(Alice Driver, executed, November 1558)
A fortnight before the unfortunate woman’s passing
a defiant pair knelt on a bundle of kindling
and prayed until bailiffs insisted they have done.
Alice showed the same courage when they placed a chain
around her neck as when she stood in the dock
and scolded university cocks
who had caught her harboring a recusant.
She’d had her ears sliced from her head for calling Mary
Jezebel, but reminded them she’d done no evil.
She spoke her truth, being an honest man’s daughter
who could drive the plough harder than her father
and vowed to set her foot against the feet of fools,
that if she had a thousand lives she was steadfast
in faith as she perceived it to be.
She was bound to the stake for the sake of mere beliefs,
smiled through smoke as they piled on sheafs.
Niall McGrath is a twice Pushcart Prize nominated writer, most recently for 2026, from County Antrim, N Ireland. He has had work in The South Carolina Review, New Statesman and Quadrant (Australia) among other journals. He is Assistant Editor of Northern Ireland’s premier journal of the arts and culture, Fortnight.
