The Phoenix and the Turtle

Shakespeare wrote the poem about Anne Line and her husband, Roger Line.

According to Wikipedia, “Line was hanged on 27 February 1601. She was executed immediately before two priests, Roger Filcock and Mark Barkworth, who received the more severe sentence of hanging, drawing, and quartering.

“At the scaffold she repeated what she had said at her trial, declaring loudly to the bystanders: ‘I am sentenced to die for harbouring a Catholic priest, and so far I am from repenting for having so done, that I wish, with all my soul, that where I have entertained one, I could have entertained a thousand.’”

Obsequy means funeral rites.