RIDLEY Nicholas (c. 1500-1555), bishop of London, and a martyr to the Reformation, was descended from a family long seated in Northumberland. The second son of Nicholas Ridley of Unthank near Willimoteswick in that county, he was born in the beginning of the 16th century. From the grammar school of Newcastle-upon-Tyne he was sent to Pembroke College, Cambridge, about 1518, being supported there by his uncle, Dr Robert Ridley, fellow of Queen’s College. At the university he specially distinguished himself in Greek. He proceeded B.A. 1522-23, became a fellow of his college, and, having taken orders, was sent about 1527 at the expense of his uncle to study on the Continent, first at the Sorbonne, Paris, and afterwards at Louvain. On his return to Cambridge he was in 1530 chosen under-treasurer of the university; and in 1534 he was senior proctor, when along with the vice-chancellor and the other proctor Richard Wilkes he signed the decree of the university against the jurisdiction of the pope in England. About this time he began to distinguish himself as an orator and disputant, and was chosen chaplain of the university, and “Magister Glo-meriae,”—an office in which most probably (for its duties have been much disputed) he had to instruct the university entrants in Latin. Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, after Ridley had proceeded B.D. in 1537, appointed him one of his chaplains, and in April 1538 collated him to the vicarage of Herne, Kent, where he began to preach the doctrines of the Reformation. In 1540, having commenced doctor of divinity, he was made king’s chaplain; and in the same year he was elected master of his college in Cambridge. Soon after he was appointed a canon of Canterbury. At the instigation of Bishop Gardiner he was accused in the ...