The Story of Bishop Ridley
AMONG many other worthy histories and notable acts of such as have been martyred for the true Gospel of Christ, the tragical story of Dr Ridley I thought good to chronicle, and leave to perpetual memory; beseeching thee (gentle reader) with care and study well to peruse, diligently to consider, and deeply to print the same in thy breast, seeing him to be a man beautified with such excellent qualities, so ghostly inspired and godly learned, and now written doubtless in the Book of Life, with the blessed saints of the Almighty, crowned and throned amongst the glorious company of martyrs.
Descending of a stock right worshipful, he was born in Northumberlandshire; he learned his grammar with great dexterity in Newcastle, and was removed from thence to the University of Cambridge, where he in short time became so famous, that for his singular aptness he was called to be head of Pembroke-hall, and there made doctor of Divinity. Departing from thence, he travelled to Paris; at his return was made chaplain to King Henry the Eighth and promoted afterwards by him to the Bishopric of Rochester and so from thence translated to the see and Bishopric of London, in King Edward’s days.
He so occupied himself by preaching and teaching the true and wholesome doctrine of Christ, that never good child was more singularly loved of his dear parents, that he of his flock and diocese. Every holiday and Sunday he preached in some place or other, except he were letted by weighty affairs. To his sermons the people resorted, swarming about him like bees, coveting the sweet flowers and wholesome juice of the fruitful doctrine, which he did not only preach, but showed the same by his life, as a glittering lanthorn to the eyes and senses of the blind, in such pure order that his very enemies could not reprove him in any one jot.
He was well learned, his memory was great, and he of such reading withal, that of right he deserved to be comparable to the best of this our age, as can testify his notable works, pithy sermons, and disputations in both the Universities, as also his very adversaries, all which will say no less themselves.
Wise he was of counsel, deep of wit, and very politic in all his doings. In fine, he was such a prelate, and in all points so good, godly, and ghostly a man, that England may justly rue the loss of so worthy a treasure.
He was a man right comely and well proportioned, both in complexion and lineaments of the body. He took all things in good part, bearing no malice nor rancour in his heart, but straightways forgetting all injuries and offences done against him. He was very kind to his kinsfolk, and yet not bearing with them any thing otherwise than right would require, giving them always for a general rule, yea to his own brother and sister, that they, doing evil, should seek or look for nothing at his hand, but should be as strangers and aliens unto him; and they to be his brother and sister, which used honesty, and a godly trade of life.
He, using all kinds of ways to mortify himself, was given to much prayer and contemplation; for duly every morning, so soon as his apparel was done upon him, he went forthwith to his bed-chamber, and there, upon his knees, prayed the space of half an hour; which being done, immediately he went to his study, if there came no other business to interrupt him, where he continued till ten of the clock, and then came to the common prayer, daily used in his house. The prayers being done, he went to dinner, where he used little talk, except occasion by some had been ministered, and was it sober, discreet, and wise, and some times merry, as cause required.
The dinner done, which was not very long, he used to sit an hour or thereabouts, talking, or playing at the chess: that done, he returned to his study, and there would continue, except suitors or business abroad were occasion of the contrary, until five of the clock at night, and then would come to common prayer, as in the forenoon: which being finished, he went to supper, behaving himself there as at his dinner before. After supper recreating himself in playing at chess the space of an hour, he would return again to his study; continuing there till eleven of the clock at night, which was his common hour to go to bed, then saying his prayers upon his knees, as in the morning when he rose.
Being at his manor of Fulham, as divers times he used to be, he read daily a lecture to his family at the common prayer, beginning at the Acts of the Apostles, and so going through all the Epistles of St Paul, giving to every man that could read a New Testament, hiring them besides with money to learn by heart certain principal chapters but especially Acts xiii., reading also unto his household oftentimes Psalm ci., being marvellous careful over his family, that they might be a spectacle of all virtue and honesty to others. To be short, as he was godly and virtuous himself, so nothing but virtue and godliness reigned in his house, feeding them with the food of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Remaineth a word or two to be declared of his gentle nature and kindly pity in the usage of an old woman called Mrs Bonner, mother to Dr Bonner, sometime Bishop of London. Bishop Ridley, being at his manor of Fulham, always sent for this said Mrs Bonner, dwelling in a house adjoining to his house, to dinner and supper, saying, ‘Go for my mother Bonner’; who, coming, was ever placed in the chair at the table’s end, being so gently entreated, as though he had been born of her own body, being never displaced of her seat, although the King’s council had been present; saying, when any of them were there, as divers times they were, ‘By your lordship’s favour, this place of right and custom is for my mother Bonner.’
