Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/67

Fisher of misprision, to be imprisoned at the king's will, and to forfeit all his goods (Letters and Papers Henry VIII, vol. ii. No. 70). He was, however, ultimately permitted to compound for his offence by a payment of 300l. On 13 April he was summoned to Lambeth to take the oath of compliance with the Act of Succession. He expressed his willingness, as did Sir Thomas More, to take that portion of the oath which fixed the succession in the offspring of the king and Anne Boleyn, but, like More, he declined the oath in its entirety. Their objection is sufficiently intelligible when we consider that while one clause declared the offspring of Catherine illegitimate, another forbade 'faith, truth, and obedience' to any 'foreign authority or potentate.' The commissioners were evidently unwilling to proceed to extremities, and Cranmer advised that both Fisher and More should be held to have yielded sufficiently for the requirements of the case. Both, however, were ultimately committed to the Tower (Fisher on 16 April), and their fate now began to be regarded as sealed. On the 27th an inventory of the bishop's goods at Rochester was taken, which has recently been printed in 'Letters and Papers' (u. s. pp. 221-2). His library, which he had destined for St. John's College, and, according to Baily, the finest in Christendom, was seized at the same time. In his confinement, Fisher's advanced age and feeble health procured for him no relaxation of the rigorous treatment ordinarily extended to political offenders, and Lee, the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, who visited him, described him as 'nigh gone,' and his body as unable 'to bear the clothes on the back.' He was deprived of his books, and allowed only insufficient food, for which he was dependent on his brother Robert. It is to the credit of the society of St. John's College that they ventured under the circumstances to address to him a letter of condolence. With the passing of the Act of Supremacy (November 1554) Fisher's experiences as a political offender entered upon a third phase. Under the penalties attaching to two special clauses both Fisher and More were again attainted of misprision of treason, and the see of Rochester was declared vacant from 2 Jan. 1534-5. The bishop was thus deprived of all privileges attaching to his ecclesiastical dignity. On 7 May 1535 he was visited by Mr. Secretary Cromwell and others of the king's council. Cromwell read aloud to him the act, and Fisher intimated his inability to recognise the king as 'supreme head' of the church. A second act, whereby it was made high treason to deny the king's right to that title, was then read to him ; and Fisher's previous denial, extracted from him when uninformed as to the exact penalties attaching thereto, would appear to have constituted the sole evidence on which he was found guilty at his trial. It is probable, however, that Henry would still have hesitated to put Fisher to death had it not been for the step taken by the new Roman pontiff, Paul III, who on 20 May convened a consistory and created Fisher presbyter cardinal of St. Vitalis. Paul was at that time aiming at bringing about a reformation of the Roman church, and with this view was raising various ecclesiastics of admitted merit and character to the cardinalate. According to his own express statement, volunteered after Fisher's execution, he was ignorant of the extremely strained relations existing between the latter and the English monarch. His act, however, roused Henry to almost ungovernable fury. A messenger was forthwith despatched to Calais to forbid the bearer of the cardinal's hat from Rome from proceeding further, and Fisher's death was now resolved upon. With the design, apparently, of entrapping him into admissions which might afford a further justification of such a measure, two clerks of the council, Thomas Bedyl and Leighton, were sent to the Tower for the purpose of putting to Fisher thirty distinct questions in the presence of Walsingham, the lieutenant, and other witnesses. Fisher's replies, subscribed with his own hand, are still extant. He had already, in an informal manner, been apprised of the honour designed for him by Paul, and among other interrogatories he was now asked simply to repeat what he had said when he first received the intelligence. He replied that he had said, in the presence of two witnesses (whom he named), that 'yf the cardinal's hat were layed at his feete he wolde not stoupe to take it up, he did set so little by it' (, Life, ii. 412). According to the account preserved in Baily, however, Cromwell was the interrogator on this occasion, and the question was put hypothetically ; whereupon Fisher replied : 'If any such thing should happen, assure yourself I should improve that favour to the best advantage that I could, in assisting the holy catholic church of Christ, and in that respect I would receive it upon my knees' (p. 171). A third account is given by Sanders (see, Life, i. xv, ii. 178) ; but amid such conflicting statements it seems reasonable to attach the greatest weight to Fisher's own account upon oath. It is certain that his replies, if they did not further