William Askew
Sir William Askew (c. 1490–1541) was a gentleman at the court of Henry VIII. He was one of the jurors in Anne Boleyn’s trial and the father of Anne Askew, who was tortured in the Tower of London. He was the eldest son of Sir William Askew of Stallingborough, Lincolnshire, and inherited his estate in 1510. He was knighted at Tournai in 1513 during the French campaign and joined Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. He served as Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby in 1529.
Askew married three times: first to Elizabeth Wrottesley of Wrottesley, Staffordshire, with whom he had two sons and three daughters; second to a daughter of Struxley or Streichley of Nottinghamshire; and third in 1522 to Elizabeth Hutton, daughter of John Hutton of Tudhoe and widow of Sir William Hansard of South Kelsey, Lincolnshire, with whom he had two more sons.
He was described as a welcome guest in Mary’s household in 1536. His daughter Anne married Thomas Kyme; she later rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation and was executed in 1546. William Askew died in 1541 and was buried at Stallingborough.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:27 (CET).