But how well he was recompensed for this his singular gentleness and pitiful piety after, at the hands of the said Dr Bonner, almost the least child that goeth by the ground can declare. For who afterward was more enemy to Ridley than Bonner? Who more went about to seek his destruction than he? recompensing this his gentleness with extreme cruelty; as well appeared by the strait handling of Ridley’s own sister, and George Shipside her husband. Whereas the gentleness of Ridley did suffer Bonner’s mother, sister, and other of his kindred, not only quietly to enjoy all that which they had of Bonner, but also entertained them in his house, showing much courtesy and friendship daily unto them, on the other side, Bishop Bonner, being restored again, currishly, without all order of law or honesty, by extort power wrested from the brother and sister of Bishop Ridley all the livings they had. And being not therewith satisfied, he sought to work the death of the foresaid Shipside, which had been brought to pass indeed, at what time he was prisoner at Oxford, had not God otherwise wrought his deliverance by means of Dr Heath, the Bishop of Worcester.
About the eighth of September, 1552, Dr Ridley, then Bishop of London, lying at his house at Hadham in Hertfordshire, went to visit the Lady Mary,[1] then lying at Hunsdon, two miles off; and was gently entertained of Sir Thomas Wharton, and other her officers, till it was almost eleven of the clock; about which time the said Lady Mary came forth into her chamber of presence, and then the said bishop there saluted her grace, and said, that he was come to do this duty to her grace. Then she thanked him for his pains, and, for a quarter of an hour, talked with him very pleasantly; said that she knew him in the court when he was chaplain to her father: and so dismissed him to dine with her officers.
After dinner was done, the bishop being called for by the said Lady Mary, resorted again to her grace, between whom this communication was. First the bishop beginneth in manner as followeth: ‘Madam, I came not only to do my duty, to see your grace, but also to offer myself to preach before you on Sunday, if it will please you to hear me.’
At this her countenance changed, and, after silence for a space, she answered thus:
Mary: ‘My lord, as for this last matter I pray you make the answer to it yourself.’
Bishop: ‘Madam, considering mine office and calling, I am bound in duty to make to your grace this offer, to preach before you.’
Mary: ‘Well, I pray you make the answer (as I have said) to this matter yourself; for you know the answer well enough. But if there be no remedy but I must make you answer, this shall be your answer; the door of the parish-church adjoining shall be open for you if you come, and ye may preach if you list; but neither I, nor any of mine, shall hear you.’
Bishop: ‘Madam, I trust you will not refuse God’s Word.’
Mary: ‘I cannot tell what ye call God’s Word: that is not God’s Word now, that was God’s Word in my father’s days.’
Bishop: ‘God’s Word is all one in all times; but hath been better understood and practised in some ages than in others.’
Mary: ‘You durst not, for your ears, have avouched that for God’s Word in my father’s days that now you do. And as for your new books, I thank God I never read any of them: I never did, nor ever will do.’
And after many bitter words against the form of religion then established, and against the government of the realm and the laws made in the young years of her brother (which, she said, she was not bound to obey till her brother came to perfect age, and then, she affirmed, she would obey them), she asked the bishop whether he were one of the council. He answered, ‘No.’ ‘You might well enough,’ said she, ‘as the council goeth now-a-days.’
And so she concluded with these words: ‘My lord, for your gentleness to come and see me, I thank you; but for your offering to preach before me, I thank you never a whit.’
Then the said bishop was brought by Sir Thomas Wharton to the place where they dined, and was desired to drink. And after he had drunk, he paused awhile, looking very sadly; and suddenly brake out into these words: ‘Surely I have done amiss.’ ‘Why so?’ quoth Sir Thomas Wharton. ‘For I have drunk,’ said he, ‘in that place where God’s Word offered hath been refused: whereas, if I had remembered my duty, I ought to have departed immediately, and to have shaken off the dust of my shoes for a testimony against this house.’ These words were by the said bishop spoken with such a vehemency, that some of the hearers afterwards confessed their hair to stand upright on their heads.
What time King Edward, by long sickness, began to appear more feeble and weak, a marriage was concluded between the Lord Guilford, son to the Duke of Northumberland, and the Lady Jane, the Duke of Suffolk’s daughter; whose mother, being then alive, was daughter to Mary, King Henry’s second sister, who first was married to the French King, and afterward to Charles, Duke of Suffolk. The King, waxing every day more sick than other, whereas indeed there seemed in him no hope of recovery, it was brought to pass by the consent not only of the nobility, but also of the chief lawyers of the realm, that the King, by his testament, did appoint the aforesaid Lady Jane to be inheritrix unto the crown of England, passing over his two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. The causes laid against Lady Mary were that it was feared she would marry with a stranger, and thereby entangle the crown: also that she would clean alter religion, bring in the Pope, to the utter destruction of the realm.
King Edward, not long after this, departed by the vehemency of his sickness, when he was sixteen years of age; with whom decayed in a manner the whole flourishing estate and honour of the English nation.
