Hugh Latimer
English preacher, bishop of Worcester under Henry VIII and court preacher under Edward VI. He was burned for heresy at Oxford with Nicholas Ridley on 16 October 1555.
What follows is John Foxe’s account, written by an admirer. Henry VIII made Latimer bishop of Worcester. When the Six Articles came in he resigned the see, and he was later held in the Tower until Edward VI became king. Under Edward he preached again, often before the king and the court (Foxe, Acts and Monuments vol. 7, pp. 461–463).
Under Mary I of England he was burned as a heretic at Oxford on 16 October 1555, chained to the same stake as Nicholas Ridley. Foxe gives him the words to Ridley about lighting a candle in England that would never be put out, and says that he died quickly (Foxe, Acts and Monuments vol. 7, pp. 547–550). See the Burning of Protestants under Mary I.
In the timeline
- 1555 to 1558, firm dateThe Burning of Protestants under Mary I
Under Mary I, Parliament returns England to obedience to Rome and revives the medieval heresy laws. From 1555 to 1558 Protestants who will not recant are burned, among them the bishops Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer. John Foxe’s book records them as martyrs.