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On This Day in Church History

A real event from the story of the church on each calendar day, told with its setting and what came of it, and quoted word for word from sources published before 1931.

Today in church history · October 16

Latimer and Ridley: "Play the Man"

October 16, 1555 · Oxford, England

The setting

Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were English bishops and leaders of the English Reformation. Under the restored Catholic government of Mary I they were tried for heresy and condemned to be burned.

The story

On October 16, 1555, the two men were led out to the place of execution on the north side of the town, opposite Balliol College in Oxford. Ridley gave away his gown and small keepsakes to weeping friends, who pressed in for any scrap of his clothes. Latimer, poorly dressed and stripped to his shroud, stood upright and unafraid.

They were chained to the same stake. Ridley's brother-in-law tied bags of gunpowder around their necks to shorten the pain. Even then Ridley asked a nobleman to plead with the queen for some poor tenants whose leases were being refused.

When a lit bundle of sticks was laid at Ridley's feet, Latimer turned to him with words that became some of the most famous in English history. Latimer died quickly. Ridley suffered much longer, because the green wood burned badly beneath him.

“Be of good cheer, Ridley; and play the man. We shall this day, by God's grace, light up such a candle in England, as, I trust, will never be put out.”

Hugh Latimer, as recorded by Foxe

“Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit!”

Nicholas Ridley

What happened next

Foxe's account, first published in the 1560s, made Latimer's words known to generations of English readers. Under Elizabeth I, Mary's successor, the Church of England became firmly Protestant, and the two bishops were remembered as martyrs of the English Reformation.

Why it matters: Courage that rests on God's grace can light a candle for people who come centuries later.

Source: Fox's Book of Martyrs, ed. William Byron Forbush (1926), Chapter XVI. Public domain.

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