Nicholas Ridley

English bishop, church reformer, and martyr

• Born: c. 1500
• Birthplace: Probably at Willimotiswick Castle, South Tynedale, Northumberland, England
• Died: October 16, 1555
• Place of death: Oxford, England

English bishop and Protestant reformer Nicholas Ridley worked closely with Archbishop Thomas Cranmer to consolidate the reformation of the Church of England. Through his theological writings and by his martyrdom under Queen Mary I, Ridley helped to further the development of the Anglican Church.

Early Life

Nicholas Ridley was born in Northumberland (now called Northumbria). He was the younger son of Christopher Ridley of Unthank Hall and Ann Blenkinsop. Nicholas had an older brother, Hugh, and two sisters, Elizabeth and Alice. The Ridley family had lived in the South Tynedale area, near the Scottish border, for three centuries prior to Nicholas’s birth. In addition to Willimotiswick Castle, the Ridley family possessed several family homes in northern England, including that of Nicholas’s father. When Nicholas was born, Tynedale was a dangerous and backward area, and the residents were subjected to frequent raids by the Scots as well as by numerous local bandits.

Nicholas’s uncle, Robert Ridley, a priest and conservative Humanist scholar at Cambridge University, most likely urged his nephew Nicholas to enter the church. Considering the role that Nicholas was to play in the Reformation of the English church, it is interesting to note that his uncle not only worked against the English translation of the Bible by William Tyndale but also publicly supported the condemnation of the German reformer Martin Luther in 1521. At Cambridge, moreover, Robert Ridley was a teacher who helped to shape the philosophical outlook of Thomas Cranmer, the future archbishop of Canterbury, who, together with Nicholas, would later help to move the English church into the Reformation.

Nicholas was first educated at Newcastle; in 1518, at his uncle Robert’s expense, he went to Cambridge to study at Pembroke Hall. There, in addition to his other studies, he read Greek and Latin.

In 1522, he received his bachelor’s degree. His uncle provided for his further study at Pembroke, where he read philosophy and theology. Nicholas was ordained a priest sometime prior to April, 1524, and he then received a fellowship at Pembroke Hall. In July, 1525, Nicholas received his master’s degree. At his uncle’s expense, Nicholas continued his studies at the Sorbonne in Paris and later at Louvain in Brabant. By 1530, Nicholas had returned to Cambridge, where in 1533 he was elected senior proctor of Cambridge University. There, he would soon be drawn into the work of the English Reformation.

Life’s Work

In order to facilitate his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, the English king Henry VIII appointed the reform-minded Thomas Cranmer as archbishop of Canterbury and primate of all England. The pope, unaware of Henry’s plan, agreed to Cranmer’s appointment in 1533. After Henry’s excommunication in the fall of 1533, Henry enlisted the help of the English universities to uphold his position that the pope had no ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England. In May, 1534, Cambridge University officially approved Henry VIII’s position on the Papacy. The pope was to be recognized only as the bishop of Rome, with no right to interfere in the ecclesiastical affairs of England. Along with his Cambridge colleagues, Nicholas Ridley approved of Henry’s break with Rome. This was not a hard decision, for by 1534, Ridley had become a convinced Protestant.

Beginning in 1534, the Oaths of Succession and Supremacy were required of the clergy and those in the political sphere. By these oaths, Henry consolidated his leadership in matters political and ecclesiastical. Henry’s reform of the church was somewhat along Lutheran lines and was conservative in nature. Monasteries were dissolved, and an English Bible based on Tyndale’s translation was published by royal order. A large number of relics and shrines of saints were destroyed or removed from churches and sold. Still, the traditional ordering of bishops, priests, and deacons continued. The traditional vestments, language (Latin), and even understanding of the mass (transubstantiation) were retained.

As the English Reformation progressed, so did Ridley’s ecclesiastical career. In 1537, he received the bachelor of divinity degree and became chaplain for Archbishop Cranmer. The next year, Cranmer appointed Ridley vicar of Herne, in Kent. By that time, Ridley had come to more radical Protestant views, holding that confession was not necessary for salvation and that the services of the church should be sung in English rather than Latin. By the end of 1546, Ridley had given up his belief in transubstantiation and in any form of corporal presence of Jesus Christ in the holy communion, coming to this position through his reading of the ninth century eucharistic controversy and the work of Ratramnus of Corbie. Shortly before his death, in his 1554 Treatise Against the Error of Transubstantiation , Ridley articulated his developed views on the holy communion in a definite Reformed manner, holding that holy communion is only a memorial of Christ’s suffering. It was specifically for these views on holy communion that he was burned at Oxford in 1555.

In 1539, the movement of the English Reformation was slowed with the publication of Henry VIII’s Six Articles, which among other things set forth transubstantiation as the official understanding of holy communion. The Catholic party within the English church was now in the ascendancy. Publicly preaching or teaching contrary to the articles was made a capital offense. The king allowed Archbishop Cranmer and those such as Ridley with Protestant leanings to continue their livings as long as they supported the Six Articles.

In July, 1540, Ridley became a doctor of divinity at Pembroke. Later that year, he was elected master of Pembroke. He soon received another honor: He was appointed a royal chaplain. In this capacity, he would have presided at a number of royal masses and heard the private confession of the king. Even though he had to fend off charges of heresy from the Catholic party, Ridley’s preferments continued. In April, 1541, Cranmer appointed him as a prebendary of Canterbury Cathedral, and in October, 1545, Ridley was appointed a prebendary of Westminster.

