and Alice Higham lost her dowry. Among Catholics, the married "Alice" became known as "Anne", presumably a name she took at her conversion. Roger Line and William Higham were arrested together while attending Mass, and were imprisoned and fined. While William Higham was released on surety in England, Roger Line was banished and went to Flanders.Dodwell, Martin. ''Anne Line: Shakespeare's Tragic Muse''. Brighton: The Book Guild, 2013. Line received a small allowance from the King of Spain, part of which he sent regularly to his wife until his death around 1594. Around the same time, John Gerard opened a house of refuge for hiding priests, and put the newly widowed Anne Line in charge of it, despite her chronic ill-health. For about three years Anne Line continued to run this house while Fr John Gerard was in prison. He was eventually transferred to the Tower of London where he was tortured, and from which he escaped. In his autobiography he writes:

After my escape from prison
nne Line The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions— north, east, south, and west—eac ...
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 (it was the Purification of Our Blessed Lady), she 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.

Arrest and execution

Line was arrested on 2 February 1601 when her house was raided during the feast of the Purification, also known as Candlemas. On this day a blessing of candles traditionally takes place before the Mass, and it was during this rite that the raiders burst in and made arrests. The priest, Fr Francis Page, managed to slip into a special hiding place prepared by Anne Line and afterwards to escape, but she was arrested, along with another gentlewoman called Margaret Gage. Gage was released on bail and later pardoned, but Line was sent to

Newgate Prison Newgate Prison was a prison at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey Street just inside the City of London, England, originally at the site of Newgate, a gate in the Roman London Wall. Built in the 12th century and demolished in 1904, t ...

. She was tried at the Sessions House on Old Bailey Lane on 26 February 1601 and was so weak from fever that she was carried to the trial in a chair. She told the court that, so far from regretting having concealed a priest, she only grieved that she "could not receive a thousand more."Quinn, Stanley
"St. Anne Line."
''The Catholic Encyclopedia''. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 25 December 2012 Sir John Popham, the judge, sentenced her to death for the felony of assisting a seminary priest. Line was hanged on 27 February 1601. She was executed immediately before two priests,

Roger Filcock Roger Filcock (alias Arthur Naylor) (died 27 February 1601, London) was an English Jesuit priest. He was beatified as a Catholic martyr by Pope John Paul II on 22 November 1987. Life Born at Sandwich, Kent, England, the son of Simon and Marg ...

and

Mark Barkworth Mark Barkworth (alias Mark Lambert) was a Catholic priest and martyr (c. 1572 – 1601). Born around 1572 at Searby, Lincolnshire, he studied for a time at Oxford, though no record remains of his stay there. Originally raised as a Protestant ...

, who received the more severe sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering. At the scaffold she repeated what she had said at her trial, declaring loudly to the bystanders: "I am sentenced to die for harbouring a Catholic priest, and so far I am 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."

Possible Shakespeare allusions

It has been argued that Shakespeare's poem '' The Phoenix and the Turtle'' was written shortly after her death to commemorate Anne and Roger Line, and its setting is the Catholic requiem held in secret for her. This theory was first suggested in the 1930s by Clara Longworth de Chambrun in her novel ''My Shakespeare, Rise!'', and is linked to claims that Shakespeare was a secret Catholic sympathiser.Longworth, Clara, ''My Shakespeare, Rise!'', London: 1935 The theory was revived and developed by John Finnis and Patrick Martin in 2003. It has been extended by Martin Dodwell to suggest that Shakespeare takes the fate of Anne and Roger Line to symbolize the rejection of Catholicism by England, and he then returns to this allegorical scheme in the play '' Cymbeline''. A series of other Shakespearean allusions to Anne Line have been proposed by various scholars (Colin Wilson, Gerard Kilroy) most notably in '' The Tempest'' and in Sonnet 74.

Veneration

Anne Line was beatified by

Pope Pius XI Pope Pius XI ( it, Pio XI), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in February 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City fro ...

on 15 December 1929. She was canonised by Pope Paul VI on 25 October 1970, as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Her feast day, along with all the other English Martyrs, is on 4 May. However, in the Catholic dioceses of England, she shares a feast day with fellow female martyr saints, Margaret Clitherow and

Margaret Ward Margaret Ward (c. 1550-30 August 1588), the "pearl of Tyburn", was an English Roman Catholic Church, Catholic martyr who was executed during the reign of Elizabeth I of England, Elizabeth I for assisting a Clergy, priest to escape from prison ...

on 30 August. The three were officially added to the Episcopal Church liturgical calendar with a feast day on 30 August. The St. Anne Line Catholic Junior School in Wickhay, Basildon, Essex, is named for her. So is the Catholic parish of St Anne Line, Great Dunmow, Essex, where local tradition has it that her family lived in the Clock house, Great Dunmow.

References

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