Nicholas Ridley (martyr)

The Right Reverend Nicholas Ridley
Bishop of London and Westminster
Church	Church of England
Installed	1550
Term ended	1553
Predecessor	Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London
Successor	Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London
Other posts	Bishop of Rochester (1547–1550)
Personal details
Born	c. 1500 South Tynedale, Northumberland, England
Died	16 October 1555 Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Sainthood
Feast day	16 October

Nicholas Ridley (c. 1500–16 October 1555) was an English Bishop of London (the only bishop called "Bishop of London and Westminster"). Ridley was burned at the stake as one of the Oxford Martyrs during the Marian Persecutions for his teachings and his support of Lady Jane Grey. He is remembered with a commemoration in the calendar of saints in some parts of the Anglican Communion on 16 October.

Ridley came from a prominent family in Tynedale, Northumberland. 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. As a boy, Ridley was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle, and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he proceeded to Master of Arts in 1525. 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.

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