Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/78

Fisher

Wood's Hist. of the General Baptists; Crosby's Hist. of the Baptists, i. 359; Britton and Brayley's Description of the County of Northampton; Tuke's Biographical Notices of ... Friends, ii. 221, ed. 1815; W. and T. Evans's Friends' Library, vol. ii.; Hasted's Kent, ii. 517; Fox's Autobiography, p. 139, ed. 1765; Smith's Catalogue of Friends' Book; Swarthmore MSS.]

 FISHER, SAMUEL (fl. 1692), puritan, son of Thomas Fisher of Stratford-on-Avon, was born in 1617, and educated at the university of Oxford, matriculating at Queen's College in 1634, and graduating at Magdalen College - B.A. 15 Dec. 1636, M.A. 18 June 1640. He took holy orders, and officiated at St. Bride's, London, at Withington, Shropshire, and at Shrewsbury, where he was curate to Thomas Blake [q. v.] He afterwards held the rectory of Thornton-in-the-Moors, Cheshire, from which he was ejected at the Restoration. He spent the rest of his life at Birmingham, where he died, 'leaving the character of an ancient divine, an able preacher, and a godly life.' He published : 1. 'An Antidote against the Fear of Death; being meditations in a time and place of great mortality' (the time, Wood informs us, being July and August 1650, the place Shrewsbury). 2. 'A Love Token for Mourners, teaching spiritual dumbness and submission under God's smarting rod,' in two funeral sermons, London, 1655. 3. A Fast sermon, preached 30 Jan. 1692-3.

 FISHER, otherwise, THOMAS (d. 1577), M.P. for Warwick, was of obscure origin and usually known by the name of Fisher, because his father was 'by profession one that sold fish by retail at the mercate crosse in Warwick.' The quickness of his parts recommended him to the notice of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, then Viscount Lisle, who received him into his service, and on 4 May, 34 Hen. VIII, constituted him high steward and bailiff of his manor of Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire. For his exercise of that office during life Fisher had an annuity of 6l. 13s. 6d. granted to him, which was 'confirmed in the reign of Mary. He contrived to accumulate avast estate in monastery and church lands, of which a lengthy list is given by Dugdale (Warwickshire, edit. 1656, p. 365). In 38 Hen. VIII he obtained the site of St. Sepulchre's Priory, Warwick, with the lands adjacent, and proceeded to pull the monastery to the ground, raising in the place of it a very fair house as is yet to be seen, which being finished about the 8 year of Queen Eliz. reign, he made his principal seat.' He gave it a new name 'somewhat alluding to his own, viz. Hawkyns-nest, or Hawks-nest, by reason of its situation, having a pleasant grove of loftie elmes almost environing it' (ib.) However, its old designation of the 'Priory' was soon revived and finally prevailed. In 1 Edward VI, Bishop's Itchington, Warwickshire, being alienated to him from the see of Coventry and Lichfield, he made an 'absolute depopulation' of that part called Nether Itchington, and even demolished the church for the purpose of building a large manor-house on its site. He also changed the name of the village to Fisher's Itchington, in an attempt to perpetuate his own memory. Fisher, who was now the chief citizen of Warwick, next appears as secretary to the Duke of Somerset, protector of England. There is a tradition that he was colonel of a regiment in the English army under the command of Somerset, when the Scots were defeated at the battle of Pinkie, near Musselburgh, 10 Sept. 1547, 'where he, taking the colours of some eminent person in which a griffon was depicted, had a grant by the said duke that he should thenceforth, in memory of that notable exploit, bear the same in his armes within a border verrey, which the duke added thereto in relation to one of the quarterings of his own coat [viz. Beauchamp of Hatch] as an honourable lodge for that service.' Towards the end of June 1548 he was commissioned by Somerset to repair with all diligence into the north to the Earl of Shrewsbury and Lord Grey, with instructions for the defence of Haddington, and for the other necessary movements of the king's army and his officers in Scotland. He was also to repair to Sir John Luttrell at Broughty, and to commune with him and Lord Gray of Scotland, to devise with them some means of communicating with the Earl of Argyll, and to treat with the earl according to certain articles proposed (Cal. State Papers, Scottish Ser. 1509-89, i. 89, 92). In March 1549 he was appointed along with Sir John Luttrell to confer with Argyll and other Scotch nobles for the return of the queen from France and 'accomplishment of the godly purpose of marriage' (ib. p. 97). Under the strain of such duties his health gave way, and in a melancholy letter to Secretary Cecil, dated from the 'Camp at Enderwick,' 17 Sept. 1549, he declares that he 'would give three parts of his living to be away; and wishes to be spared like service in future' (ib. p. 98). In 6 Edward VI he had a grant of the bailiwick of Banbury, 