On this day on 22nd June

On this day in 1535 Bishop John Fisher is executed. John Fisher, the son of Robert Fisher and his wife, Agnes, was born in Beverley in about 1469. His father worked as a mercer (a dealer in textile fabrics, especially silks, velvets, and other fine materials). He graduated from Cambridge University in 1488 and was ordained as a priest in York in 1491.

Fisher met Lady Margaret Beaufort, the wife of Henry VII, in 1494. "His talents obviously impressed her, for he was recruited to her service, becoming in due course her spiritual director.... However, Fisher continued to play an active part in university life, lecturing in the 1490s and taking his doctorate in theology in 1501. In that same year he was elected vice-chancellor of the university - no doubt on account of his influential connection with Lady Margaret - and in 1502 he became the first incumbent of the professorship of theology which she founded at Cambridge."

In 1504 John Fisher was appointed as bishop of Rochester and Chancellor of Cambridge University. Under his influence Lady Margaret founded Christ's College and St John's College. In 1507 King Henry bequeathed £5000 for the completion of the chapel of King's College. Fisher also arranged for Desiderius Erasmus to teach at Cambridge (1511-1514). It was during this time that Erasmus became close to Thomas More, the author of Utopia (1516) and another supporter of the humanist movement.

Fisher's biographer, Richard Rex, claims he was assiduous in pastoral work. "Unlike many bishops, he personally carried out almost all the ordinations in his diocese, besides presiding regularly in person at abbatial elections and personally performing many of the special sacramental and ceremonial functions which his fellow bishops often delegated to suffragans. He had a high regard for the priestly office, and his vigilance in the matter of clerical appointments is suggested by the facts that his diocese had a higher than average proportion of graduate clergy and that the clergy he himself collated within the diocese were almost all scholars, usually from Cambridge and mostly from colleges with which Fisher himself was associated."

John Fisher was one of the strongest opponents of Martin Luther. He preached at the first burning of Luther's books in England carried out by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in May 1521. It was already too late to staunch the flow of the new doctrines. Thomas More complained that the heretics were "busily" at work in every alehouse and tavern, where they expounded their doctrines. More had pointed out that he had seen young lawyers were "wont to resort to their readings in a chamber at midnight".

John Fisher also took part in the proceedings against Robert Barnes in 1526. His sermons against Lutherism were printed in Latin and English and were described as a "massive contribution" to the defence of orthodoxy. (6) David Starkey has claimed that his sermons had a limited impact on its audience: "Fisher was, escapably, a cleric. And he wrote and thought like a cleric, even in English and even in his works that were intended primarily for a lay audience, such as his sermons. These are peppered with Latin quotations, admittedly translated. And their whole structure of argument depends on analogy, similitude and authority." (7) Others are more sympathetic: "All his sermons combine the tripartite structure favoured by the scholastics with a concern for the appropriate exegesis of scripture which was becoming more fashionable, thanks to the influence of humanism. Although his prose is somewhat excessively decorated and elaborate for modern taste, it was clearly to the taste of his time, and his apt and effective images testify to a genuinely creative intellect."

For several years Henry VIII had been thinking of divorcing Catherine of Aragon. Catherine was in a difficult position. Now aged 44, she found it difficult to compete with Henry's mistress, Anne Boleyn. "Now her once slender figure was thickened with repeated child-bearing, and her lovely hair had darkened to a muddy brown, but visiting ambassadors still remarked on the excellence of her complexion. A dumpy little woman with a soft, sweet voice which had never lost its trace of foreign accent, and the imperturbable dignity which comes from generations of pride of caste, she faced the enemy armoured by an utter inward conviction of right and truth, and her own unbreakable will."

It was suggested that Catherine should agree to annul the marriage. Alison Weir, the author of The Six Wives of Henry VIII (2007) believes that if she agreed to this measure Henry would have treated her well. "Yet time and again she had opposed him, seemingly blind to the very real dilemma he was in with regard to the succession, and when thwarted Henry could, and frequently did, became cruel."

Alison Plowden argues that for Catherine it was impossible to accept the deal being put forward: "Henry's partisans have accused his first wife of spiritual arrogance, of bigotry and bloody-mindedness, and undoubtedly she was one of those uncomfortable people who would literally rather die than compromise over a moral issue. There's also no doubt that she was an uncommonly proud and stubborn woman. But to have yielded would have meant admitting to the world that she had lived all her married life in incestuous adultery, that she had been no more than 'the King's harlot', the Princess her daughter worth no more than any man's casually begotten bastard; and it would have meant seeing another woman occupying her place. The meekest of wives might well have jibbed at such self-sacrifice; for one of Catherine's background and temperament it was unthinkable."

