Written by  Fr. Dennis O'Neill

John Fisher is usually associated with Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More, John Colet, and other Catholic Renaissance humanists. He was a man of great learning, involved with the intellectuals and politicians of his day. He eventually became the chancellor of Cambridge University. After being re-elected chancellor annually for many years, he was made chancellor for life. He had been made Bishop of Rochester at 35. It was the smallest diocese and poorest in England. One of his specific interests was the raising of the standard of preaching in England. He himself was an accomplished preacher. His sermons on the penitential psalms were reprinted seven times before his death. In response to Lutheranism, the eight books he wrote in response to Martin Luther gave him a leading position among European theologians.

In 1527, he was asked to study the problem of King Henry VIII’s wanting to divorce Queen Katherine of Aragon. He infuriated Henry by rejecting both his rationalizations for divorce and his forcing Parliament to declare him to be the supreme head of the Church of England. Fisher, the only non-aristocratic bishop in the House of Lords, was also the only English bishop to reject the King’s lordship over the English Church. For this, in very frail health, he was sent, as was the chancellor, Sir Thomas More, to be a prisoner in the Tower of London. Fisher was imprisoned there 14 months without a trial. Ultimately, Fisher was betrayed by a man claiming to seek his counsel in confession into declaring again that Henry was not supreme head of the Church.  For this, he was condemned to death – as was Thomas More, because of a similar deception.

In May or 1535, the newly-elected Pope Paul III made Fisher a cardinal. When King Henry heard this, he ordered that the red hat be blocked from reaching England, declaring rather that he would send the bishop’s head to Rome. Thus he made Fisher the  only cardinal/martyr thus far in history.  Fisher was beheaded on June 22, 1535. More was executed two weeks later.

The bishop’s body was left exposed and naked all that day. Then some guards picked it up with halberds, dragged it off, and then dumped it face-down unceremoniously in a grave in the cemetery of All-Hallows-by-the-Tower church, Barking. Eventually, his body was re-interred with Thomas More’s in the floor of the Chapel Royal in the Tower of London. But no one knows where in the chapel they are located. His head was put on a spike on London Bridge. But, because it showed no signs of decay, it was thrown into the Thames River. 

Consequently, there are practically no relics of John Fisher which have survived to the present. Recently, relics of Thomas More and John Fisher were sent on tour to churches throughout Great Britain and parts of the United States. All that was shown is a ring said to have belonged to the bishop and a tooth and part of a jawbone which belonged to the chancellor. The only known bone relic of Fisher is ¾ of inch long and ¼ of an inch wide, authenticated in 1905 by William Gordon, Bishop of Salford. It can be found in the collection at Stonyhurst College. Otherwise, the one other known relic of Fisher is his walking stick, which has always belonged to a descendant of St. Thomas More.   

So it is extraordinary that our Shrine of All Saints has acquired a relic that was in the chapel of the Pignatelli Family of Spinazzola, Italy. It is a fully certified piece of bone, a patella (knee cap) 1 ¾ of an inch by 1 and ¾ of an inch. It was authenticated by Thomas Michael Salzano, auxiliary bishop of Naples, on September 4, 1889. Both martyrs had been beatified by Pope Leo XIII December 29, 1886. ​

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