Nicholas Ridley
English bishop and theologian, master of Pembroke Hall in Cambridge, bishop of Rochester and then of London under Edward VI. He was burned for heresy at Oxford with Hugh Latimer on 16 October 1555.
John Foxe, who admired him, says that Ridley was born in Northumberland, studied at Cambridge and became head of Pembroke Hall there, served Henry VIII as chaplain and was made bishop of Rochester, and was moved to the see of London in the days of Edward VI (Foxe, Acts and Monuments vol. 7, p. 407).
Under Mary I of England he was burned as a heretic at Oxford on 16 October 1555 together with Hugh Latimer. At the stake, Foxe reports, he was told he might live if he recanted and refused, and he asked Lord Williams to plead with the queen for the poor tenants to whom he had granted leases as bishop. His fire was badly built and he died slowly (Foxe, Acts and Monuments vol. 7, pp. 547–551). 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.