Dr. Nicholas Ridley was born in the beginning of the sixteenth century, at Willemonstwick, a town in Northumberland, near the borders of Scotland. His father was the third son of an ancient and respectable family who had long resided in that country. After being educated at Newcastle on Tyne, he was removed to Pembroke-hall, in Cambridge, about the year 1518, just at the time when Luther's opposition to the pope's bulls respecting indulgences began to excite general attention. He applied studiously to acquire the learning then most in repute, and, as his biographer states, 'his character at that time, appears to have been that of an ingenious, virtuous, zealous papist.'<br><br>After some years passed at Cambridge, Ridley visited France, and studied at the universities of Paris and Louvain. On his return (about 1529), he pursued his theological studies with much earnestness, in particular committing to memory the greater part of the epistles in the original Greek, and his mind appears to have been enlightened by the study of the scriptures. In 1534, he took an active part in the public discussions relative to the pope's supremacy, and, in 1537, archbishop Cranmer appointed him one of his chaplains.<br><br>In 1538, Ridley was collated to the vicarage of Herne, in Kent, where the people for many miles round crowded to attend his preaching; and he diligently instructed his charge in the doctrines of the gospel, although on the point of transubstantiation, he was not as yet fully emancipated from popish errors.