Lancelot Ridley

Lancelot Ridley (died 1576), was an English clergyman, known as a theological writer, and rector of St James' Church, Stretham, Cambridgeshire.

He was educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and proceeded BA 1523–4, and commenced MA 1527, BD 1537, and DD 1540 or 1541. On the reorganisation of Canterbury Cathedral under the King's charter on 8 April 1541 he was constituted, on Thomas Cranmer's recommendation, one of the Six Preachers of the cathedral. With John Scory and Michael Drum, he made up the trio of representatives of the 'New Learning' among the original six. This was intentional on Cranmer's part, and Ridley found himself immediately confronted by conservative resistance to his views. He was dismissive of prayers said in foreign languages; Stephen Gardiner, who had been travelling, noted that this went further than some German reformers. Ridley took part in the disputation Cranmer set up on Trinity Sunday 1542, in Croydon, with the other Canterbury preachers and prebendaries.

Under Edward VI he was a defender of Protestantism, and Nicholas Ridley seems to have meditated his promotion to the chancellorship of St. Paul's Cathedral on the translation of Edmund Grindal to a bishopric in November 1551. He was collated to the rectory of Willingham, Cambridgeshire, on 10 June 1545, holding it until 1554.

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