Among those who had most strenuously opposed the claim for divorce was Blessed John Fisher of Rochester, and with equally unflinching firmness he opposed the doctrine of the royal supremacy.  He asserted that “The acceptance of such a principle would cause the clergy of England to be hissed out of the society of God’s Holy Catholic Church.”  He was right, his prophecy has come true, and he nearly won.  His opposition so far prevailed that a saving clause was added to the oath of convocation, “so far as the law of God allows.”  This Henry refused.  The King persecuted him, Anne Boleyn tried to poison him, all England was putrid with lies concerning him contrived by those masters of lies, the Tudors; but the imperial ambassador asserted that the Bishop of Rochester was “the paragon of Christian prelates both for learning and holiness,” and the Pope made him Cardinal with the title of San Vitalis.  Henry, in November 1534, with the passing of the Act of Supremacy, attainted him of treason and declared the see of Rochester vacant.  But Blessed John Fisher said, as St Thomas had said, “The King our Sovereign is not supreme head on earth of the Church in England.”  For this he was condemned to die a traitor’s death; that is, to be hanged, disembowelled, and quartered at Tyburn in order that Henry might enjoy his Kentish mistress in peace, and found a new Church eager to acknowledge his adultery as lawful and to enjoy the spoil of God.

That death, once shameful but soon to be rendered glorious by the Carthusians, was denied to Fisher.  His sentence was commuted to that of death by beheading upon Tower Hill, where he suffered upon June 22, 1535.  His head was exposed on London Bridge; his body, interred without ceremony, now lies in the Tower, where a little later that of Blessed Thomas More was laid beside it—­two countrymen of St Thomas Becket martyred in the same cause.

They might seem to have died in vain; their cause, as old as Christendom, might seem to have been long since defeated.  Not so:  this battle truly is decided, but in their favour, and my little son may live to see the glory of their victory.  For he shall know and believe in his heart that his love and hope are set upon a country and a city founded in the heavens of which David sang, to which St John looked forth from Patmos, and of which these our Saints have told us.

CHAPTER IV

THE PILGRIMS’ ROAD

ROCHESTER TO FAVERSHAM

The old road leaves Rochester to pass through Chatham, and is by no means delightful until it has left what Camden called “the best appointed arsenal the world ever saw.”  Chatham, indeed, is little else but a huge dockyard and a long and dirty street, once the Pilgrim’s Way.  There is, however, very little to detain us; only the Chapel of St Bartholomew to the south of the High Street is worth a visit for