Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/65

Fisher in the surrounding county and elsewhere. The preaching was to be in the vernacular, which had at that period almost fallen into disuse in the pulpit. A succession of appointments now indicated the growing and widespread sense of his services. In 1504 he was elected to the chancellorship of the university, an office to which he was re-elected annually for ten years, and eventually for life. A papal bull (14 Oct. 1504) ratified his election to the see of Rochester, but for this preferment he was indebted solely to King Henry's favour and sense of his 'grete and singular virtue' (Funeral Sermon, ed. Hymers, p. 163). On 12 April 1505 Fisher was elected to the presidency of Queens' College, but held the office only for three years. His appointment to the post, it has been conjectured, was mainly with the design of providing him with a suitable residence during the time that he was superintending the erection of Christ's College, which was founded by the Lady Margaret under his auspices in 1505. On the death of Henry VII, Fisher preached the funeral sermon at St. Paul's, and his discourse was subsequently printed at the request of the king's mother. Three months later it devolved upon him to pay a like tribute to the memory of his august benefactress, a discourse which forms a memorable record of her virtues and good works. By a scheme drawn up during her lifetime it was proposed to dissolve an ancient hospital at Cambridge, that of the Brethren of St. John, and to found a college in its place. Fisher was shortly after nominated to attend the Lateran council in Rome (19 April 1512), and a sum of 500l. had been assigned for his expenses during 160 days ; but at the last moment it was decided that he should not be sent. This happened fortunately for the carrying out of the Lady Margaret's designs, for Fisher, by remaining in England, was enabled to defeat in some measure the efforts that were made to set aside her bequest ; and it was mainly through his strenuous exertions that St. John's College was eventually founded, its charter being given 9 April 1511. In connection with the college he himself subsequently founded four fellowships and two scholarships, besides lectureships in Greek and Hebrew. In 1513, on Wolsey's promotion to the see of Lincoln, Fisher, in the belief that one who stood so high in the royal favour would be better able to further the interests of the university, proposed to retire from the office of chancellor, advising that Wolsey should be elected in his place. The university acted upon his advice ; but Wolsey having declined the proffered honour, under the plea of being already overburdened with affairs of state, Fisher was once more appointed. Notwithstanding the deference which he showed to Wolsey on this occasion, there existed between him and the all-powerful minister a strongly antagonistic feeling, of which the true solution is probably indicated by Burnet when he says that Fisher being 'a man of strict life' 'hated him [Wolsey] for his vices' (Hist. of the Reformation, ed. Pocock, i. 52). At a council of the clergy held at Westminster in 1517, Fisher gave satisfactory proof that he was actuated by no spirit of adulation ; and in a remarkable speech, wherein he severely censured the greed for gain and the love of display and of court life which characterised many of the higher ecclesiastics of the realm, he was generally supposed to have glanced at the cardinal himself. In 1523 he opposed with no less courage, by a speech in convocation, Wolsey's great scheme for a subsidy in aid of the war with Flanders (, p. 72). Fisher's genuine attachment to learning is shown by the sympathy which he evinced with the new spirit of biblical criticism which had accompanied the Renaissance. It was mainly through his influence that Erasmus was induced to visit Cambridge, and the latter expressly attributes it to his powerful protection that the study of Greek was allowed to go on in the university without active molestation of the kind which it had to encounter at Oxford (Epist. vi. 2). Notwithstanding his advanced years, Fisher himself aspired to become a Greek scholar, and appears to have made some attainments in the language. On the other hand, his attachment to the papal cause remained unshaken, while his hostility to Luther and the Reformation was beyond question. He preached in the vernacular, before Wolsey and Warham, at Paul's. Cross, on the occasion of the burning of the reformer's writings in the churchyard (12 May 1521), a discourse which was severely handled by William Tyndale (, Life, i. 181-3). He replied to Luther's book against the papal bull in a treatise entitled 'A Confutation of the Luheran Assertion' (1523), and was supposed, although without foundation, to have been the real writer of the royal treatise against Luther, entitled 'Assertio septem Sacramentorum,' published in 1521. He again replied to Luther in his 'Defence of the Christian Priesthood' (1524), and again, for the third time, in his 'Defence' of Henry's treatise, in reply to the reformer's attack (1525). He also wrote against (Ecolampadius and Velenus. With advancing years his conservative