Anneken Heyndricks, in the Year 1571

In the year 1571, there was burned alive at Amsterdam in Holland, for the testimony of Jesus, a woman named Anneken Heyndricks, about fifty-three years old. She had come from Friesland to Amsterdam, and she was betrayed by her neighbor, the underbailiff, who entered her house to arrest her. She said to him with a meek spirit: "Neighbor Evert, what do you wish? If you are looking for me, you can easily find me; here I am at your service." This Judas the traitor said: [n1025-1] "Surrender, in the name of the king." And he bound Anneken with a rope and led her along with him, as Judas and the scribes had done with our predecessor, Jesus. When they had come to the Dam, Anneken said that they need not hesitate to look at her, since she was neither a harlot nor a thief, but a prisoner for the name of Jesus. After she arrived in prison, she thanked and praised her Lord and Creator with a humble heart, for counting her worthy to suffer for His name's sake. And she boldly confessed her faith before Pieter the bailiff and the other lords. They tormented her greatly with Baal's priests, to make her recant; but through the grace of God she valiantly resisted it. It greatly astonished the bailiff that she did not pay more regard to his spiritual lords, and he said to Anneken: "Sir Albert, our chaplain, is such a holy man that he ought to be set in fine gold; and you will not listen to him, but make sport of him; so you must die in your sins, you have strayed so far from God."

So they hung up this God-fearing old woman (who could neither read nor write) by her hands, as Christ had been, and by severe torture they sought to force from her the names of her fellow believers, for they thirsted for more innocent blood. But they got nothing from Anneken, so faithfully did God keep her lips. So the bailiff brought against her the charge of being infected with heresy: that about six years ago she had forsaken the mother, the holy church, and had adopted the cursed doctrine of the Mennonists, by whom she had been baptized on her faith, and that she had married a husband among them. Then she was sentenced to be burned alive. She thanked the lords, and said humbly that if she had wronged anyone, she asked them to forgive her. But the lords rose and made no reply. She was then tied on a ladder. Then she said to Evert the underbailiff, her neighbor: "You Judas, I have not deserved this, that I should be murdered in this way." And she asked him not to do this any more, or God would avenge it on him. Then Evert said angrily that he would bring all those who were of her mind into the same trouble. Then the other bailiff came once more with a priest, tormenting her and saying that if she did not renounce, she would go from this fire into the eternal. Then Anneken steadfastly said: "Though I am sentenced and condemned by you, what you say does not come from God; for I firmly trust in God, who will help me out of my distress and deliver me out of all my trouble." They did not let her speak any more, but filled her mouth with gunpowder, and carried her in this way from the city hall to the fire, into which they threw her alive. When this was done, the traitor Evert, the underbailiff, was seen to laugh, as though he thought he had done God an acceptable service. But the merciful God, who is the comfort of the pious, will give this faithful witness an everlasting reward for this brief and temporal tribulation, when her stopped mouth will be opened in fullness of joy, and these sad tears (for the truth's sake) will be wiped away, and she will be crowned with eternal joy with God in heaven.

About this, see a hymn in some old hymn books.

NOTE. We have obtained the sentence of death of this pious and valiant heroine of Jesus Christ, as it was read to her in court; also the record of her torture, which, as it appears, took place two weeks before her death. We shall place them here one after the other, as they were copied by the secretary from the criminal records of the city.