Male & Female Christs, The Cross, The Stake, & The Tongue Screw.

In April, 1573, Maeyken Wens of Antwerp, was arrested because, though a woman, she refused to remain silent. She remained in prison until October and turned down offers of freedom in exchange for her silence. She “was sentenced to death by fire and, because of her ability to persuade others, she was compelled to go to her death in the public square wearing a tongue-screw, so that she could not preach or sing as she passed through the crowds on her way to the stake. She had two sons: a teenager named Adrian, and a toddler named Jan. On the fateful day of her execution, Adrian carried his younger brother on his shoulders so that they could see their mother one last time. As the fire was lit, Adrian fainted, and did not regain consciousness until his mother's body had been consumed by the fire. He later poked through the ashes, to see if he could find some remembrance of her. All he could find was the terrible tongue-screw, which had kept her from speaking of her faith during her final moments. But that is not the end of the story. Van Braght, who wrote the account one hundred years later, mentions that he himself knew Maeyken's grandchildren, and that they still had the tongue-screw, the final relic of their martyred grandmother. That instrument, devilishly designed to deny communication, had in reality become the means by which the story was being repeated. I like to think that somewhere, there are still parents passing that tongue-screw from hand to hand, telling once again the spellbinding story of Grandma Maeyken, who gave her life at the stake, but who could not be silenced even in death, because her story was still being faithfully passed from generation to generation.”
Read her letters.