Dr. Ridley, when at
his manor at Fulham, always invited her to his house, placed her at the
head of his table, and treated her like his own mother; he did the same
by Bonner's sister and other relatives; but when Dr. Ridley was under
persecution, Bonner pursued a conduct diametrically opposite, and would
have sacrificed Dr. Ridley's sister and her husband, Mr. George
Shipside, had not Providence delivered him by the means of Dr. Heath,
bishop of Worcester. Dr. Ridley was first in part converted by reading
Bertram's book on the sacrament, and by his conferences with archbishop
Cranmer and Peter Martyr. When Edward VI. was removed from the throne,
and the bloody Mary succeeded, bishop Ridley was immediately marked as
an object of slaughter. He was first sent to the Tower, and afterward,
at Oxford, was consigned to the common prison of Bocardo, with
archbishop Cranmer and Mr. Latimer. Being separated from them, he was
placed in the house of one Irish, where he remained till the day of his
martyrdom, from 1554, till October 16, 1555. It will easily be supposed
that the conversations of these chiefs of the martyrs were elaborate,
learned, and instructive. Such indeed they were, and equally beneficial
to all their spiritual comforts. Bishop Ridley's letters to various
Christian brethren in bonds in all parts, and his disputations with the
mitred enemies of Christ, alike prove the clearness of his head and the
integrity of his heart. In a letter to Mr. Grindal, (afterward
archbishop of Canterbury,) he mentions with affection those who had
preceded him in dying for the faith, and those who were expected to
suffer; he regrets that popery is re-established in its full
abomination, which he attributes to the wrath of God, made manifest in
return for the lukewarmness of the clergy and the people in justly
appreciating the blessed light of the reformation.

Bishop Latimer was the son of Hugh Latimer, of Turkelson, in
Leicestershire, a husbandman of repute, with whom he remained till he
was four years old. His parents, finding him of acute parts, gave him a
good education, and then sent him at fourteen to the university of
Cambridge, where he entered into the study of the school divinity of
that day, and was from principle a zealous observer of the Romish
superstitions of the time. In his oration when he commenced bachelor of
divinity, he inveighed against the reformer Melancthon, and openly
declaimed against good Mr. Stafford, divin