" This Henry
refused. The King persecuted him, Anne Boleyn tried to poison him, all
England was putrid with lies concerning him contrived by those masters
of lies, the Tudors; but the imperial ambassador asserted that the
Bishop of Rochester was "the paragon of Christian prelates both for
learning and holiness," and the Pope made him Cardinal with the title
of San Vitalis. Henry, in November 1534, with the passing of the Act
of Supremacy, attainted him of treason and declared the see of
Rochester vacant. But Blessed John Fisher said, as St Thomas had said,
"The King our Sovereign is not supreme head on earth of the Church in
England." For this he was condemned to die a traitor's death; that is,
to be hanged, disembowelled, and quartered at Tyburn in order that
Henry might enjoy his Kentish mistress in peace, and found a new
Church eager to acknowledge his adultery as lawful and to enjoy the
spoil of God.
That death, once shameful but soon to be rendered glorious by the
Carthusians, was denied to Fisher. His sentence was commuted to that
of death by beheading upon Tower Hill, where he suffered upon June
22, 1535.
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