John Fisher and Thomas More by Robert J Conrad

Author:Robert J Conrad
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TAN Books

Scholar H. Daniel-Rops notes, “The blood of this new John the Baptist was soon to spill over the Tudor Herodias. A year later to the very day, she too would mount the scaffold steps.” 169

One final parallel. John the Baptist’s ascetic life, prophetic preaching, and powerful magnetism had people in his day questioning whether he was Elijah incarnate. They would have remembered the words of Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God…. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed” (40:3–4). They may well have remembered Malachi’s prophecy: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

Strike he did. Henry VIII”s wanton lust and thirst for power resulted in a “strike that cursed the earth.” And he interpreted the curse not in a way that would regulate his passions but rather justify them. God cursed him, he alleged, with the lack of a male heir because of his unbiblical marriage (but apparently not because of his serial affairs). Some would think that his reconsidered view of his voluntary union with Catherine would lead to repentance and penance, perhaps in the form of consecrated celibacy or a quiet, prayerful retreat. But this is not what he had in mind.

In his violent execution of a plan to marry again, and to foster an heir, this time with a younger woman with whom he was smitten, he would demand compliance. Compliance of thought, word, and deed. It was inevitable that this approach would run headlong into Fisher’s commitment to “true truth,” not the “truth” convenient to the king. Fisher would not budge. For he had “taken great pains to arrive at the truth and he would not change his mind without injury to both his reputation and his conscience.”170 The King had power over his body; Fisher retained exclusive control over his soul. He would not yield.

In this contest between unchecked passion on the king’s side and unwavering commitment to truth on Fisher’s, the sovereign would lose. Once known as the “Defender of the Faith” for his writings in support of the sacraments, he was now on a road to perdition. Hearts were turned away. Children and fathers turned not to each other but against each other. Henry would execute the man his father had named a bishop, and his grandmother had named her chaplain. He would disinherit his daughter Mary, whom he had with Catherine, and produce a daughter Elizabeth with Anne Boleyn and a son Edward with Jane Seymour.

They in turn would spend their adult lives sparring, warring, and striving against each other. Following his father’s death, Edward VI would assume the throne at a young age and would govern a nation in turmoil as a regent king.

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