In 1547, Henry VIII died. Shortly before his death, Henry had turned the ecclesiastical tide back toward the Protestants. With the accession of Henry’s son Edward VI as king, the English Reformation picked up where it had left off. In that same year, Ridley was made bishop of Rochester, and in February, 1550, after the deposition of Bishop Bonner, Ridley was appointed bishop of London. A brief physical description of Ridley at this period was made by John Foxe in his 1563 Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes (often known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs ): “He was a man right comely and well proportioned in all points, both in complexion and lineaments of the body.” In terms of his personal life, Ridley was recognized by all sides as possessing a morally upright character. Furthermore, his generosity was widely acknowledged. While he defended the marriage of the clergy, Ridley never married.

Ridley influenced the development of both the 1548 and 1552 editions of the Book of Common Prayer . He had more impact on the production of the 1552 version, as by then he had persuaded Cranmer into coming to a more Reformed understanding of the eucharist. As bishop of London, Ridley rapidly spread Protestant practices throughout his diocese. He caused controversy by removing altars and replacing them with unadorned communion tables. He also wrote A Treatise on the Worship of Images , which condemned the use of religious images in churches.

On July 6, 1553, Edward VI died; shortly thereafter, the Catholic Mary Tudor became Queen Mary I . Later that month, Ridley and other Protestants were placed in prison in the Tower of London. In March, 1554, Ridley was sent to Oxford with Cranmer and Bishop Hugh Latimer for a disputation with Catholic theologians on the presence of Christ’s body in holy communion. They were imprisoned in the Bocardo jail, above Oxford’s North Gate, and eventually kept in separate quarters. Ridley and the others refused to give up their faith, despite numerous attempts to convert them. After being ceremonially degraded from their clerical status, Ridley and Latimer were burned together on October 16, 1555. They were led in chains outside what was then the city wall and were martyred on a spot that today is on Oxford’s Broad Street. As the fire was lit, Latimer reportedly said to Ridley: “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day by God’s grace light such a candle in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” Latimer, being a good deal older than Ridley, died quickly, but Ridley took some time to die, suffering greatly. He finally succumbed only when a bag of gunpowder, tied round his neck by his brother-in-law in an effort to shorten Ridley’s suffering, exploded.

Significance

The Protestant reforms for which Ridley worked and died were soon restored when Elizabeth I became queen in 1558. Supporters of the established Church of England and those dissenters who formed the Puritan party both looked on the Oxford martyrs as martyrs for their cause. Ridley’s legacy was remembered in different ways by his ecclesiastical heirs. His work with Cranmer in consolidating the Anglican Reformation was upheld within the established church, while his protest unto death against the Catholic party was upheld by the Puritan party.

The spot where Ridley died is marked today in the road with a black cross and a wall plaque nearby. Around the corner from this spot, on St. Giles Street, stands the 1841 Martyrs Memorial honoring Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. This monument was erected by the evangelical wing of the Church of England and caused embarrassment to the Anglo-Catholics of the Oxford Movement, who sought to defend the theological and liturgical connectedness of the Anglican Reformation with the Anglican Church’s Catholic past.

Despite the sixteenth and nineteenth century controversies over Ridley’s ecclesiastical legacy, he was able to rise above the barbarity of his native Tyndale to become both a respected scholar and an able and dedicated churchman. As a bishop and as a theologian, he played an important role in the development of the Anglican tradition.

Bibliography

Ayris, Paul, and David Selwyn, eds. Thomas Cranmer: Churchman and Scholar. Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell Press, 1999. Anthology of essays on all aspects of Cranmer’s thought and career, including his facility with the English language, his stint as ambassador, his revisions of ecclesiastical canon law, and the relationship of his ideas to those of Erasmus and Luther. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, index.

Foxe, John. The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe. 8 vols. New York: AMS Press, 1965. Popularly known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, this work, originally published in 1563, has been reprinted numerous times, frequently in abbreviated form. It provides a significant sixteenth century account of the events surrounding the English Reformation and the life and work of Bishop Ridley.

MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Thomas Cranmer. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996. A useful account of the development of the English Reformation, offering insight into Ridley’s collaboration with Cranmer in shaping the Anglican tradition as well as the social and political implications of the Reformation in England.

Marshall, Peter. Reformation England, 1480-1642. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Extremely detailed, meticulously supported argument that the English Reformation should be understood to begin in the late fifteenth century and to last well into the seventeenth century. Grapples with and explicates the specific meanings of Protestantism and Catholicism to the major players and to laypeople during the Renaissance. Includes bibliographic references and index.

Ridley, Glocester. The Life of Dr. Nicholas Ridley. London: 1763. A helpful source of information on Ridley’s family history by one of Ridley’s descendants. The volume offers particulars of Ridley’s personal development as well as details of his role as a church reformer.

Ridley, Jasper. Nicholas Ridley: A Biography. London: Longmans, Green, 1957. The most complete biography, also by one of Ridley’s descendants. Contains details of his personal and intellectual development. Treats his life and work primarily from a historical perspective yet offers insight into the religious dimensions of his thought. Includes a detailed bibliography of secondary sources.

Ridley, Nicholas. The Works of Nicholas Ridley. Edited by Henry Christmas. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1841. Reprint. New York: Johnson Reprint, 1968. A collection of Ridley’s major and minor writings, covering a wide range of theological and practical issues. Includes accounts of his disputation at Oxford and other correspondence demonstrating Ridley’s perspective on the development of the English Reformation.

Ryle, J. C. Five English Reformers. London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1960. A brief popular account of Ridley’s life and work from a decidedly Protestant perspective. Offers brief excerpts from Ridley’s writings plus a shortened version from Foxe’s account of Ridley’s death.

Shagan, Ethan H. Popular Politics and the English Reformation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Study of the way in which ordinary English subjects interpreted and reacted to Protestantism. Argues that religious history cannot be understood independently of political history, because commoners no less than royals understood religion and politics as utterly intertwined. Includes bibliographic references and index.