<P> 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, 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 . In 1539, he opposed Henry VIII's Six Articles, with the result that he was forced to resign his bishopric and imprisoned in the Tower of London (where he was again in 1546). </P> <P> During the reign of Henry's son Edward VI, he was restored to favour as the English church moved in a more Protestant direction, becoming court preacher until 1550 . He then served as chaplain to Katherine Duchess of Suffolk . However, when Edward VI's sister Mary I came to the throne, he was tried for his beliefs and teachings in Oxford and imprisoned . In October 1555 he was burned at the stake outside Balliol College, Oxford . </P> <P> On April 14, 1554, commissioners from the papal party (including Edmund Bonner and Stephen Gardiner) began an examination of Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer . Latimer, hardly able to sustain a debate at his age, responded to the council in writing . He argued that the doctrines of the real presence of Christ in the mass, transubstantiation, and the propitiatory merit of the mass were unbiblical . The commissioners tried to demonstrate that Latimer didn't share the same faith as eminent Fathers, to which Latimer replied, "I am of their faith when they say well...I have said, when they say well, and bring Scripture for them, I am of their faith; and further Augustine requireth not to be believed ." </P> <P> Latimer believed that the welfare of souls demanded he stand for the Protestant understanding of the gospel . The commissioners also understood that the debate involved the very message of salvation itself, by which souls would be saved or damned: </P>

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