Part II - Bishop Fisher

Summary

John Fisher b. 1459 (?). d. 1535

His parentage and early education

Entered at Michael-house.

In the ‘famous old cytye’ of Beverley, as Lydgate terms it, was born, about the year 1459, John Fisher, afterwards bishop of Rochester and, during the first quarter of the sixteenth century, the leading spirit in the university Cambridge. He was the son of Robert Fisher, mercer of Beverley, and Agnes his wife. It was the father's wish that the boy should receive a better education than ordinary, and John was accordingly sent to receive instruction in grammar in the school attached to the collegiate church at Beverley. It appears that at the time when he was a scholar there, Rotheram, the munificent chancellor of Cambridge, was provost of the church, and it is not improbable that young Fisher, as a boy of promise, may even thus early have attracted the notice of one whom he must have often met in after years. When Fisher was still a lad of thirteen he lost his father; the latter was, it would seem, a man of considerable substance, and, judging from his numerous bequests to different monastic and other foundations, religious after the fashion of his age. In the course of a few more years the son, then about eighteen, was entered at Michaelhouse, under William de Melton, fellow and afterwards master of the college.