Fisher,

Fisher, JOHN, Bishop of Rochester, was born about 1469 at Beverley, Yorkshire, and in 1483 entered Michael-house, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1491, and master in 1497. In 1502 Margaret, Countess of Richmond (1443-1509), Henry VII.'s mother, was led by his virtues and learning to make him her chaplain and confessor; and in 1503 he was appointed first Lady Margaret professor of Divinity. Next year he was elected chancellor of the university, and consecrated to the see of Rochester. Thirty years he laboured diligently for the welfare of his diocese and university. A friend of More and Erasmus, a man who at forty-six began Greek, at fifty Hebrew, he zealously promoted the New Learning, and advocated reformation from within; as zealously both by voice and by pen he resisted the Lutheran schism. So early as June 1527 he pronounced firmly against the divorce of Henry VIII.; and having lent too ready an ear to the 'revelations' of the Holy Maid of Kent, Elizabeth Barton (q.v.), in March 1534 he was attainted of misprision of treason, and next month, for refusing the oath of succession, was sent with More to the Tower. In May 1535 the new pope, Paul III., made him a cardinal; Cromwell told it to Henry. 'Yea,' said the king, 'is he yet so lusty? Well, let the pope send him a hat, but I will so provide that he shall wear it on his shoulders, for head he shall have none to set it on.' He kept his word. On 17th June the old man, worn by sickness and ill-usage, was tried for denial of the king's supremacy; on the 22d, still cheerful and courageous, he was beheaded on Tower Hill. His head was set high on a pole upon London Bridge; his body, after lying stripped naked till nightfall, was buried first in a neighbouring graveyard, and later in the chapel, within the Tower, of St Peter ad Vincula. In 1886 he was beatified. See MORE (SIR THOMAS); and the Rev. T. E. Bridgett's Life of Blessed John Fisher (1888).