Hugh Latimer

What He Did

Hugh Latimer was a Cambridge-educated priest who came to Reformation convictions in his thirties — somewhat against his own earlier inclinations. Once persuaded, he became one of the most direct preachers in England.

His sermons did not flatter the powerful. He preached against the abuse of the poor by landlords. He preached against bishops who lived in palaces. He preached against the king when he thought the king was wrong. Henry VIII tolerated him for a time and then did not. Latimer resigned his bishopric in 1539 rather than affirm the Six Articles, which restored several Roman Catholic doctrines.

Under Edward VI, the boy king who succeeded Henry, Latimer was rehabilitated and became one of the most influential preachers in the Edwardian Reformation. He preached at court. He preached to the country. The Reformation in England, in significant part, ran on his voice.

Then Edward died. Mary Tudor took the throne. England turned, by royal command, back to Rome.

Latimer was an old man by now — nearly seventy. He could have fled. Many Reformers did flee, to Geneva and Strasbourg and Frankfurt. He stayed. He was arrested. He was imprisoned in the Tower. He was moved to Oxford, where he was tried for heresy alongside Bishop Nicholas Ridley and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.

The verdict was guilty. The sentence was death by fire.

On 16 October 1555, Latimer and Ridley were brought out to a stake outside Balliol College. They were chained back to back. The wood was piled around their feet. The torch was applied.

Ridley took longer to die than Latimer; the fire on his side burned poorly. Latimer is reported to have died quickly. The candle metaphor proved accurate. Within five years, Mary was dead, Elizabeth was on the throne, and the English Reformation was permanent.

Why It Belongs Here

Two phrases are doing the work of this profile, and both are worth slowing down on.

The first is play the man. It is sixteenth-century English for act like a man — do what a man is supposed to do in this moment. The Greek behind 1 Corinthians 16:13 in the King James Version uses the same phrase: quit you like men. Same instruction. Same root verb — andrizomai, to behave like a man. Latimer used it because every Englishman of his era recognized it as the biblical command.

The second is by God's grace. Notice that Latimer did not say we shall this day light such a candle. He said we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace. He was not boasting in his own martyrdom. He was attributing whatever good came of it to God. Even in the fire, he was theologically careful.

Most modern men read the “play the man” line as a tough-guy slogan. It is not. It is a pastoral instruction from one dying man to another, in a moment when both could have caved, that the right response was not heroism for its own sake but the steady fulfillment of a Christian man's duty: stand, witness, die well, trust the outcome to God.

“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity.” 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 (KJV)

Latimer was a Bible-saturated preacher. When he turned to Ridley in the fire, he was not making up a slogan. He was quoting Paul. He was reminding Ridley of the standing instruction every Christian man receives at his ordination, his marriage, his baptism, and his death.

Watch. Stand. Be a man. Be strong. With love.

Latimer obeyed all five at the stake.

Play the man. By God's grace.