St Thomas More Husband and Martyr

St Thomas was born in London in 1478.  Thomas studied at Oxford University and then embarked on a legal career.  In 1505 he married Jane Colt and had four children, 3 daughters and a son.  The marriage was a very happy one but Jane died in 1511.  Shortly after Thomas married a widow Alice Middleton, who was a woman full of common sense and a good stepmother for his children.

Thomas was a many-sided personality, made up of intellectual sophistication, moral honesty, gentleness, loyalty to his king and affection to his wife, friends and children.  Thomas was always a man of prayer with daily recitation of the Little Office, he wore a hairshirt all his life.

King Henry V111, impressed by Thomas's ability appointed him to a succession of high posts, and finally made him Lord Chancellor in 1529.  Thomas resigned in 1532 at the height of his career, when Henry persisted in holding his own opinions regarding marriage and the supremacy of the Pope.
Thomas was imprisoned in the Tower on 13th April 1534,[with his good friend St John Fisher] where he stayed for the remaining 15months of his life.

Many efforts were made to induce Thomas to conform, but in vain, he was condemned to death.  He was executed on Tower Hill on 6th July 1535.  His last words were that he died for the Catholic Church and was the king's good servant, but God's first.  Thomas was beatified in 1886[with John Fisher] and canonized in 1935.

St John Fisher Bishop and martyr

John was born in Yorkshire, England.  He went to Cambridge University and was ordained priest at 22years of age.  In 1502 he became chaplain to Lady Margaret Beaufort, the mother of King Henry V11.

Under John's guidence Lady Margaret became a great benefactress for Cambridge.  Together they reformed and re-endowed Cambridge University.  When John first went to Cambridge its scholarship had sunk to a low ebb; no Greek or Hebrew was taught, and the library had been reduced to 300 volumes.  He endowed scholarships, he re-introduced Greek and Hebrew into the curriculum, and he brought Erasmus over to teach and to lecture.

In 1504 he was elected chancellor of the university - a post he held until his death.  In the same year[1504] King Henry V11 nominated him to the bishopric of Rochester, he was only 35.  He carried out his pastoral duties with zeal.  He held visitations, visited the sick, the poor, distributed alms himself.  He lived very simply with very plain food, allowing himself only 4 hours sleep at night.

John lost the King's favour [Henry V111] when he opposed his marriage to Anne Boleyn.  John was now in danger, and warnings of friends and threats of his enemies, were not needed to bring home to him the risks he now ran by his opposition to the ruling powers.  He was arrested and put in the Tower in April 1534. John's physical health was now very poor, but his ill health did not affect his heroic courage. The next year he was made a Cardinal by Pope Paul 111 and King Henry retaliated by having John Fisher beheaded within a month.

John was beheaded on 22nd June 1535.  On the scaffold John declared he was dying for the faith of Christ's holy Catholic Church, and he asked the people to pray that he might be steadfast to the end.

Of all the English bishops, only John Fisher of Rochester publicly opposed Henry V111's mandatory Oath of Allegience, which unlawfully declared King Henry the head of the Church of England.  The bishop's stand ultimately cost John his life.
John was beatified by Pope Leo X111 in 1886, and he was canonized by Pope Pius X1 in 1935.