Armed dignitaries of Oxford lead the two prisoners to
a ditch near Balliol College. Crowds line the route to the stake. The
first prisoner, Nicholas Ridley, aged fifty-five, until recently bishop
of London wearing a black fur gown, velvet cap and a pair of slippers
walks cheerfully to his death. The second prisoner, a former bishop of
Worcester and Gloucester, walks behind him, wearing a shabby woollen
coat with a frayed cap and handkerchief on his head. ‘Are you there?’
Ridley calls to his dear friend. ‘Yes, I’m coming as quickly as I
can’, replies the seventy-five year old Hugh Latimer, affectionately
known as ‘old father Latimer’.
'Be of good courage’
At the stake, the two men embrace one another, kneel
to pray, and then listen to a fifteen-minute sermon by Dr. Smith on ‘Though
I give my body to be burnt and have not charity it profits me nothing’.
For the preacher, love to God equals belief in earning salvation by good
deeds and sacraments - especially the sacrament of the Mass in which the
priest offers Christ as a sacrifice for sins. The condemned men had
preached that acceptance with God comes through Christ alone who died on
the cross once-for-all to atone for sin – his death makes the
reoffering of Christ in the Mass unnecessary and blasphemous.
‘Repent and come home to the Church and you will
save your lives and your souls’, thunders the preacher. ‘May we
speak?’ asks Ridley. ‘Only if you renounce your erroneous opinions’,
replies Dr. Marshall, the vice-chancellor. ‘Well’, he answers, ‘so
long as breath is in my body I will never deny the Lord and his truth,
God’s will be done to me’. Death by burning is now inevitable.
Ridley gives clothing and other items to bystanders;
Latimer has nothing to give. ‘Shall I wear my belt?’ Ridley asks his
companion. ‘It will cause you more pain if you keep it, besides it
will do a poor man good’, answers Latimer. Ridley throws the belt into
the crowd and prays, ‘I beseech you Lord, take mercy upon this realm
of England, and deliver the land from all her enemies’.
The smith fastens a chain round the waists of both
men. The executioners tie bags of gunpowder around their necks and light
a bundle of sticks at their feet. Latimer says, ‘Be of good courage
master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this day light such a
candle by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out’.
As the faggots catch fire, Ridley says loudly, ‘Lord, into your hands
I commend my spirit; Lord, receive my spirit!’ Latimer prays, ‘O
Father of heaven, receive my soul’. Latimer burns quickly, but Ridley
lingers longer because the fire burns badly on his side of the stake.
Tears flowed from hundreds of faces as they watched
Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer bravely die on 16 October 1555 – 450
years ago this year. As the flames consumed their bodies, Thomas Cranmer,
archbishop of Canterbury and a chaplain of Henry VIII watched from his
prison window. His turn to die a martyr’s death came the following
year on 14 February 1556. These courageous men were just three of some
three hundred believers who died during the reign of Mary Tudor, English
Queen from 1553 until her death in 1558. A memorial in Oxford, near
Balliol College, commemorates the deaths of Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer.
The Lord’s Supper
Why did Mary burn Nicholas Ridley, a master of
Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Hugh Latimer, a fellow of Clare
College, Cambridge, at the stake? Because they rejected the belief that
the Roman priest offers Christ as a sacrifice for sin in the Mass. They
also refused to believe that the communion bread and wine become the
literal body and blood of Jesus Christ – the doctrine of
transubstantiation. Thomas Bilney (ordained as a priest in 1519) and
William Tyndale (translator of the first printed English New Testament
in 1526) were condemned for the great truth of justification by faith in
Christ alone. Ridley, Cranmer and Latimer were condemned for the
Reformed Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. These two doctrines became
literally the ‘burning issue’ in Mary’s reign.
Roman Catholicism was the only religion known to
Ridley, born about 1500 in Willimoteswick, Northumbria, and Latimer,
born about 1485 in Thurcastone, Leicestershire. Why did these men amend
their views? Ridley gradually changed through reading, alongside the
Bible, a republished book on the Lord’s Supper written by Ratramm, a 9th
century monk and highly respected theologian of the Roman church.
Ratramm argued that when Christ said, ‘this is my body … this is my
blood’ he was speaking figuratively; he did not mean that the bread
and wine become his real body and blood. Ridley developed this point in
his book, A Brief Declaration of the Lord’s Supper, published
about 1554. This book proves Marcus Loane’s assertion that Ridley was
‘the most able theologian of the English Reformation’.
A surprising confession
How did Latimer come to trust in Christ alone for
salvation? Gaining his Bachelor of Divinity in 1524, when he was
approaching forty, Latimer gave the customary lecture and used the
opportunity to attack the teaching of Philip Melanchthon, Martin Luther’s
fellow-worker. After the lecture one of his hearers, Thomas Bilney,
knocked on Latimer’s study door and said, ‘For the love of God, be
pleased to hear my confession’. ‘I’ve won an erring brother back’
thought Latimer who knew about Bilney’s Bible study group at the White
Horse Inn. Bilney told the story of his own futile efforts to find peace
with God until he read Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 1:15, Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. ‘I learnt
more by this confession than before in many years’, declared Latimer.
He was now a changed man and soon became known for his powerful gospel
preaching. In 1531, Latimer heard the sad news of Bilney’s burning in
Norwich.
Why remember the martyrs?
Wouldn’t it be better to forget the intolerance of
the 16th century? Surely, 21st century Catholicism
is radically different from 16th century Catholicism? Yes,
there are many differences, but Roman Catholicism, traditional and
charismatic, still teaches that the priest offers Christ for sin in the
Mass and that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ.
These doctrines contradict the Bible, God’s inerrant Word and are
therefore ‘another gospel’; ‘another gospel’ leads people to an
everlasting hell. Only the true gospel – salvation through faith in
Christ alone – will lead sinners to heaven.
Endnote
The Marcus Loane quote comes from his book, ‘Masters
of the English Reformation’, published in 1954 by the Church
Book Room Press to commemorate the fourth centenary of the burning of
the Marian martyrs. Loane became archbishop of Sydney in 1966, later
serving as primate of the Anglican Church in Australia. This appears to
be out of print but the works of Nicholas Ridley are available from