OF FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 61 



character were so deeply involved. Accordingly, with strong em- 

 phasis, Fisher replied to his temporizing adviser that " what the 

 nun had communicated to him about the king he thought it need- 

 less to mention, because she had told it to the king himself, and he 

 had no reason to doubt of the truth of that assertion, as she had 

 been admitted by the king to a private audience, and, moreover, she 

 had named no person who should kill him, which, by being knoAvn, 

 might be prevented. He was, therefore, guiltless of any conspiracy. 

 He knew not, as he would answer before the throne of Christ, of 

 any malice or evil that was intended by her, or by any other earthly 

 creature, unto the king's highness." 



For not complying with Cromwell's advice, Burnett calls Fisher 

 obstinate;* an accusation which has been re-echoed by a distin- 

 guished writer of the present day. " His persistance in refusing,*' 

 remarks Mr. Southey, " was plainly a matter of obstinacy, and not 

 of conscience."t One of his comprehensive views and " vast cir- 

 cumspection," to use the words of Lord Hale, ought to have been 

 more alive to the danger of this doctrine ; while his love of virtuous 

 feeling should have resisted it, from its connecting a rule of action 

 with a system founded on the supreme authority of the conscience. 

 '* It is, indeed, an extraordinary assertion," observes an acute critic, 

 in reference to this subject, " that a man is to be denounced as ob- 

 stinate because, at the summons of a secretary of state and upon a 

 promise of pardon, he did not acknowledge himself guilty of an un- 

 defined offence, of the commission of which his own conscience did 

 not accuse him.":|: 



Burnett, however, not content with condemning Fisher for his 

 incorrigible contumacy, has, by a strange and most reprehensible 

 perversion, actually transformed him into a sort of ring-leader of 

 the supposed conspirators in this affair of the nun of Kent, as one, 

 in short, who gave unity to their counsels, and stimulus to their 

 zeal. *' There are heavy things," he says, " laid to Fisher's charge, 

 but except his being too much eoncerned in the business of the nun 

 of Kent, which, without doubt, was managed with a design to 

 make a rebellion in the nation, I do not find any other thing laid to 



* Hhtonj ofkhe Reform., v. i., p. 313. 



f Book of the Church, v. ii., p. 43. 



X See Observations on the circumstances which occasioned the Death of 

 Fisher, Bishop of llochester, in a letter from John Bruce, Esq., F.S.A., 

 to Thomas Amyott, Esq., F.R.S., Treasurer, Archceologia, v. 25, p. 68. This 

 learned antiquary possesses the rare talent of conveying much exact and 

 original information in a small compass. 



