Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, known as The Oxford Martyrs, were tried in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin and imprisoned in the Bocardo prison at the North Gate. Bishops Latimer and Ridley were burned at the stake on 16th October 1555 for denying the Roman Catholic dogma of Transubstantiation. Cranmer was burnt five months later on 21st March 1556.
A small granite area in the centre of the road outside the front of Balliol College marks the stake. The Victorian Martyr ‘s Memorial nearby, commemorates these events.
Cheap Dinner for Three Bishops.
“In a book kept by the Bailiffs of Oxford, at the time Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley were in custody there, the following entry occurs of the bill of fare for these highly distinguished prelates (prisoners) on the 1st October, 1554: – ‘Bread and ale 2d., oysters 1d.. butter 2d., eggs 2d., lyng* 8d., a piece of fresh salmon 10d., wine 3d., cheese and pears 2d.:’ the whole three dinners 2s 6d. What would some of our modern Right Rev. Fathers in God say to such fare?”
The Stamford Mercury, 19th March, 1847.
*Presumably and old spelling of ling, the fish.