Hugh Latimer

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For other people named Hugh Latimer, see Hugh Latimer (disambiguation).

The Right Reverend

Hugh Latimer
Bishop of Worcester
ChurchChurch of England
DioceseWorcester
In office1535–1539
PredecessorGirolamo Ghinucci
SuccessorJohn Bell
Other post(s)Chaplain to the Royal Household
Orders
Ordination15 July 1515
Consecration1535
Personal details
Born1487
Thurcaston, Leicestershire, Kingdom of England
Died16 October 1555 (aged 67-68)
Oxford, Oxfordshire, Kingdom of England
NationalityEnglish
DenominationAnglicanism
EducationUniversity of Cambridge
Alma materPeterhouse, Cambridge

Hugh Latimer (c. 1487 – 16 October 1555) was a

burned at the stake, becoming one of the three Oxford Martyrs of Anglicanism
.

Life

Latimer was born into a family of farmers in

Philipp Melanchthon.[4] Up to this time, Latimer described himself as "obstinate a papist as any was in England". A recent convert to the new teachings, Thomas Bilney heard his disputation and later came to him to give his confession.[5] Bilney's words had a great impact on Latimer and from that day forward he accepted the reformed doctrines.[6]

St Edward's Church, Cambridge

Latimer joined a group of reformers including Bilney and

Henry VIII's favour when he failed to expedite the annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In contrast, Latimer's reputation was in the ascendant as he took the lead among the reformers in Cambridge. During Advent in 1529, he preached his two "Sermons on the Card" at St Edward's Church.[7]

In 1535, he was appointed

Six Articles, with the result that he was forced to resign his bishopric and imprisoned in the Tower of London
(where he was again in 1546).

burned at the stake outside Balliol College, Oxford
.

Trial

On 14 April 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 did not 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."[9]

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.'[10]

Death

The burning of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, from John Foxe's Book of Martyrs (1563)

Latimer was burned at the stake along 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.[11]

The deaths of Latimer, Ridley and later

Martyrs' Memorial near the actual execution site, which is marked by a cross in Broad Street
, formerly the ditch outside the city's North Gate.

Hugh Latimer said, "It may come in my days, old as I am, or in my children's days, the saints shall be taken up to meet Christ in the air, and so shall come down with Him again" (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4).

Commemoration

Latimer and Nicholas Ridley are honoured with a

American Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.[12][13][14] The Latimer room in Clare College, Cambridge is named after him, as is Latimer Square in central Christchurch
, New Zealand.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Seven Sermons before Edward VI, 1549 (first sermon) edited by Edward Arber, 1869
  2. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16100. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  3. ^ a b "Latimer, Hugh (LTMR510H)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  4. ^ Chester 1978, pp. 2–9
  5. ^ Brown 1998, p. 58
  6. ^ Chester 1978, pp. 16–18
  7. ^ Chester 1978, pp. 34–39
  8. ^ Demaus, Robert. (1904) Hugh Latimer: a biography. Religious Tract Society, London, United Kingdom. Page 295
  9. ^ Robert Demaus, Hugh Latimer (1904), 506.
  10. ^ Robert Demaus, Hugh Latimer (1904), 508.
  11. ^ This is quoted in Actes and Monuments by John Foxe, but not in the first edition, in which he says that what Ridley and Latimer said to each other, "I can learn from no man." Tom Freeman posits that someone reported these words to Foxe, who seized upon them with alacrity. "Text, Lies and Microfilm," Sixteenth Century Journal XXX [1999], 44.
  12. ^ "The Calendar". The Church of England. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
  13. ISBN 978-1-64065-235-4
    .
  14. ^ "The Calendar". 16 October 2013. Archived from the original on 22 October 2019. Retrieved 16 October 2015.

References

This entry includes public domain text originally from the 1890 Pronouncing Edition of the Holy Bible (Biographical Sketches of the Translators and Reformers and other eminent biblical scholars).

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Hugh Latimer.
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Church of England titles
Preceded by Bishop of Worcester
1535–1539 		Succeeded by
John Bell
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