This Jane was forthwith published Queen at London, and in other cities where was any great resort. Between this young damsel and King Edward there was little difference in age, though in learning and knowledge of the tongues she was superior unto him. If her fortune had been as good as was her bringing up, joined with fineness of wit, undoubtedly she might have seemed comparable not only to your Aspasias, and Sempronias (to wit, the mother of the Gracchi), yea, to any other women beside, that deserved high praise for their singular learning; but also to the University-men, which have taken many degrees of the schools.
In the meantime, while these things were a-working at London, Mary, who had knowledge of her brother’s death, writeth to the lords of the council a letter wherein she claimeth the crown. ‘My lords, we require you, that of your allegiance which you owe to God and us, and to none other, forthwith, upon receipt hereof, do cause our right and title to the crown and government of this realm to be proclaimed in our city of London and other places.’
To this letter of the Lady Mary, the lords of the council made answer: ‘This is to advertise you, that forasmuch as our Sovereign Lady Queen Jane is invested and possessed with the just and right title in the imperial crown of this realm, not only by good order of old ancient laws of this realm, but also by our late Sovereign Lord’s letters patent, signed with his own hand, and sealed with the great seal of England: we must, therefore, as of most bounden duty and allegiance, assent unto her said grace, and to none other.’
This answer received, and the minds of the lords perceived, Lady Mary speedeth herself secretly away far off from the city, hoping chiefly upon the good will of the commons, and yet perchance not destitute altogether of the secret advertisements of some of the nobles. When the council heard of her sudden departure, and perceived her stoutness, and that all came not to pass as they supposed, they gathered speedily a power of men together, appointing an army, and first assigned that the Duke of Suffolk should take that enterprise in hand, and so have the leading of the band. But afterward, altering their minds, they thought it best to send forth the Duke of Northumberland, with certain other lords and gentlemen; and that the Duke of Suffolk should keep the Tower, where the Lord Guilford and the Lady Jane the same time were lodged.
Mary, in the meanwhile, tossed with much travail up and down, to work the surest way for her best advantage, withdrew herself into Norfolk and Suffolk, where she understood the Duke’s name to be had in much hatred for the service that had been done there of late under King Edward in subduing the rebels; and there, gathering to her such aid of the commons on every side as she might, kept herself close for a space within Framlingham Castle. To whom first of all resorted the Suffolk men; who, being always forward in promoting the proceedings of the Gospel, promised her their aid so that she would not attempt the alteration of the religion, which her brother King Edward had before established by laws and orders publicly enacted, and received by the consent of the whole realm. Unto this condition she eftsoons agreed. Thus Mary, being guarded with the power of the gospellers, did vanquish the duke, and all those that came against her.
In the mean time, God turned the hearts of the people to her, and against the council. Which after the council perceived, and that certain noblemen began to go the other way, they turned their song, and proclaimed for Queen the Lady Mary.
And so the Duke of Northumberland was left destitute, and forsaken at Cambridge with some of his sons, and a few others, who were arrested and brought to the Tower of London, as traitors to the crown.
Mary, when she saw all in quiet by means that her enemies were conquered, followed up the 3rd day of August to London, with the great rejoicing of many men, but with a greater fear of more, and yet with flattery peradventure most great of feigned hearts. Her first lodging she took at the Tower, where the aforesaid Lady Jane, with her husband the Lord Guilford were imprisoned; where they remained waiting her pleasure almost five months. Lady Jane Grey was executed on the 12th February, 1554. But the Duke, within a month after his coming to the Tower, being adjudged to death, was brought forth to the scaffold, and there beheaded.
Mary, besides hearing mass herself in the Tower, every day more and more discomforted the people, declaring herself to bear no good will to the present state of religion. Such whose consciences were joined to truth perceived already coals to be kindled, which after should be the destruction of many a true Christian man.
Divers bishops were removed, and others placed in their rooms; amongst whom was Dr Ridley. In the time of Queen Jane, he had made a sermon at Paul’s Cross, so commanded by the council; declaring there his mind to the people as touching the Lady Mary, alleging the inconveniences which might rise by receiving her to be their Queen; prophesying—as it were before, that which after came to pass—that she would bring in foreign power to reign over them, besides subverting all Christian religion: showing that there was no other hope of her to be conceived, but to disturb and overturn all that, which, with so great labours, had been confirmed and planted by her brother. Shortly after this sermon, Queen Mary was proclaimed; whereupon he, speedily repairing to Framlingham to salute the Queen, had such cold welcome there, that, being despoiled of all his dignities, he was sent back upon a lame halting horse to the Tower.
