Fisher

Fisher, John (1459-1535), an English ecclesiastic, was born at Beverley, in Yorkshire. He was educated at Cambridge, and obtained a fellowship, and became head of a house. He took orders, and became confessor to the Lady Margaret of Richmond, and was the first Margaret Professor of Divinity. He became Chancellor, and in 1504 was nominated Bishop of Rochester. He was a great opponent of Protestantism, but, on the other hand, was consistent, and refused to look on the king's marriage with Katharine of Aragon as unlawful. The Court party determined his destruction, and first attainted him in 1534 as an accomplice of the Maid of Kent. He was sent to the Tower, and deprived for refusing to recognise the king's new marriage, and when the Pope sent him a cardinal's hat in 1535 the king declared he should have no head to wear it on. Accordingly he was trapped into denying the king's spiritual supremacy, was tried, condemned, and beheaded. He left behind him a commentary upon the Penitential Psalms, and other theological writings.