FISHER, John, Bishop of Rochester, was born at Beverley, in Yorkshire, in the year 1459, and educated in the collegiate church of that place. In 1484, he removed to Michael House in Cambridge, of which college he was elected master in the year 1495. Having applied himself to the study of divinity, he took orders; and becoming eminent as a divine, attracted the notice of Margaret, countess of Richmond, mother of Henry VII., who appointed him her chaplain and confessor. In 1501 he took the degree of doctor in divinity, and the same year was elected chancellor of the university. In the year following he was appointed Lady Margaret’s first professor of divinity in Cambridge; and in 1504 he was consecrated bishop of Rochester, a see which he would never resign, though he was offered both Ely and Lincoln. It is generally known that the foundation of the two colleges of Christ-Church and St John’s, Cambridge, was owing to Bishop Fisher’s persuasion and influence with the Countess of Richmond; he not only formed the design, but superintended the execution, and was appointed by the statutes visitor for life after the death of Lady Margaret. On the promulgation of Luther’s doctrine, the bishop was the first to enter the lists against him. Upon this occasion he exerted all his influence, and is generally supposed to have written the book on account of which Henry VIII. obtained the title of Defender of the Faith. Hitherto he had continued in favour with the king; but in 1527, having opposed his divorce, and denied his supremacy, the implacable Harry determined, and finally effected, his destruction. In 1533 the parliament found him guilty of misprision of treason, for concealing certain prophetic speeches of a fanatical impostor, Elizabeth Barton, otherwise called the Holy Maid of Kent, relative to the king’s death, and condemned him, with five others, to suffer loss of goods and imprisonment during his majesty’s pleasure; but he was subsequently released, upon paying a fine of L.300 for the king’s use.

King Henry having now espoused Anne Boleyn, his obsequious parliament took the oath of allegiance proper for the occasion. But in this oath the Bishop of Rochester steadily refused to join, alleging that his conscience had not been convinced that the king’s first marriage was against the law of God. For this refusal he was attainted by the parliament of 1534, and committed to the Tower, where he experienced cruel treatment, and would probably have died a natural death, had not the pope created him a cardinal. The king, having now determined on his destruction, sent Rich the solicitor-general, under the pretence of consulting the bishop upon a case of conscience, but really with a design to draw him into a conversation concerning the supremacy. The honest old bishop spoke his mind without suspicion or reserve; and an indictment and conviction of high treason were the consequence. He was beheaded at Tower Hill on the 22d of June 1535, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. Thus died this veteran prelate, who, notwithstanding his inflexible enmity to the Reformation, was undoubtedly a learned, pious, and honest man.

The Bishop of Rochester was the author of a number of works, of which the following is a list: 1. Assertionum Martini Luthen Confutatio ì 2. Defensio Assertionis Hen-rid Octavi de Septem Sacramentis; 3. Episcbla Responsa-ria Epistolae Luthen ; 4. Sacerdotii Defensio contra Lutherum ; 5. Pro Damnatione Luthen; 6. De Veritate Corporis et Sanguinis Christi in Eucharistia, adversus Oecom- poladium ; 7. De Unica Magdalena ; 8. Petrum fuisse Romae ; 9. Several Sermons, amongst which was one preached at the funeral of Henry VII., and another at that of the Countess of Richmond; 10. His opinion of King Henry the Eighth’s marriage, in a letter to '1. Wolsey, printed at the end of the second volume of Collier’s Ecclesiastical History. Most of the tracts above mentioned were collected and printed in one volume folio, at Wurtzburg in 1595. Fisher, as already stated, is supposed to have had a considerable share in the composition of Henry’s book, entitled Assertio septem Sacramentorum ; and in the Norfolk library of manuscripts belonging to the Royal Society there is an answer made by him to a book printed at London in 1530, concerning Henry’s marriage with Queen Catherine.
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