Latimer, Hugh (lăt`əmər), 1485?–1555, English bishop and Protestant martyr. Latimer was educated at Cambridge, entered the church, and came under the influence of the Reformation. He first became prominent by defending Henry VIII's divorce from Katharine of Aragón and in 1535 was made bishop of Worcester. His strong Protestant convictions led him to resign his see after the passage of Henry VIII's Six Articles (1539). He was kept in close confinement until the accession of Edward VI (1547), when he resumed preaching against the abuses of church and clergy in eloquent and vivid sermons. When the Roman Catholic Mary I came to the throne he declined to evade trial, refused to recant his Protestantism, and with Nicholas Ridley Ridley, Nicholas, c.1500–1555, English prelate, reformer, and Protestant martyr. In 1534, while a proctor of Cambridge, he signed the decree against the pope's supremacy in England.
..... Click the link for more information. was burned at the stake as a martyr.

Bibliography

See A. G. Chester, Hugh Latimer, Apostle to the English (1954).

Latimer, Hugh

(born c. 1485, Thurcaston, Leicestershire, Eng.—died Oct. 16, 1555, Oxford) English Protestant martyr. The son of a prosperous yeoman farmer, he was educated at the University of Cambridge, where he came into contact with the doctrines of Martin Luther and converted to Protestantism. He supported Henry VIII's attempt to obtain a marriage annulment but was later excommunicated for refusing to accept the existence of purgatory or the need to venerate saints. He made a complete submission and briefly served as bishop of Worcester (1535–39). Again imprisoned on suspicion of heresy, he was freed with the accession of Edward VI, during whose brief reign he preached extensively. On Mary I's accession and the subsequent reversion to Catholicism, he was arrested for treason and burned at the stake.