The New Murrey and Blue blog

The preacher at St. Paul’s stated that the late King’s surviving issue were illegitimate. On this occasion, it wasn’t Dr. Ralph Shaa on 22nd June 1483 about Edward IV’s sons but Rt. Rev. Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London and Westminster, on 9 July 1553 about Henry VIII’s daughters, at which time Jane was proclaimed. As we know, Ridley (b.c.1500), together with Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, was burned in Oxford today in 1555. Like the earlier victim, Rowland Tayler, he had been a chaplain to Thomas Cranmer, his Archbishop. Furthermore, as a result of the Reformation in which all three had participated with gusto, they were part of the first generation of English clergy, not bound by clerical celibacy, to marry and have legitimate children. Bishop Ridley’s own notable descendants include these four, three of whom are closely related to each other and share his connections to Northumbria:

Rt. Hon Nicholas, Baron Ridley (1929-93), son of the 3rd Viscount Ridley, who was MP for Cirencester and Tewkesbury for more than half of his life and a Cabinet Minister for seven years. His maternal grandfather was the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Professor Jane Ridley (b.1953), daughter of the above and a modern historian at the University of Buckingham, who is a particular expert on the nineteenth century, who we cited in this post. Here, on the BBC’s “Keeping the faith”, she speaks about her ecclesiastical ancestor.
Jasper Ridley (1920-2004), the fellow historian who wrote the Bishop’s biography as well as those of Cranmer and Knox, is a more distant relation.

Matthew, 5th Viscount Ridley (b.1958) is Nicholas’ nephew and thus Jane’s cousin. He is a scientist, blogger, writer and businessman, whose team won Christmas University Challenge in 2015.

Nelion Ridley is an Essex-based brewer, as this article from a Wetherspoon’s newsletter also shows. “Bishop Nick” is a recent company, formed after Ridleys (1842) was bought out, producing “Heresy”, “1555”, “Ridley’s Rite”, “Martyr” and “Divine”.

Other interesting coincidences are emboldened.