About the 10th of March, Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ridley, Bishop of London, and Hugh Latimer, Bishop also some time of Worcester, were conveyed as prisoners from the Tower to Windsor; and from thence to the University of Oxford, there to dispute with the divines and learned men of both the Universities, Oxford and Cambridge, about the presence, substance, and sacrifice of the sacrament. The articles whereupon they should dispute were these:
First, Whether the natural body of Christ be really in the sacrament after the words spoken by the priest, or no?
Secondly, Whether in the sacrament, after the words of consecration, any other substance do remain, than the substance of the body and blood of Christ?
Thirdly, Whether in the mass be a sacrifice propitiatory for the sins of the quick and the dead?
Dr Ridley answered without any delay, saying they were all false; and that they sprang out of a bitter and sour root. His answers were sharp, witty, and very learned. He was asked, whether he would dispute or no? He answered that as long as God gave him life, he should not only have his heart, but also his mouth and pen to defend His truth: but he required time and books. They said that he should dispute on Thursday, and till that time he should have books. Then gave they him the articles, and bade him write his mind of them that night.
The Report and Narration of Master Ridley, concerning the misordered Disputation had against him and his Fellow-Prisoners at Oxford.
I never yet, since I was born, saw anything handled more vainly or tumultuously, than the disputation which was with me in the schools at Oxford. Yea, verily, I could never have thought that it had been possible to have found amongst men recounted to be of knowledge and learning in this realm, any so brazen-faced and shameless, so disorderly and vainly to behave themselves, more like to stage-players in interludes to set forth a pageant, than to grave divines in schools to dispute. And no great marvel, seeing they which should have been moderators and overseers of others, and which should have given good examples in words and gravity, gave worst example, above all others, and did, as it were, blow the trump to the rest, to rave, roar, rage, and cry out. By reason whereof (good Christian reader) manifestly it may appear, that they never sought for any truth of verity, but only for the glory of the world, and their own bragging victory.
A great part of the time appointed for the disputations was vainly consumed in opprobrious checks and reviling taunts (with hissing and clapping of hands), to procure the people’s favour withal. All which things, when I with great grief of heart did behold, protesting openly, that such excessive and outrageous disorder was unseemly for those schools, and men of learning and gravity, and that they which were the doers and stirrers of such things, did nothing else but betray the slenderness of their cause, and their own vanities: I was so far off, by this my humble complaint, from doing any good at all, that I was enforced to hear such rebukes, checks, and taunts for my labour, as no person of any honesty, without blushing, could abide to hear the like spoken of a most vile varlet, against a most wretched ruffian.
At the first beginning of the disputation, when I should have confirmed mine answer to the first proposition in few words, afore I could make an end of my first probation, even the doctors themselves cried out, ‘He speaketh blasphemies! he speaketh blasphemies!’ And when I on my knees besought them, and that heartily, that they would vouchsafe to hear me to the end (whereat the prolocutor, being moved, cried out on high, ‘Let him read it! let him read it!’): yet, when I began to read again, there followed immediately such shouting, such a noise and tumult, such confusion of voices, crying, ‘Blasphemies! blasphemies!’ as I, to my remembrance, never heard or read the like; except it be that one, which was in the Acts of the Apostles, stirred up of Demetrius the silversmith, and others of his occupation, crying out against Paul, ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians! great is Diana of the Ephesians!’
The which cries and tumults of them against me so prevailed, that I was enforced to leave off the reading of my probations, although they were short.
After the disputation, the Friday following, which was the 20th of April, the commissioners sat in St Mary’s Church, and Dr Weston used particular dissuasions with every one of them, and would not suffer them to answer in any wise, but directly and peremptorily, as his words were, to say whether they would subscribe, or no. And first to the Archbishop of Canterbury, he said he was overcome in disputations. To whom the archbishop answered, that he was not suffered to oppose as he would, nor could answer as he was required, unless he would have brawled with them; so thick their reasons came one after another. Ever four or five did interrupt him, that he could not speak. Master Ridley and Master Latimer were asked what they would do: they replied, that they would stand to that they had said. Then were they all called together, and sentence read over them, that they were no members of the church: and therefore they, their fautors and patrons, were condemned as heretics.
After which, they answered again every one in his turn:
The Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘From this your judgment and sentence, I appeal to the just judgment of God Almighty; trusting to be present with Him in heaven, for Whose presence in the altar I am thus condemned.’
Dr Ridley: ‘Although I be not of your company, yet doubt I not but my name is written in another place, whither this sentence will send us sooner than we should by the course of nature have come.’
Master Latimer: ‘I thank God most heartily, that he hath prolonged my life to this end, that I may in this case glorify God by that kind of death.’
After the sentence pronounced, they were separated one from another; the archbishop was returned to Bocardo, Dr Ridley was carried to the sheriff’s house, Master Latimer to the bailiffs.
(A detailed account of the martyrdom of Bishop Ridley will be found in the next chapter.)