Ridley, Nicholas

(c. 1500–55)

   Bishop and Martyr.

   Ridley was educated at the Universities of Cambridge, the Sorbonne and Louvain. In 1537 he was appointed chaplain to Archbishop cranmer and in 1547 he was consecrated Bishop of Rochester. He became Bishop of London in 1550. A convinced Protestant, he contributed to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. With the death of the young King Edward VI, he supported the claims of Lady Jane Grey to ensure the Protestant succession. When the Roman Catholic Queen Mary I succeeded, he was deprived of his see and excommunicated. In 1555 he was burnt at the stake for heresy at Oxford, together with Hugh latimer. These martyrdoms did much to turn the ordinary people of England against the Church of Rome.

   G.W. Bromiley, Nicholas Ridley: Scholar, Bishop, Theologian (1950);

   J.G. Ridley, Nicholas Ridley (1957).