St. John Fisher
Feast Day: June 22
A Yorkshire draper’s son, John was one of the “new men” of Tudor England, a distinguished scholar at Cambridge University who
was ordained at age 22.
Privately austere, John held several high offices: chaplain to a king’s mother, vice chancellor and chancellor of Cambridge, bishop of Rochester, counselor to Catherine of Aragon during King Henry VIII’s divorce proceedings against her.
But John steadfastly refused to accept Henry as head of the church in England, and was imprisoned.
The pope named him a cardinal, which further enraged Henry, who ordered John’s beheading.
He shares this feast with his friend and fellow martyr, Thomas More; their heads were impaled on London Bridge two weeks apart.
St. Thomas More
Feast Day: June 22
Born in London, Thomas studied at Oxford, married and had four children.
King Henry VIII took this brilliant lawyer into his service in 1518, knighted him and named him lord chancellor.
But Thomas broke with the king when he divorced Catherine of Aragon and set himself up as supreme head of the church in England.
In 1532 Thomas resigned his post, and in 1534 was arrested when he refused to take the oath to the new Act of Succession.
Imprisoned for more than a year in the Tower of London, he was convicted of treason and beheaded.
