OP FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTHR. 59 



Fenelon and a Pascal afterwards professed. Surely, then, the sub- 

 stantial worth and excellence of Fisher should have beat down 

 those prejudices which concentrated Burnett's religious likings 

 within a narrow circle, instead of loving Christians as Christians, 

 and not those only who agreed with him in judgment. — But to pro- 

 ceed to the notice of those events which, it may be said, directly 

 brought this venerable prelate to a merciless account. 



On the 21st of February a bill of attainder was brought into the 

 House of Lords* against Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent, 

 then a nun professed in the priory of St. Sepulchre, at Canterbury, 

 and likewise against those ecclesiastics who had given credit or 

 countenance to her pretended prophecies. Among those who were 

 implicated for misprison of treason in this affair was Fisher.f Even 

 his masculine understanding, like that of Archbishop Warham and 

 of More, yielded to the delusion of her neighbours, that the predic- 

 tions uttered by her were ascribable to some preternatural agency. 

 This prophetess, as the statute informs us, declared that " she had 

 knowledge, by revelation from God, that God was highly displeased 

 with our said sovereign lord, and that if he proceeded in the said 

 divorce, and married again, he should no longer be king of this 

 realm, and that, in the estimation of Almighty God, he should not 

 be a king one hour, and that he should die a villain's death." j: 



This prediction of the nun, Fisher, it was said, had concealed 

 from the king. Cromwell, therefore, advised him to confess his 

 culpability and throw himself upon the royal clemency, with the 

 full assurance of his receiving it. But the principles of this aged 

 prelate, then in his seventy-sixth year, were not so pliant and duc- 

 tile that they could stifle the voice of conscience at the call of safety. 

 He was not a mere machine in the hands of the court to be moved 

 in what direction they willed, to take what course they chose. 

 When the question of the divorce was agitated, he had boldly main- 

 tained the legality of the queen's marriage, by publishing a treatise 

 in defence of it. He was early consulted by Catherine on this 

 grand subject, however some historians have denied the fact. At 

 first, Fisher w^as extremely reluctant to interfere,§ but when he did 



* See Journals of the House of Lords, p. 68. 



+ History of the Reform., v. i., p. 308, 309. 



X See Hall, Herbert, Strype, and Lingard upon this transaction. 



§ In the first volume of the State Papers, p. 197» 198, there i9«»Jnterest- 

 ing conversation between Wolsey and Fisher, on the grand subjeCt-.of the 

 divorce, upon a visit paid^by the former to the Bishop, in which hetnforms 

 his royal correspondent <^e^i«ras" right lovingly and fcindely entertaigiled." 



