be arrested and sent to the Tower of London, where he arrived on 20 July 1553 ‘on a lame and halting horse.’ He was excepted from Queen Mary's amnesty, and Bonner was at once reinstated bishop of London. From the early days of his imprisonment Ridley by word of mouth and by his pen did all in his power to defend the reformed doctrines. In letters to his friends Hooper and Bradford he insisted on the need of resolutely standing by their faith. In the spring of 1554, after Wyatt's insurrection had spurred Queen Mary and her advisers into new activity against protestants, Ridley, with two fellow-prisoners, Hugh Latimer, formerly bishop of Worcester, and Thomas Cranmer, formerly archbishop of Canterbury, were taken to Oxford, so that their opinions might be the more thoroughly sifted in disputation with men of learning. Ridley was committed to the custody of the mayor of Oxford, Edmund Irish, whose house adjoined the Bocardo prison. On 17 April 1554 he was brought into the divinity school at Oxford, and, in the presence of a large, noisy, and actively hostile audience, was invited to defend his faith. His chief opponent was Dr. Richard Smith, canon of Christ Church, who was aided by eleven other divines, including Nicholas Harpsfield, Owen Oglethorpe, president of Magdalen College, Oxford, Dr. William Glyn, president of Queens' College, Cambridge, and Thomas Watson, master of St. John's College, Cambridge, afterwards bishop of Lincoln. Hugh Weston, rector of Lincoln College, acted as moderator, and at the conclusion of the day's debate declared Ridley a heretic. Three days later he was brought before royal commissioners sitting in St. Mary's Church, and, on refusing to recant, was excommunicated.
But Mary and her ministers were reluctant to press matters to extremities. The realm had not been formally reconciled to Rome, and the execution of the old penal laws against heresy had not been sanctioned by Mary's parliaments. Further opportunities of conforming to catholicism were therefore offered Ridley. The Spanish friar Soto was sent to argue with him, but Ridley remained obdurate. Late in 1554 Cardinal Pole absolved the kingdom, and next year parliament enacted the penal laws against heretics. On 30 Sept. 1555, in accordance with a new commission from Cardinal Pole, Bishops White, Brookes, and Holyman summoned Ridley to take his trial under the new statutes on the capital charge of heresy. He protested against the legal constitution of the tribunal, but acknowledged the truth of the chief charges which accused him of denying the presence of the natural body of Christ in the Eucharist after consecration, or the existence in the mass of a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead. He was directed to write out his opinions at length. Next day the court met in St. Mary's Church, and, after examining Ridley's written defence, the judges declared his language blasphemous and unfit to be recited. He was sentenced to the greater excommunication, and on 15 Oct. was formally degraded in the mayor's house by Bishop Brookes and Marshall, vice-chancellor of the university. Immediately after he was handed over to the mayor for punishment. He bore himself to the end with the utmost equanimity. On the eve of his execution he was especially cheerful, bidding the mayor's wife accompany him to his marriage in the morning, and declining the offer of his brother-in-law, George Shipside, to spend the night with him on the ground that he intended to enjoy a sound sleep. On 16 Oct. he and his fellow prisoner, Latimer, were marched to the stake, which was set up ‘on the north side of the town in the ditch over against Balliol College.’ Ridley was carefully dressed in a black gown, furred and faced with foins, ‘such as he was wont to wear being bishop.’ Richard Smith preached a short sermon, which Ridley offered to answer, but the vice-chancellor, Marshall, ordered him either to recant or be silent. Then Ridley, having distributed most of his clothes to the bystanders, was fastened to the stake by a chain of iron. His brother-in-law tied a bag of gunpowder about his neck, and, after Ridley had appealed to the queen's commissioner, Lord Williams of Thame, who was keeping order in the crowd, to protect some poor dependents of his, the faggots at his feet were lighted. Latimer bade him be of good cheer. ‘We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as, I trust, shall never be put out.’ Latimer at once succumbed to the fire, but Ridley suffered revolting torments before death released him. A martyrs' memorial was erected at Oxford in 1841, near the scene of the execution.
Foxe describes Ridley as ‘a man right comely and well proportioned in all points, both in complexion and lineaments of the body.’ In bearing he was singularly courteous. He was ‘given to much prayer and contemplation,’ and sought his only relaxation while he was bishop in an occasional game of chess. He was deeply read, especially in patristic learning, and Cranmer acknowledged him his superior in controversy. Bishop Brookes at his latest trial addressed to him the taunt: ‘Latimer leaneth to
