Anna Utenhoven

Jan Luyken's drawing of Utenhoven being buried alive at Vilvoorde in 1597. In the drawing, her head is still above the ground and the priest exhorts her to recant her faith while the executioner stands ready to completely cover her up upon her refusal.

Anna Utenhoven (sometimes Anneken van den Hove 1552 – 17 July 1597) was an Anabaptist woman in the Spanish Netherlands who was martyred for her faith. She was buried alive in 1597, the last person executed for heresy in the Low Countries. In July 1597, she was visited by Jesuits, who asked her to convert to Catholicism and be freed. She refused and also declined their offer of a further six months to make up her mind.

She was buried alive on 17 July, 1597. During the burial, she was given repeated chances to recant her faith and be freed, but she refused each time.

The execution was very unpopular in the Dutch Republic and inspired anger towards the regime. She is the subject of the 1598 poem De uytspraecke van Anna vyt den Hove by the Dutch poet Jacobus Viverius, which served as a rallying cry to the Dutch against the Spanish control of the Southern Netherlands.Viverius used Utenhoven's death to argue that the Spanish could not be negotiated with to prevent the Dutch Republic's Estates General from negotiating an end to the Dutch War of Independence.