The
Right Reverend
Nicholas Ridley |
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Bishop of London
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Installed
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1550
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Term ended
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1553
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Predecessor
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Successor
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Edmund Bonner
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Other posts
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Bishop of Rochester (1547–1550)
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Personal details
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Born
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c. 1500
South Tynedale, Northumberland |
Died
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16 October 1555
Oxford, Oxfordshire |
Sainthood
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Feast day
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October 16
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Contents
- 1 Early years and advancement (c.1500–50)
- 2 Vestments controversy (1550–3)
- 3 Downfall (1553–5)
- 4 Death and legacy
- 5 See also
- 6 Notes
- 7 References
- 8 External links
Early years and advancement (c.1500–50)
Ridley came from a prominent family in Tynedale, Northumberland, and was born c.1500. He was the second son of Christopher Ridley, first cousin to Lancelot Ridley and grew up in Unthank Hall from the old House of Unthank located on the site of an ancient watch tower or pele tower. The boy was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle, and Pembroke College, Cambridge,[1] where he proceeded to Master of Arts in 1525.[2][3] Soon afterward he was ordained as a priest and went to the Sorbonne, in Paris, for further education. After returning to England around 1529, he became the senior proctor of Cambridge University in 1534. Around that time there was significant debate about the Pope's supremacy. Ridley was well versed on Biblical hermeneutics, and through his arguments the university came up with the following resolution: "That the Bishop of Rome had no more authority and jurisdiction derived to him from God, in this kingdom of England, than any other foreign bishop." He graduated B.D. in 1537 and was then appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, to serve as one of his chaplains. In April 1538, Cranmer made him vicar of Herne in Kent.In 1540-1, he was made one of the King's Chaplains, and was also presented with a prebendal stall in Canterbury Cathedral. He was also made Master of Pembroke College. In 1543 he was accused of heresy, but he was able to beat the charge. Cranmer had resolved to support the English Reformation by gradually replacing the old guard in his ecclesiastical province with men who followed the new thinking.[4] Ridley was made the Bishop of Rochester in 1547, and shortly after coming to office, directed that the altars in the churches of his diocese should be removed, and tables put in their place to celebrate the Lord's Supper. In 1548 he helped Cranmer compile the Book of Common Prayer and in 1549 he was one of the commissioners who investigated Bishops Stephen Gardiner and Edmund Bonner. He concurred that they should be removed. John Ponet took Ridley’s former position. Incumbent conservatives were uprooted and replaced with reformers.[5]
Vestments controversy (1550–3)
Ridley played a major part in the vestments controversy. John Hooper, having been exiled during King Henry's reign, returned to England in 1548 from the churches in Zürich that had been reformed by Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger in a highly iconoclastic fashion. When Hooper was invited to give a series of Lenten sermons before the king in February 1550, he spoke against Cranmer's 1549 ordinal whose oath mentioned "all saints" and required newly elected bishops and those attending the ordination ceremony to wear a cope and surplice. In Hooper's view, these requirements were vestiges of Judaism and Roman Catholicism, which had no biblical warrant for Christians since they were not used in the early Christian church.[6]Cranmer assigned Ridley to perform the consecration, and Ridley refused to do anything but follow the form of the ordinal as it had been prescribed by Parliament. Ridley, it seems likely, had some particular objection to Hooper. It has been suggested that Henrician exiles like Hooper, who had experienced some of the more radically reformed churches on the continent, were at odds with English clergy who had accepted and never left the established church. John Henry Primus also notes that on 24 July 1550, the day after receiving instructions for Hooper's unique consecration, the church of the Augustinian friars in London had been granted to Jan Laski for use as a Stranger church. This was to be a designated place of worship for Continental Protestant refugees, a church with forms and practices that had taken reforms much further than Ridley would have liked. This development—the use of a London church virtually outside Ridley's jurisdiction—was one that Hooper had had a hand in.[7]
The Privy Council reiterated its position, and Ridley responded in person, agreeing that vestments are indifferent but making a compelling argument that the monarch may require indifferent things without exception. The council became divided in opinion, and the issue dragged on for months without resolution. Hooper now insisted that vestments were not indifferent, since they obscured the priesthood of Christ by encouraging hypocrisy and superstition. Warwick disagreed, emphasising that the king must be obeyed in things indifferent, and he pointed to St Paul's concessions to Jewish traditions in the early church. Finally, an acrimonious debate with Ridley went against Hooper. Ridley's position centred on maintaining order and authority; not the vestments themselves, Hooper's primary concern.[6]
Hooper–Ridley debate
In response, Ridley rejected Hooper's insistence on biblical origins and countered Hooper's interpretations of his chosen biblical texts. He points out that many non-controversial practices are not mentioned or implied in scripture. Ridley denies that early church practices are normative for the present situation, and he links such primitivist arguments with the Anabaptists. Joking that Hooper's reference to Christ's nakedness on the cross is as insignificant as the clothing King Herod put Christ in and "a jolly argument" for the Adamites, Ridley does not dispute Hooper's main typological argument, but neither does he accept that vestments are necessarily or exclusively identified with Israel and the Roman church. On Hooper's point about the priesthood of all believers, Ridley says it does not follow from this doctrine that all Christians must wear the same clothes.
