The New International Encyclopædia/Fisher, John (Churchman)

FISHER, John (c. 1459-1535). An English Churchman. He was born about 1459 at Beverley, Yorkshire, was educated at Michaelhouse, now incorporated with Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his master's degree in 1491, and became master of the college in 1497. The same year Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of Henry VII., made him her chaplain and confessor. In 1501 he was elected vice-chancellor of the university, and in 1503 became the first Lady Margaret professor of divinity. In 1504 he was chosen chancellor of the university, and the same year he was appointed Bishop of Rochester. He labored diligently for the welfare of both the Church and the universities. The Reformation of Luther found in him a strenuous opponent. He refused to declare the marriage between Henry VIII. and Catharine of Aragon—whose confessor he was—illegal, and thereby won the King's hostility. He opposed the suppression of the lesser monasteries in 1529, and the acknowledgment of the King as head of the Church in 1531. He was imprisoned, and refusing to take the oath affirming the legality of Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn, he was committed to the Tower, February 16, 1534. He was treated with great rigor, and his bishopric was taken from him. While thus situated the Pope, Paul III., as a recognition of faithful services and just merit, sent Fisher a cardinal's hat, in entire ignorance of his rupture with the King. The result was Fisher's complete ruin. He was accused of high treason, and, after a brief trial, was condemned and executed June 27, 1535. Fisher's Latin works were published at Würzburg in 1597; an edition of his English works by J. E. B. Mayor has been begun (vol. i., 1876). Consult his Life, by Lewis, edited by Turner (London, 1855), and by Bridgett (London, 1890); also Mason, Lectures on Colet, Fisher, and More (London, 1895).