Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/68

Fisher him, in no way served to soften Henry's resentment, and he was forthwith brought to trial on the charge that he did, '7 May 27 Hen. VIII, openly declare in English, "The king our sovereign lord is not supreme head in earth of the church of England"' (Letters and Papers Henry VIII, vol. viii. No. 886). The jury found one bill against Fisher, and presented another, and were then discharged. On 17 June he was brought to the bar at Westminster, pronounced guilty, and sentenced to die a traitor's death at Tyburn. But on the 21st Walsingham received a writ in which the sentence was changed to one of beheading (instead of the ordinary hanging, disembowelling, and quartering), and Tower Hill was assigned as the place of execution, instead of Tyburn. The accounts of Fisher's execution, which took place 22 June 1535, and of the incidents which immediately preceded and succeeded that tragical event, are conflicting, and it seems that on certain points there was a confusion in the traditions preserved of the details with those which belonged to More's execution, which took place just a fortnight later. (The incidents recorded by Baily are partly taken from the account by Maurice Channey ; see authorities at end of art.) All the narratives, however, agree in representing Fisher as meeting death with a calmness, dignity, and pious resignation which greatly impressed the beholders. His head was exposed on London Bridge ; his body left on the scaffold until the evening, and then conveyed to the churchyard of Allhallows Barking, where it was interred without ceremony. A fortnight later it was removed to the church of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower, and there laid by the side of the body of his friend Sir Thomas More, who, but a short time before his own career was similarly terminated, had left it on record as his deliberate conviction that there was 'in this realm no one man in wisdom, learning, and long approved vertue together, mete to be matched and compared with him' (, English Works, p. 1437).

The intelligence of Fisher's fate was received with feelings approaching to consternation not only by the nation but by Europe at large. Paul III declared that he would sooner have had his two grandsons slain, and in a letter (26 July) to Francis I says that he 'is compelled, at the unanimous sollicitation of the cardinals, to declare Henry deprived of his kingdom and of the royal dignity' (Letters and Papers Henry VIII, vol. viii. No. 1117). As a theologian Fisher was to some extent an eclectic; and, according to Volusenus (De Tranquillitate Animi, ed. 1751, p. 280), inclined, on the already agitated question of election and free will, to something like a Calvinistic theory. The same writer tells us (ib. p. 250) that he also frequently expressed his high admiration of the expositions of some of the Lutheran divines, and only wondered how they could proceed from heretics. Professor John E. B. Mayor observes : 'If bonus textuarius is indeed bonus theologus, Bishop Fisher may rank high among divines. He is at home in every part of scripture, no less than among the fathers. If the matter of his teaching is now for the most part trite, the form is always individual and life-like. Much of it is in the best sense catholic, and might be illustrated by parallel passages from Luther and our own reformers' (pref. to English Works, p. xxii). The best portrait of Fisher is the drawing by Hans Holbein in the possession of the queen. Another, by the same artist, also of considerable merit, is in the hall of the master's lodge at St. John's College. A third (supposed to have been taken shortly before his execution) is in the college hall. There are others at Queens', Christ's, and Trinity Colleges. In the combination room of St. John's there are also three different engravings. A collected edition of Fisher's Latin works, one volume folio, was printed at Würzburg in 1597 by Fleischmann. This contains : 1. 'The Assertio septem Sacramentorum' of Henry VIII against Luther, which finds a place in the collection as being 'Roffensis tamen hortatu et studio edita.' 2. Fisher's 'Defence' of the 'Assertio,' 1523. 3. His treatise in reply to Luther, 'De Babylonica Captivitate,' 1523. 4. His 'Confutatio Assertionis Lutheranæ,' first printed at Antwerp, 1523. 5. 'De Eucharistia contra Joan. Œcolampadium libri quinque,' first printed 1527. 6. 'Sacri Sacerdotii Defensio contra Lutherum.' 7. 'Convulsio calumniarum Vlrichi Veleni Minhoniensis, quibus Petrum nunquam Romæ fuisse cauillatus est,' 1525. 8. 'Concio Londini habita vernaculè, quando Lutheri scripta publicè igni tradebantur,' translated by Richard Pace into Latin, 1521. 9. 'De unica Magdalena libri tres,' 1519. Also the following, which the editor states are printed for the first time : 10. 'Commentarii in vii. Psalmos pœnitentiales, interprete Joanne Fen à monte acuto.' 11. Two sermons : (a) 'De Passione Domini,' (b) 'De Justitia Pharisæorum,' 12. 'Methodus perveniendi ad summam Christianæ religionis perfectionem,' 13. 'Epistola ad Hermannum Lætmatium Goudanum de Charitate Christiana.' At the end (whether printed before or not does not appear) are 14. 'De