Oxford Martyrs

Oxford Martyrs
The burning of Latimer and Ridley, from a book by John Foxe (1563).
Born	England
Died	1555, 1556, Oxford, England
Means of martyrdom	burned at the stake
Venerated in	Anglican Communion
Feast	October 16

The Oxford Martyrs were tried for heresy in 1555 and burnt at the stake in Oxford, England, for their religious beliefs and teachings.

The three martyrs were the Anglican bishops Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley and Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

History

The three were tried at University Church of St Mary the Virgin, the official church of the University of Oxford on the High Street. The men were imprisoned at the former Bocardo Prison near the still extant St Michael at the Northgate church (at the north gate of the city walls) in Cornmarket Street. The door of their cell is on display in the tower of the church.

The men were burnt at the stake just outside the city walls to the north, where Broad Street is now located. Latimer and Ridley were burnt on 16 October 1555. Cranmer was burnt five months later on 21 March 1556.

A small area cobbled with stones forming a cross in the centre of the road outside the front of Balliol College marks the site. The Victorian spire-like Martyrs' Memorial, at the south end of St Giles' nearby, commemorates the events. It is claimed that the scorch marks from the flames can still be seen on the doors of Balliol College (now rehung between the Front Quadrangle and Garden Quadrangle). ^[1]

Legacy

There has been an attempt to connect the Oxford Martyrs with the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice.^[2] It has been speculated that the rhyme refers to Queen Mary I of England blinding and executing the three Oxford "Martyrs".^[3] However, Ridley, Hugh Latimer, and Thomas Cranmer were burned, but not blinded.^[4] If the rhyme was made by Catholics, then their being "blind" could refer to their Protestantism.

Gallery

• 

  "Latimer before the Council", from an 1887 edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs illustrated by Kronheim.

• 

  "Death of Cranmer", from the same.

• 

  Stained glass window depicting Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, the Oxford Martyrs.

• 

  A memorial plaque, installed in 2008, to the Martyrs Reformation both Catholic and Protestant who lived in Oxfordshire, taught at the University of Oxford, or were brought to Oxford for execution. The memorial plaque is fixed on the northern wall of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford.

See also

• Christian martyrs
• Religion in the United Kingdom
• James Brooks, one of the papal sub-delegates in the Royal Commission for the trial

References

1. Fodor's Travel Guides
2. The Annotated Mother Goose, Bramhall House (1962)
3. Espoused by Albert Jack, Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes, Allen Lane (2008). ISBN 978-1-84614-144-7
4. The Annotated Mother Goose, Bramhall House (1962)

External links

• The Oxford Guide information
• The Oxford Martyrs article
• The martyrs' cross, Broad Street, Oxford