On this day in 1555 Latimer and Riley martyred in Oxford

On April 14, 1554, commissioners from the papal party (including Edmund Bonner and Stephen Gardiner) began an examination of Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer. Latimer, hardly able to sustain a debate at his age, responded to the council in writing. He argued that the doctrines of the real presence of Christ in the mass, transubstantiation, and the propitiatory merit of the mass were unbiblical. The commissioners tried to demonstrate that Latimer didn't share the same faith as eminent Fathers, to which Latimer replied, "I am of their faith when they say well... I have said, when they say well, and bring Scripture for them, I am of their faith; and further Augustine requireth not to be believed."^[6]

Latimer believed that the welfare of souls demanded he stand for the Protestant understanding of the gospel. The commissioners also understood that the debate involved the very message of salvation itself, by which souls would be saved or damned:

After the sentence had been pronounced, Latimer added, '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'; to which the prolocutor replied, 'If you go to heaven in this faith, then I will never come hither, as I am thus persuaded.'^[7]

Death[edit]

Burning of Latimer and Ridley, from John Foxe's book (1563)

Latimer was burned at the stake with Nicholas Ridley. He is quoted as having said to Ridley:

Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.

The deaths of Latimer, Ridley and later Cranmer – now known as the Oxford Martyrs – are commemorated in Oxford by the Victorian Martyrs' Memorial which is located near the actual execution site which is marked by a cross in Broad Street (then the ditch outside the city's North Gate).