Anne Dowriche of Anne du Bourg, a counselor in the Parliament of Paris who opposed using capital punishment for crimes of heresy. The third major event of the poem is a retelling of the bloody St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, an attack against Huguenots which began in Paris in 1572 and spread throughout France. Dowriche imagines the queen of France, the devoutly Catholic Catherine de Medici, fiercely proposing the infamous St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. While St. Bartholomew’s Massacre was a real series of events, Dowriche invented the detail that Catherine de Medici proposed the killings. Though Catherine de Medici is a villainous character
Anne Askew having also harboured Protestant beliefs. These ladies included the Queen's sister, Anne Parr, Katherine Willoughby, Anne Stanhope, and Anne Calthorpe. Other targets were Lady Denny and Lady Hertford, wives of evangelicals at court. Anne Askew underwent two "examinations" before she was finally burned at the stake for heresy. On 10 March 1545, the aldermen of London ordered for her to be detained under the Six Articles Act. Askew stood trial before the "quest", which was an official heresy hearing commission. She was then cross examined by the chancellor of the Bishop of London, Edmund Bonner. He ordered that she be