Vicar of Herne by David Martin
Nicholas Ridley was one of the Oxford
Martyrs to the Protestant cause and was burned at the stake along with Latimer
and a few weeks later Archbishop Cranmer. He was at the forefront of the Protestant Church reform and fell foul of
Mary’s Catholicism. His first appointment to the church by Cranmer was as Vicar
of Herne.
Lying in his Oxford prison cell, resigned to his fate;
His last night on earth, he could do nothing but wait.
In the name of the Protestant church he had made his
appeal.
Only to fall victim to Spanish Mary’s fanatical zeal.
That critical sermon he gave at St Paul’s was his
fatal mistake;
He was condemned on a charge of heresy to burn at the
stake.
Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London and sometime Vicar
of Herne,
a preacher who had a reputation for being caring but
stern.
Gone was that confidence and that noble bearing,
The result of a long confinement both cruel and
unsparing.
He had committed himself to the cause of Church reform,
And it landed him right in the middle of a Catholic
storm.
His ministry had been advanced by statute and charter,
Now he was to die along with Latimer as a Protestant
martyr.
Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London and sometime Vicar
of Herne,
His support for Lady Jane Grey left him nowhere to
turn.
His thoughts went back to where he was called to God’s
word,T
hat little village in Kent where his first sermons
were heard.
He managed a smile at those early years of spiritual
duty;
He remembered Herne as a parish of wealth and beauty.
How long ago it seemed were those visits to the palace
at Ford,
Where he would meet Archbishop Cranmer, his spiritual
Lord.
How they walked by the stream in the warm summer air,
And discussed the book that was named Common Prayer.
Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London and sometime Vicar
of Herne,
Could he have known then he was destined to burn?