Bloody Mary burns the bishops
Latimer and Ridley at the stake in Oxford
Mary Tudor is the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, the woman her father Henry VIII set aside to marry Anne Boleyn. She is the first queen regnant of England, a devout Catholic who has waited her entire life to restore England to Rome, and she is determined to do it thoroughly.
She restores the heresy laws. The burnings begin in February 1555. Nearly three hundred Protestants are executed in less than four years — enough to earn her the name Bloody Mary that history will not let her escape, though the number is modest by continental standards and she herself does not personally order each one.
Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley are burned together at the stake in Oxford on October 16, 1555. Latimer is in his late seventies — a former royal chaplain, a preacher of fierce social conscience who attacked the wealthy as vigorously as the papist. Ridley is in his fifties, the former Bishop of London, a careful theologian who helped Cranmer develop the English prayer book.
They are chained back to back at the stake in Broad Street, Oxford — the site still marked today by a cross in the road and the Martyrs' Memorial around the corner.
Bags of gunpowder are hung around their necks as a mercy — intended to speed the death.
Latimer's words as the fire is lit have been repeated for four and a half centuries.
“Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as I trust shall never be put out.”
— Hugh Latimer, to Nicholas Ridley, October 16, 1555 AD
“Don't be afraid of the things which you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested; and you will have oppression for ten days. Be faithful to death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
We shall this day light such a candle as shall never be put out.
Latimer said this as the fire was being lit — as the flames that would kill him were starting. He spoke of lighting a candle while being burned.
The image is exactly right: the fire that was meant to extinguish them became the fire that lit something that could not be extinguished. Their deaths were read across England, recorded by John Foxe in his Book of Martyrs, and became one of the most powerful recruiting documents the Protestant cause ever had.
Mary burned nearly three hundred people in four years. She did not restore England to Rome. The fires she lit accomplished the opposite of what she intended.
The candle Latimer and Ridley lit that day is still burning.
What are you being asked to hold to, even now, even here, even as the fire is being lit? The holding matters more than you can see.