Nicholas Ridley

Nicholas Ridley (1500–1555) was an English scholar and Protestant reformer during the reign of Queen Mary I. As a leading figure in the English Reformation, he advocated for reforms in the Church of England, promoting ideas like justification by faith and the simplification of religious practices. Ridley served as Bishop of London and was instrumental in the development of the Book of Common Prayer. After the Catholic Queen Mary sought to restore Catholicism, Ridley was imprisoned and later martyred for his beliefs, becoming a symbol of religious resistance and one of the Anglican Church's early saints.