Ridley, Nicholas (1500?-1555), an English bishop, was a martyr of the Protestant Reformation. Many regarded him as the master spirit among the English reformers. He helped compile the first Book of Common Prayer of 1549, and the Forty-Two Articles of Religion in 1553. The Forty-Two Articles later served as the basis for the Thirty-Nine Articles (see Thirty-Nine Articles ). Ridley supported Lady Jane Grey’s unsuccessful claim to the throne, and in 1553 Queen Mary imprisoned him in the Tower of London. In 1554 Ridley was condemned for heresy, and the following year he was burned at the stake at Oxford.
Ridley was born in Northumberland and graduated from Cambridge University. In 1547 he became bishop of Rochester, and in 1550, bishop of London. He died on Oct. 16, 1555.
