medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I am not sure eleven-year-old boys are as squeamish as we are!
At first I thought your tale of Fisher's cook was most unlikely but it
turns out it was yet another indication of Henry VIII's unique qualities:
Richard Rex's ODNB biography of Fisher includes:
'Fisher himself was becoming a veritable thorn in the king's flesh. The
last attempts to win him over on the matter of the divorce were made in January
1531, when he and some others met for a disputation with a team led by John
Stokesley. The failure of this move led some to consider more decisive
solutions. An attempt was made in February to poison the bishop's soup, but it
misfired. The ascetic Fisher passed the entire meal straight to his servants and
to the poor who were accustomed to be fed at his gates, leaving two dead and the
rest sick. On another occasion, an unknown assailant took an optimistic potshot
at him in his Lambeth house from across the Thames. There is no reason to
believe that Henry was involved in these plots. His own horror of poisoning was
such that in response he passed a law making poisoning punishable by boiling
alive, a mode of execution inflicted upon Fisher's unfortunate cook, who had
been unwittingly tricked into the deed. The chances are that some less
scrupulous client of the Boleyns was behind these attempts. '
Rosemary Hayes
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2011 1:05
PM
Subject: Re: [M-R] England's first
Christian martyr
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion
and culture
Definitely not for the squeamish - I was reading the Chronicle of the
Greyfriars of London this morning and came across an entry about a cook who
was boiled in a cauldron at Smithfield ; having been hung in chains he was
repeatedly lowered into and raised from the said cauldron! His offence -
trying to poison John Fisher, bishop of Rochester and his servants.
Gordon Plumb
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