Oxfordshire, being made collector of the king's revenue within that borough and hundred, as also governor of the castle, with a fee of 66s. 7d. a year for exercising the office of steward and keeping the king's court within that manor. It was generally believed that the Duke of Northumberland, anticipating want of money to pay the forces which would be required in the event of his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey being proclaimed queen, 'privately conveyed a vast summe' to Fisher's keeping, which was hidden by him in Bishop's Itchington pool. After the attainder and execution of the duke in 1553, Fisher was questioned about the money by orders from the queen, but he sturdily refused to deliver it up, and even suffered his fingers to be pulled out of joint by the rack rather than discover it. Fisher represented Warwick in the second parliament of Mary, 1554, and in the first (1554), second (1555), and third (1557-8) of Philip and Mary (Lists of Members of Parliament, Official Return, pt. i. pp. 387, 391, 395, 398). In 1571, when Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, celebrated the order of St. Michael in the collegiate church of Warwick, the bailiff and burgesses of the borough were invited to attend the earl from the Priory, where he was Fisher's guest for six or seven days, and thence went in grand procession to the church. Immediately on the conclusion of the ceremony, at which he had been present, William Parr, marquis of Northampton, brother of Queen Catherine Parr, died suddenly at the Priory. The following year Elizabeth paid a sudden visit to the Priory, when returning to Warwick from Kenilworth, on Saturday night, 17 Aug., having dined with Fisher's son, Edward, at his house at Itchington on the Monday previously. After supping with Mrs. Fisher and her company, her majesty withdrew for the kind purpose of visiting 'the good man of the house . . . who at that time was grevously vexid with the gowt,' but with most gracious words she so 'comfortid him that forgetting, or rather counterfeyting, his payne,' he resolved 'in more haste than good spede to be on horseback the next tyme of her going abrode.' Though his resolution was put to the proof as soon as the following Monday, he actually accomplished it, attending the queen on her return to Kenilworth and riding in company with the Lord-treasurer Burghley, to whom, it would seem, he talked with more freedom than discretion (Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, i. 310, 318-19). Fisher died 12 Jan. 1576-7, and was buried at the upper end of the north aisle in St. Mary's Church, Warwick. His tomb, which bore the recumbent effigies of himself and his first wife Winifred, daughter of William Holt, probably perished in the great fire of 1694; it has been engraved by Hollar (Dugdale, p. 350). His son and heir, Edward Fisher, was thirty years old at the time of his father's death. His inheritance, Dugdale informs us, was then worth. 3,000l. a year, but he soon squandered it, and hastened his ruin by making a fraudulent conveyance to deceive Serjeant Puckering, to whom in 23 Elizabeth he sold the Priory and lands adjoining. The serjeant commenced a prosecution against him in the Star-chamber, and had not Leicester interposed, his fine would have been very severe. He ultimately consented that an act of parliament should be made to confirm the estate to Puckering, but being encumbered with debts he was committed prisoner to the Fleet, where he spent the rest of his life. He married Katherine, daughter of Sir Richard Longe, by whom he had issue, Thomas, John, Dorothy, and Katherine.
Fisher is sometimes mistaken for the John Fisher who compiled the 'Black Book of Warwick.' The latter was in all probability John Fisher, bailiff of Warwick, in 1565.
[Dugdale's Warwickshire (1656), pp. 364-5, and passim; Colvile's Worthies of Warwickshire, pp. 287-91 ; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547-80, Addenda, 1547-65 ; Visitation of Warwickshire, 1619, Harl. Soc. 20.]
FISHER, THOMAS (1781?–1836), antiquary, born at Rochester in or about 1781, was the younger of the two sons of Thomas Fisher, printer, bookseller, and alderman of that city. His father, who died on 29 Aug. 1786, was author of the 'Kentish Traveller's Companion,' 12mo, 1777, and, with Samuel Denne, F.S.A. [q.v.]m, and W. Shrubsole, of a useful little 'History of Rochester' published in 1772 (Gent. Mag. vol. lvi. pt. ii. pp. 908, 995, vol. lvii. pt. ii. p. 696). In 1786 Fisher entered the India House as an extra clerk, but in April 1816 was appointedsearcher of records, a post for which his knowledge and literary attainments well fitted him. From this situation he retired on a pension in June 1834, after having spent in different offices under the company altogether forty-six years. He died unmarried on 20 July 1836, in his sixty-fifth year, at his lodgings in Church Street, Stoke Newington, and was buried on the 26th in Bunhill Fields. From the time of his coming to London he had resided at Gloucester Terrace, Hoxton, in the parish of Shoreditch.
Before he left Rochester Fisher's talents as a draughtsman attracted the attention of
