One English Martyr

...And this last sums up the burden of my remarks...

...Then let me, by your patience, sleep yet an hour or two...

...chan-celor of the University of Cambridge...

...And what hour is it now...

...The inferyour orbes in the heuens be ledde aboute in theyr course by the fyrst orbe...

...And likewise, everybody knows the anecdotes that accumulated about his last days in the Tower...

...Besides, one thinks of Luther, upon whose head must forever rest responsibility for the woe which his dissension scattered broadcast through the world...

...Concerning science, we find this passage in the pages of the same sermon: The generacions of men shold not longe lyue yf they were not nourisshed with the fode & fruyte that groweth vpon the erth, also they coude not be brought forth but of the erth...

...Most of these he seems to resemble only in contemporaneity, differing from them in almost every other particular...

...Moreover, his comment upon education-and one must remember that he was chosen chancelor of the University of Cambridge as well for his secular learning as for the zeal he bore for religion-is to be found in the sermon which he delivered at the funeral of Henry VII: A my lordes and maysters that have worldly wisdome, what haue ye of all this besyne at the last but a lytell vanyte...

...And the force of no age has ever quite been spent...

...History has long since given over the idea that the middle-ages were "dark ages...

...we see it all about us at work shaping our thought and directing our behavior...

...in philosophy, that there is a vast difference between appearance and substance...

...The answer goes without saying...

...And it is this that is plainly evident if one but examine his writings, writings which in his own day were enormously influential and which since have been added to the canon of English prose...

...Cardinal Fisher lived between the years 1459 and 1535, in the midst of the renaissance...

...It selfe erth sholde alway be bareyne & without fruyte yf it receyued no moysture & hete from heuen...

...his reply to the prison cook, for instance, who had not prepared his dinner on the day before that set for the execution because he had heard a rumor that the Cardinal was already dead: "Well, for all that report thou seest me yet alive, and therefore whatever news thou shalt hear of me hereafter, let me no longer lack my dinner, but make it ready as thou wert wont to do, and if thou seest me dead when thou comest, then eat it thyself...

...in literature, that the language of the people is the proper medium for communicating exact thought and just feeling...

...executed by beheading...

...Tradition has dwelt upon them from the beginning...

...If, however, one looks for some record other than of the obvious, his search is but niggardly rewarded...

...in science, that phenomena are but the expressions of supernatural power...

...Pico della Mirandola, to recall a familiar name, we usually consider to have been an ideal renaissance spirit...

...Your hour," replied the Lieutenant, "must be nine of the clock...

...Hartley Coleridge's remark, if it was based upon no more than the slender accounts available in history, is excusable...

...In fine, passages like these seem to indicate that while Cardinal Fisher was physically of the renaissance, spiritually he was an age behind it and some four centuries ahead of it...

...It is doubtless true that he possessed the finest private library in England, and at a time when to collect books was to be numbered among the worldly elect...

...with not one of them is John Fisher to be confused...

...and I most humbly thank the King's Majesty that it pleaseth him to rid me of all this earthly business, and I thank you for your tidings...

...and unwilling, no matter what the consequences, to acknowledge Henry as head of the Church...

...How evident such influence is we have but to check our current conceptions in various departments to realize...

...Nevertheless, although there is a fame which is based upon the sensational, there is another which is grounded on human sweetness combined with human strength...

...So thoroughly, however, was he imbued with the restlessness of his age that in spite of the significance of his having been buried in the conventual church of Saint Mark, in the habit of the Dominican order, he spent the greater part of his life in an effort to reconcile Christianity with classical paganism...

...elevated to the cardinal-ate...

...and in religion, that matters of the spirit take precedence over purely worldly affairs...

...or the story of his conduct upon the morning of his execution...

...In fact, for a time it would seem almost as if, in the minds of men like Mr...

...the staunch supporter of Queen Catharine...

...History pictures him as having been a victim of the machinations of Henry VIII...

...In fact, one account of him, that of Hartley Coleridge, ventures that outside the annals of the Church he would have remained inconsiderable had he not been martyred to the lusts of his king, the while it makes no mention of his having contributed to the culture of the race...

...It is likewise true that he championed the new learning, encouraging the study of Greek to such effect that Erasmus, liberal cosmopolite that he was, and as such completely at odds, one would think, with Fisher, referred to him most flatteringly in a number of his Epistles...

...these are plainly discerned throughout his works, and are, naturally, of the strictest orthodoxy...

...It is now but five...

...And yet one would hesitate to include him among personages who are thought typical of the renaissance...

...They were, as everyone is well aware, times of war, of pestilence and of overwhelming terror...

