Hugh Latimer was an English clergyman, religious reformer, and martyr.
Background
He was born at Thurcaston, a hamlet in the Soar valley not far from Leicester, the youngest child of a large family. The exact date of his birth is a matter for speculation, but was almost certainly sometime in 1485. His father was "a husband man of right good estimation, " according to the martyrologist John Foxe; his mother died when he was only a child.
Education
After a grounding at the common schools, the boy was entered at Clare Hall, Cambridge, where he was elected to a fellowship in 1510.
Career
After ordination at Lincoln, he held the office of chaplain, keeper of the schools, and cross-bearer to the university. An ardent opponent of the New Divinity, he elected to attack Melanchthon's Rhetoric for his Bachelor of Divinity disputation, a dazzling performance that prompted Thomas Bilney to seek him out privately in an attempt to win him for the Reformed cause.
Teaching in the context of the confessional was a common enough means of nurturing the faith in the medieval Church, but in this celebrated case it was to have far-reaching effects as Hugh Latimer placed his great gifts as a teacher and preacher in the service of the New Learning. Almost at once he became a leader of the little group of Cambridge scholars who met regularly in the White Horse Inn. Latimer soon fell under suspicion of heresy. When he failed to comply with the Bishop of Ely's request to preach against Martin Luther, he was eventually haled before Cardinal Wolsey. It was an awkward encounter, but Latimer made such a good showing that the papal legate afforded him license to enter any pulpit in England, and his preaching career began in earnest.
In December 1529 he gave his celebrated Sermons on The Card at St. Edward's, addresses that proved so popular that the Protestant divine Thomas Becon later made reference to those days, declaring it as a widely held belief that "when Master Stafford read and Master Latimer preached, then was Cambridge blessed. His success was marked, and King Henry rewarded Latimer shortly afterwards by appointing him one of the chaplains royal. In January 1531 Latimer was presented to a country parish at West Kington, Wiltshire.
Now very much in sympathy with the Reformed cause, Latimer openly flouted authority in uncompromising denunciations of the current abuses surrounding the doctrines of images, pilgrimages, the saints, and purgatory. Yet his fortunes were soon to change, and with the appointment of Thomas Cranmer as archbishop of Canterbury, Latimer was given license to preach throughout the province of Canterbury, and in 1534 was appointed to preach before the king during Lent. In August 1535, Latimer was consecrated bishop of Worcester.
He was arrested while trying to flee the country and was carefully excluded from public life and preaching for the rest of the reign, spending some time in close confinement. On the death of Henry VIII in January 1547, Latimer was able once again to proclaim the Reformed Gospel from the pulpits of the land, and it is in fact from these years that most of his extant sermons date. But if he assisted wholeheartedly in the Reformation that followed (it was probably at this time that he wrote the homily "Against Strife and Contention"), his resignation from the bishopric placed Latimer in a rather special position. In effect he was a kind of freelance (if licensed) preacher, and in this role assumed very considerable importance as he inveighed against that sin of covetousness so rife amongst the noble lords of the Council who vied with one another to amass the wealth of the Church. These were most difficult days for the Reformers, but Latimer was as forthright and fearless as ever, whether he preached before the young King Edward VI and his scheming court or to the citizens of London who thronged to hear him at Paul's Cross. In 1551, despite his lack of status, he was appointed to membership of two commissions - that for coercing Anabaptists, and that for the revision of the canon law.
When at last the frail Edward died, to be succeeded by his sister "Mary the Catholic, " the Reformed cause inevitably suffered a dramatic reversal of fortune. At the time, Latimer was in Warwickshire and so had no hand in the treasonable nine-day-wonder of lady Jane Grey's unfortunate reign. Nevertheless the esteem in which he was held by the people forced the Council's hand, and although there was ample opportunity for flight, the old warrior submitted at once in the knowledge that "Smithfield [a locality in London where heretics were burned at the stake] had long groaned for him. " Events now followed apace - a dank stay in the Tower, the fatigue, worry, and ridicule of the Oxford trial, and at last, almost perhaps by way of relief, martyrdom by burning. From the days of his Cambridge conversion, Hugh Latimer had lived the life of a fearless minister of the Word, preaching the Reformed gospel of justification by faith in and out of season, and denouncing abuses wherever he found them throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom.
Religion
The passing of the Six Articles in 1539, however, brought about his resignation as bishop of Worcester, for although he still believed in the Roman doctrines of transubstantiation and communion in one kind, and in private masses, Latimer almost certainly had doubts by this time about the possibility of upholding clerical celibacy, inviolate vows of chastity, and enforced auricular confession by the law of God. He supported Reformation.
Views
Latimer believed that the welfare of souls demanded he stand for the Protestant understanding of the gospel.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Latimer's "diligence was so great, his preaching so mighty, the manner of his teaching so zealous, that he could not escape without enemies" (Foxe).