Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/292

 and 1620. He was fond of mathematics, and in 1613 published ‘A Short Treatise of Magneticall Bodies and Motions,’ a small quarto printed by Nicholas Okes, at the Hand, near Holborn Bridge. He claims acquaintance with William Gilbert [q. v.], whom he commends as the greatest discoverer in magnetical science. After twenty-four chapters on the properties and description of the magnet, he discusses the variation of the compass and methods of estimating it in eight chapters, the inclinatory needle in eight others, and concludes with a chapter on finding the longitude, and one ‘of the matter of the Magneticall globe of the earth by the needle.’ He writes in a clear, scientific style, and in his preface gives a succinct account of the history of the subject. In 1617 he published ‘Animadversions on a late Work entitled Magnetical Advertisement.’ He died early in 1624, leaving no issue. His portrait, at the age of thirty-four, is engraved in his short treatise after the table of contents, and represents him as a man of middle height with a square-cut beard and curling hair. His coat-of-arms is blazoned within the frame.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 106; Ridlon's Ancient Ryedales, p. 425 (with portrait).] 

RIDLEY, NICHOLAS (1500?–1555), bishop of London, was second son of Christopher Ridley of Unthank Hall, near Willimoteswick, Northumberland, a descendant of an ancient border family. His paternal grandfather was also Nicholas Ridley; his mother, Anne, daughter of William Blenkinsop. Bishop Tunstal was a relative. One of his uncles, John Ridley, was father of Lancelot Ridley [q. v.]

Another uncle, Robert Ridley, long studied in Paris, proceeded D.D. at Cambridge in 1518, and is doubtfully said to have been at one time fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge. Robert Ridley was rector of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, from 1523; held successively three prebends in St. Paul's Cathedral; was rector of St. Edmund the King, London, from 1526, and of Fulham from 1529. He died in 1536. He was a man of learning and an opponent of the Reformation. Unpublished sermons by him, ‘for Sundays and holidays throughout the year,’ are in Cambridge University Library, MS. Dd. V. 27 (, Athenæ Cantabr. i. 57, 520).

After being educated at Newcastle-on-Tyne, Nicholas entered Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, about 1518, and distinguished himself by his proficiency in Greek. All the expenses of his education were defrayed by his uncle Robert. He graduated B.A. as fourth wrangler in 1521–2 (cf., p. 302). He declined in April 1524 an offer of a Skirlaw fellowship at University College, Oxford, and was soon afterwards elected fellow of Pembroke Hall. On proceeding M.A. in 1526, he pursued his studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, and at a later date attended lectures at the university of Louvain. By 1530 he had settled again at Cambridge, and was appointed junior treasurer of his college. His growing reputation as a scholar led to his being chosen to represent the university in 1533 in a disputation with two Oxford graduates, George Throckmorton and John Ashwell, on the questions whether the civil law were worthier than medicine, and whether a woman condemned to be hanged, whose life was twice preserved after being suspended from the gallows through the breaking of the rope, ought to be hanged a third time. Next year, in 1534, Ridley acted as proctor of the university, and paid many visits to London in order to protest against the threatened withdrawal of academic privileges. He helped to procure from the university an opinion condemnatory of the spiritual power of the pope; and his abilities were further recognised by his appointment to the office of chaplain to the university.

Till the death of his uncle Robert in 1536 he does not appear to have distinctly accepted the reformed faith; but he had read Bertram's book of the sacrament, and had discussed the questions at issue with Cranmer and Peter Martyr. In 1537, when he proceeded B.D., Archbishop Cranmer made him one of his chaplains, and on 13 April 1538 instituted him to the vicarage of Herne, Kent. Cranmer, who formed a high opinion of his learning and judgment, was largely influenced by him in the formation of his final religious opinions. But Ridley only gradually rejected the crucial doctrines of the old faith. Although he preached in 1539 against the Six Articles, he accepted at the time the doctrine of the corporeal presence, treated auricular confession as permissible, though unnecessary to salvation, and, by declining to marry, showed himself favourable to the principle of clerical celibacy.

In the last years of Henry VIII's reign preferment was bestowed on Ridley with some liberality. In 1540, when he took the degree of D.D., he was elected master of Pembroke Hall. He became one of the king's chaplains and canon of Canterbury in 1541, and canon of Westminster in 1545. About 1543 attempts were made, it is said, by Bishop Gardiner to convict him of nonconformist practices. His doubts about auri-