...Further on in the sermon upon Psalm CII one comes to this passage, in definition of the essentials of beauty: Our blyssed lorde made fayre the erth with herbes, trees, and with beestes, the water with fysshes, the ayre with byrdes, and the heuenes with sterres...

...How far, for instance, are we away from the conception that in society all men are equal in the sight of God...

...And Leonardo da Vinci, supreme artist though he was, and eminent in science as his own day distinguished him-Leonardo allowed himself so far to be swayed by the currents of contradictory report that he would have died without the pale had not his apprentice, Francesco, been at hand...

...that he was tried and convicted of "misprision of treason...

...But let us remember him, in addition, as one who not only was a protagonist of truth but who formed a link in the chain of civilization, a personality who sums up as "the embodiment of the old fancy, and the symbol of the modern idea...

...nevertheless, to cope with adversity there arose a discipline capable at first as protection but finally a veritable staff for the guidance of tottering humanity...

...Thus while, as we have said, the middle-ages succumbed in particular, they survive in essence...

...and we can best be assured that while they were neither "dark" nor "golden," they were, at all events, lighted by a faith toward the upper reaches of sanctity seldom attained either before or since...

...yet one thinks of him as a summation of what was most admirable in the age preceding rather than as representative of his own troublous era...

...we must learn from his writings directly that he embodied an ideal of the ages...

...These matters, as I have said, are familiar to everybody...

...In all these is grete pleasure & fayrenes for our bodyly eyen to beholde...

...But I pray you, Master Lieutenant, when is my hour that I must go forth...

...It is for this that he should be remembered, not merely because he was beheaded at the order of his king...

...He enjoyed all the advantages of a flexible mind and resilient body, together with those of wealth and social grace...

...He read Plato in Greek and Moses in Hebrew, and he was looked upon by the young men of Florence as a pattern...

...This last most fittingly enshrines the holy martyr...

...in art, that beauty is the manifestation of truth, purity and aspiration...

...These three, then, can be selected from the catalogue of hundreds equally affected by the turmoil of renaissance Europe...

...and ultimately beatified...

...Each fulfils its destiny, giving place to a newer...

...And last the fyrst orbe hath all his vertue and strength of almyghty god, encreas-er of all thynges...

...Furthermore, because of his interest in purely intellectual matters, he found himself eagerly sought after by distinguished scholars from all over Europe...

...Historically he means for most of us an antagonist of Henry VIII, one who suffered death in an heroic manner...

...It is palpably unnecessary to illustrate from his writings either his religious belief or the tenets of his philosophy...

...The truth probably lies somewhere between...

...Chesterton and Mr...

...And this essence has come down to us...

...ONE ENGLISH MARTYR By GEORGE CARVER FAME, in perpetuating the name of Blessed John Fisher, has emphasized the fact of his death above everything else, stressing him in terms of what he suffered rather than of what he was...

...The Church has numbered him among the blessed...

...if it was based upon a careful examination of the Cardinal's contribution to race experience, then it falls something short of justice...

...Bel-loc, for instance, they marked another "golden age...

...in education, that the aim of all training is to fit one to worship God and to serve his fellow-men rather than, primarily, to make a living...

...And among such spirits is to be numbered Blessed John Fisher who, living at a time when the very foundations of society were giving way, held fast to that which was good...

...Well, if this be your errand," he said to the Lieutenant of the Tower who, coming with the message that he was to be beheaded that morning, found him asleep, "you bring me no great news, for I have long looked for this message...

...But each contributes its spark of vitality, which, cherished by the few capable of perceiving its worth, is handed on from age to age, unquenchable...

...Regarding society, for instance, he has this to say in his sermon on Psalm CII, which was printed by Winken de Word in 1509: The leest crysten persone, the poorest & moost lowe in degree is nygh in kyndrede to almyghty god...

...And no more than a passing reference is needed to indicate how thoroughly he believed that the language of the common man is the finest literary medium: one has but to pick up his A Spiritual Consolation to discover with what telling effect he was able to practise his theory...

...These, then, are a portion of our heritage from the middle-ages, passed on to us through generations of men because a rare spirit now and then arose to whom they were of paramount importance...

...Everybody knows the high points in his career: that he was the confessor to Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby and mother of Henry VII...

...Best to understand him, perhaps, one must revert to the ideals of an elder age, an age which, although most of its particular characteristics have vanished, still obtains among us because its general manifestations were the roots from which sprouted the welfare of succeeding generations...

...and yet had not the spirit of the age, permeated as it was with the impulse of change merely for its own sake, impelled him to confound discipline with faith, he might have lived out his days as a humble theologian and so spared us many blotted pages of religious history...