The martyrdoms of the Bishops Ridley and Latimer: both men are stripped to the waist, tied together to a stake and burnt alive. Etching by Taylor after D. Dodd.

Hugh Latimer (1485-1555): English Protestant who advanced the cause of the Reformation in England through his vigorous preaching and through the inspiration of his martyrdom. Because of his success in popularizing the idea of the Reformation, Latimer was immediately marked for proscription when the Catholic Mary Tudor ascended the throne. In 1553 he was arrested on charges of treason; taken to Oxford for trial, he was burned there with the Reformer Nicholas Ridley on 16.10. 1555. At the stake Latimer immortalized himself by exhorting his fellow victim Ridley with the words: " ... we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace in England as I trust shall never be put out".

Nicholas Ridley (1500-1555): Protestant martyr and one of the finest academic minds in the early English Reformation. Ridley came to be suspected of heresy when a Roman catholic reaction set in during the last years of the reign of King Henry VIII. In 1550 he became Bishop of London, replacing the deposed conservative Edmund Bonner. Under Ridley the see of London was made into a showpiece of Reformed England. In particular, he created an uproar with his campaign for the use of a plain table for communion instead of the altar. Ridley supported the claim of the Protestant Lady Jane Grey to be Edward VI's successor and hence was arrested in 1553 upon accession of the rightful heir, Queen Mary Tudor and burnt with Hugh Latimer, both of whom had refused to recant, on the stake in 1555

[London] : [J. Cooke], [1765?]

1 print : etching, with engraving ; image 16.7 x 10.7 cm

Martyrdoms of the bishops Ridley and Latimer, who were burnt together in one fire at Oxford. Engraved for the Revd Dr Southwell's new book of martyrs. Dodd delin. Taylor sculp.

Wellcome Collection 43109i