ecuted 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
Bishop Gundulph's sake, for he founded it. Even here, however, only
the eastern end is ancient. The parish church of Our Lady was for the
most part rebuilt in 1788, but it still keeps