In closing, Hooper asks that the dispute be resolved by church authorities without looking to civil authorities for support—although the monarch was the head of both the church and the state. This hint of a plea for a separation of church and state would later be elaborated by Thomas Cartwright, but for Hooper, although the word of God was the highest authority, the state could still impose upon men's consciences (such as requiring them not to be Roman Catholic) when it had a biblical warrant. Moreover, Hooper himself addressed the civil magistrates, suggesting that the clergy supporting vestments were a threat to the state, and he declared his willingness to be martyred for his cause. Ridley, by contrast, responds with humour, calling this "a magnifical promise set forth with a stout style". He invites Hooper to agree that vestments are indifferent, not to condemn them as sinful, and then he will ordain him even if he wears street clothes to the ceremony.[6]
Outcome of the controversy
The weaknesses in Hooper's argument, Ridley's laconic and temperate rejoinder, and Ridley's offer of a compromise no doubt turned the council against Hooper's inflexible convictions when he did not accept it. Heinrich Bullinger, Pietro Martire Vermigli, and Martin Bucer, while agreeing with Hooper's views, ceased to support him for the pragmatic sake of unity and slower reform. Only Jan Laski remained a constant ally. Some time in mid-December 1550, Hooper was put under house arrest, during which time he wrote and published A godly Confession and protestacion of the Christian faith. Because of this publication, his persistent nonconformism, and violations of the terms of his house arrest, Hooper was placed in Thomas Cranmer's custody at Lambeth Palace for two weeks by the Privy Council on 13 January 1551. Hooper was then sent to Fleet Prison by the council, who made that decision on 27 January. On 15 February, Hooper submitted to consecration in vestments in a letter to Cranmer. He was consecrated Bishop of Gloucester on 8 March 1551, and shortly thereafter, preached before the king in vestments.[6]Downfall (1553–5)
On 2 February 1553 Cranmer was ordered to appoint John Knox as vicar of Allhallows Church in London placing him under the authority of Ridley. Knox returned to London in order to deliver a sermon before the king and the court during Lent after which he refused to take his assigned post.[9] That same year, Ridley pleaded with Edward VI to give some of his empty palaces over to the city to house homeless women and children. One such foundation was Bridewell Royal Hospital, which is today known as King Edward's School, Witley.[10] Edward VI became seriously ill from tuberculosis and in mid-June the councillors were told that he did not have long to live. They set to work to convince several judges to put on the throne Lady Jane Grey, Edward's cousin, instead of Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and a Roman Catholic. On 17 June 1553 the king made his will noting Jane would succeed him, contravening the Third Succession Act.[11] Ridley signed the letters patent giving the English throne to Lady Jane Grey. On 9 July 1553 he preached a sermon at St Paul's cross in which he affirmed that the princesses Mary and Elizabeth were bastards. By mid-July, there were serious provincial revolts in Mary’s favour and support for Jane in the council fell. As Mary was proclaimed queen, Ridley, Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, and others were imprisoned. Ridley was sent to the Tower of London.[12] Throughout February 1554 the political leaders of the supporters of Jane were executed, including Jane herself. After that, there was time to deal with the religious leaders of the English Reformation and so on 8 March 1554 the Privy Council ordered Cranmer, Ridley, and Hugh Latimer to be transferred to Bocardo prison in Oxford to await trial for heresy. The trial of Latimer and Ridley started shortly after Cranmer's with John Jewel acting as notary to Ridley. Their verdicts came almost immediately and they were to be burned at the stake.[13]Death and legacy
The sentence was carried out on 16 October 1555 in Oxford. Cranmer was taken to a tower to watch the proceedings. Ridley burned extremely slowly and suffered a great deal, through no fault of the executioner: Ridley's brother-in-law foolishly put more faggots on the pyre, in order to speed Ridley's death, while in fact they caused only Ridley's lower parts to burn. Latimer is supposed to have said to Ridley, "Be of good comfort, and play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." This is quoted in Acts and Monuments by John Foxe, who put the story of their deaths to effective use.[14] It is not, however, in the first edition of the book: there Foxe says that he can "learn from no man" what Ridley and Latimer said to each other.[15]A metal cross in a cobbled patch of road in Broad Street, Oxford, marks the site. Eventually Ridley and Latimer were seen as martyrs for their support of a Church of England independent from the Roman Catholic Church. Along with Thomas Cranmer, they are known as the Oxford Martyrs.
In the Victorian era, his death was commemorated by the Martyrs' Memorial, located near the site of his execution. As well as being a monument to the English Reformation, the memorial is even more so an interesting landmark of the 19th century Oxford Movement, propagated by John Keble, John Henry Newman and others. Profoundly alarmed at the Catholic realignment the movement was bringing into to the Church of England, low church Anglican clergy raised the funds for erecting the monument, with its highly anti-Roman Catholic inscription, as a public propaganda move. As a result the monument was built 300 years after the events it commemorates.[16]
See also
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Notes
References
- Bernard, G. W. (2005), The King's Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church, London: Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-12271-3.
- Heinze, Rudolph W. (1993), "'I pray God to grant that I may endure to the end': A New Look at the Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer", in Ayris, Paul; Selwyn, David, Thomas Cranmer: Churchman and Scholar, Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: The Boydell Press, ISBN 0-85115-549-9
- MacCulloch, Diarmaid (1996), Thomas Cranmer: A Life, London: Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-06688-0.
- Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, Brian Howard, eds. (2004), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, OCLC 56568095
- Reid, W. Stanford (1974), Trumpeter of God, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, ISBN 0-684-13782-8.
- Primus, John Henry (1960), The Vestments Controversy, J. H. Kok.
- Ridley, Jasper (1962), Thomas Cranmer, Oxford: Clarendon Press, OCLC 398369.
- Ridley, Jasper (1968), John Knox, Oxford: Clarendon Press, OCLC 251907110.
External links
- Keeping the Faith (BBC Radio 4), documentary on his story by the historian Jane Ridley, a descendent.
- Nicholas Ridley (martyr) at Find a Grave
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