Hugh Latimer (c. 1487 – 16 October 1555) was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, and later Church of England chaplain to King Edward VI.

He attended the University of Cambridge from the age of 14,[2] where according to the Alumni Cantabrigienses he was a pupil of John Watson and probably a scholar of Peterhouse.

The subject of his disputation for the degree was a refutation of the new ideas of the Reformation emerging from the Continent, in particular the doctrines of Philipp Melanchthon.

[6] Latimer joined a group of reformers including Bilney and Robert Barnes that met regularly at the White Horse Tavern.

[7] In 1535, he was appointed Bishop of Worcester, in succession to an Italian absentee, and promoted reformed teachings and iconoclasm in his diocese.

On 22 May 1538, at the insistence of Cromwell,[8] he preached the final sermon before Franciscan Friar John Forest was burnt at the stake, in a fire said to have been fueled partly by a Welsh image of Saint Derfel.

On 14 April 1554, commissioners from the papal party (including Edmund Bonner and Stephen Gardiner) began an examination of Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer.

The commissioners also understood that the debate involved the very message of salvation itself, by which souls would be saved or damned: After the sentence had been pronounced, Latimer added, 'I thank God most heartily that He hath prolonged my life to this end, that I may in this case glorify God by that kind of death'; to which the prolocutor replied, 'If you go to heaven in this faith, then I will never come hither, as I am thus persuaded.