On this day in 1555.

[Regi Addictissimus]

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On this day in 1555, two of the Oxford Martyrs, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, were burned at the stake over their supposed "heretical" views of the Lord's Supper. They both were outspoken against the papist doctrine of Transubstantiation. Thomas Cranmer would be burned alive five months later on March 21, 1556. Below is a touching account of the end of Hugh Latimer's life that also mirrors Nicholas Ridley's.

"When he was asked whether he would abjure his principles, he only answered, “I thank God most heartily that he hath prolonged my life to this end, that I may in this case glorify God with this kind of death.” He was found guilty of heresy and sentenced to death, but the Romanists, to make sure that no claims for the irregularity of the trial should be charged upon them, set aside the sentence which had been passed at the first trial, and, by direction of cardinal Pole, another commission, consisting of Brookes, bishop of Gloucester; Holyman, bishop of Bristol; and White, bishop of Lincoln, was convened on the 7th of September, under the altar of St. Mary’s Church at Oxford, and the three “arch heretics” given a second hearing and condemned. Latimer was the last introduced. He was now eighty years old, “dressed in an old threadbare gown of Bristol frieze, a handkerchief on his head with a night-cap over it, and over that again another cap, with two broad flaps buttoned under the chin. A leather belt was round his waist, to which a Testament was attached; his spectacles, without a case, hung from his neck. So stood the greatest man, perhaps, then living in the world, a prisoner on his trial, waiting to be condemned to death by men professing to be ministers of God.… Latimer’s trial was the counterpart of Ridley’s (see Froude, vi, 356 sq.); the charge was the same (on the sacrament), and the result was the same, except that the stronger intellect vexed itself less with nice distinctions. Bread was bread, said Latimer, and wine was wine; there was a change in the sacrament, it was true, but the change was not in the nature, but the dignity” (Froude, vi, 359 sq.). Every effort was made to induce a recantation, but Latimer, like Ridley, remained firm, and sentence was pronounced upon them as heretics obstinate and incurable, and on the 16th of October, 1555, both Latimer and Ridley were led to the stake and burnt, outside the north wall of the town, a short stone’s throw from the southward corner of Baliol College, and about the same distance from Brocardo prison, where Cranmer still lingered. The last words of Latimer were addressed to his companion, and are characteristic of our subject: “Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man: we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” Gunpowder had been fastened about his body to hasten his death; it took fire with the first flame, and he died immediately."

Worman, J. H. (1882). Latimer, Hugh. In Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (Vol. 5, p. 261). New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers.



I will update this post with some primary source material from Latimer and Ridley later. I have to run for now.