Reformation, who paid all of the young man’s university expenses. After this uncle died in 1536, the way opened for Ridley to demonstrate Protestant tendencies.
As he came into prominence, honor after honor followed in quick
succession. When Ridley received his bachelor of divinity degree in 1537, Cranmer made him his chaplain. Cranmer had a high opinion of Ridley’s erudition and discretion, and the following year he installed him as vicar of Herne, Kent.
Gradually Ridley began to reject the faith of the Catholic Church. He opposed the Act of the Six Articles in 1539, which enumerated important doctrines and policies of the church. The following year came the
conferring of the degree of doctor of divinity and his election as master of Pembroke Hall, where he had begun his educational career. The canonry of Canterbury was given to him in 1541.
In 1543 the first open acts of ecclesiastical hostility against him began. Dr.
Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, preferred charges against him for nonconformist practices, and for teaching heresy. Ridley was acquitted, however, perhaps by the king’s favor. Before the death of Henry VIII, Ridley renounced the doctrine of transubstantiation, which teaches that the bread and wine are changed into the very body and blood of Christ.
His status with higher authorities continued to improve, and in 1545 circumstances enabled him to add the canonry of Westminster to the one of Canterbury, which he had received four years before.
His gradual deviation from the Catholic fold did not, however, lead to carelessness in the performance of his duties, nor to neglect of proper recognition of the established order. Ridley “stickled more for the ceremonies of the church than any of his brethren in the reign of Edward VI.” This was particularly true as he followed the liturgy of the developing Anglican Church. During Henry VIII’s last year he received a preferment with some liberality and became the bishop of Rochester.
The reign of Edward VI (1547-1553) gave Ridley an opportunity to step into even greater public prominence than he had before. His scholarly attainments fitted him eminently as a collaborator in compiling the First Prayer Book. Protestantism moved aggressively during Edward’s time.
Near the close of 1548, Ridley received the appointment of visitor to Cambridge, a position which privileged him to reorganize the university so as to ensure the firm entrenchment of Protestantism. This task began in May, 1549.
About this time occurred an episode of a type which was altogether too frequent in the history of the Beformation, and which the twentieth- century mind has difficulty in understanding, Ridley, in accord with Cranmer and others, pronounced death sentence on Joan of Bocher for an act considered detrimental to the religious beliefs of the period. Ridley knew definitely that she would be delivered to the secular power to meet death at the stake. It is true that “it was the dogma of the church in which Cranmer had been born and bred; from which even yet [he] had not wholly emancipated himself,” but such an argument is neither a justification of, nor an acquiescence in, such acts.
Ridley was hostile to Princess Mary because of her lack of zeal in religious reform. He preached against Mary’s succession at Paul’s Cross on
Sunday, July 9, after Edward’s death. Here he railed on her as a usurper, not on the grounds of the supposed illegality of her birth, but on her lack of dependability in matters of “truth, faith, and obedience.”
To this insult he added his support of Lady Jane Grey, who actually became the queen for nine days, to succeed Edward VI. Possibly in his support of Lady Jane Grey he was motivated by the duke of
Northumberland, who headed the movement to put her on the throne.
As soon as circumstances showed that Northumberland sponsored a lost cause, Ridley went to Queen Mary at Framlingham, fell at her feet, and asked for mercy. This he did not receive.
On July 20, 1553, he became a prisoner in the Tower, along with Latimer and Cranmer. This incarceration did not keep him or the others from working constantly in the defense of, and for the promulgation of, the reformed doctrines. They wrote many letters of counsel on doctrines and Christian living to the brethren outside, and these letters were effective in forwarding the Reformation.
From this date to his death, more than two years later, he remained under guard at the Tower, at Bocardo in Oxford, or in the home of a Mr. Irish.
The three prisoners were brought to trial in St. Mary’s at Oxford, April 14, 1554. Here, it is said, Ridley carried off the honors in presenting the Protestant view.
“He adheres to one line of argument — that of explaining all the authorities advanced against him of the spiritual presence only; and this he does with a knowledge of his subject, as well as a readiness in applying it, such as argue an extent of reading, a tenacity of memory, and a presence of mind, quite wonderful. Be they passages from Scriptures, from fathers, or from the canons of councils, with which he is plied, they appear to be the last things which he had examined, so that a false reading, or a false gloss, or a packed quotation, never escapes him: and either a minute
knowledge of an author’s text, or (what is often quite as certain a proof of scholarship) an accurate perception of the general spirit which influences him, enables him to wrest the weapon from the hands of his adversaries, and to turn it against themselves.” — J. J.
Blunt, A Sketch of the Beformation in England, pages 284,285.
Under the heresy laws passed by Parliament in 1555, Ridley, on September 30 of that year, received confirmation of his sentence on the capital charge of heresy. His formal degradation was scheduled for October 15.
His calm behavior at his execution also furthered, rather than hindered, the cause of the Reformation. His serene bearing and his encouragement to the aged Latimer, “Be of good cheer, brother, for God will either assuage the fury of the flame, or else strengthen us to abide it,” created a lasting impression that here were men who stood willing to die for a great ideal.
And Latimer’s reply, as they were being fastened to the stake, “We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out,” was a prophecy which lingered long in the minds of those who witnessed the ordeal October 15, 1555, in the ditch opposite Baliol College. Cranmer, whose sentence had been deferred for five more months, saw their martyrdom from his prison window.
A memorial near the scene of execution was built in 1841.