John Fisher was consulted about this matter as early as 1527. He was initially sympathetic to the wishes of the King. "Although he conceded that the scriptural evidence regarding marriage to a deceased brother's wife was ambiguous, he was unshakeable in his confidence in the scope of papal authority both to resolve doubts about scripture and also to grant matrimonial dispensations from all but the most fundamental of kinship restrictions... Fisher devoted more and more effort to the scholarly questions it raised about scriptural interpretation, divine and natural law, and papal power."

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was given the task of arranging the divorce. Henry sent a message to the Pope Clement VII arguing that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon had been invalid as she had previously been married to his brother Arthur. Henry relied on Wolsey to sort the situation out. During negotiations the Pope forbade Henry to contract a new marriage until a decision was reached in Rome.

After two years of careful diplomatic negotiation a trial opened at Blackfriars on 18th June 1529 to prove the illegality of the marriage, presided over by Wolsey and Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio. Catherine made a spirited defence of her position. George Cavendish was an eyewitness in the court. He quotes her saying: "Sir, I beseech you, for all the loves that hath been betrayed us, and for the love of God, let me have justice and right. Take of me some pity and compassion, for I am a poor woman and a stranger born out of your dominion. I have here no assured friend, and much less indifferent counsel. I flee to you as the head of justice within this realm. Alas, Sir, where have I offended you? Or what occasion have you of displeasure, that you intend to put me from you? I take God and all the world to witness that I have been to you a true, humble and obedient wife, ever conformable to your will and pleasure. I have been pleased and contented with all things wherein you had delight and dalliance. I never grudged a word or countenance, or showed a spark of discontent. I loved all those whom you loved only for your sake, whether I had cause or no, and whether they were my friends or enemies. This twenty years and more I have been your true wife, and by me you have had many children, though it hath pleased God to call them out of this world, which hath been no fault in me."

Bishop John Fisher was impressed by Catherine of Aragon during the trial at Blackfriars and now became a strong opponent of Henry VIII's attempts to obtain a divorce. The King applied pressure on Fisher and his supporters to "get into line over his matrimonial affairs". Thomas Cromwell introduced a series of bills in Parliament to regulate various clerical malpractices. Fisher argued against this legislation, claiming that it was a case of "lack of faith" (heresy). Members of the House of Commons were outraged by these comments and after the intervention of the King, Fisher was forced to apologise. Along with John Clerk (bishop of Bath and Wells) and Nicholas West (bishop of Ely), appealed to the pope against them. "All three bishops were promptly gaoled, albeit briefly."

Catherine Aragon's trial was adjourned by Lorenzo Campeggio on 30th July to allow her petition to reach Rome. This caused serious problems for Wolsey: "This instantly and considerably weakened Wolsey's position, giving the hostile coterie of courtiers who flocked around Anne the leverage they needed to topple him. Nevertheless he fought hard to retain office, and the king's evident reluctance to lose his services enabled him to cling to power until the autumn. It was not until 18th October that Wolsey resigned the great seal, and even then Henry protected him against complete ruin."

With the encouragement of Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII became convinced that Wolsey's loyalties lay with the Pope, not England, and in October 1529 he was dismissed from office. (16) He was replaced as Lord Chancellor by Fisher's old friend, Thomas More. According to Peter Ackroyd, this was a shrewd political move. "Since More was known to be an avid hunter of heretics, it was evident proof that Henry did not wish to disavow the orthodox Church. In fact, More started his pursuit within a month of taking his position he arrested a citizen of London, Thomas Phillips, on suspicion of heresy... It was the beginning of the new chancellor's campaign of terror against the heretics."

More now concentrated his energies on persecuting Heretics. In 1530 he issued two proclamations proscribing a number of publications and banned the importation of any foreign imprints of English works. More imprisoned a number of men for owning banned books. More also ordered the execution of three heretics and publicly approved of the execution of others. "The vigour with which More pursued heretics through the courts was mirrored by the relentlessness with which he fought them... The times demanded strictness, he repeatedly argued, because the stakes were so high. No other aspect of More's life has engendered greater controversy than his persecution of heretics. Critics argue that as one of Europe's leading intellectuals, and one with particularly strong humanist leanings, More should have rejected capital punishment of heretics. His supporters point out that he was a product of his times, and that those men he most admired... lamented but accepted as necessary the practice of executing heretics."

Bishop John Fisher remained a strong opponent of Henry VIII. An attempt was made in February 1531 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."

Henry discovered that Anne Boleyn was pregnant. As it was important that the child should not be classed as illegitimate, arrangements were made for Henry and Anne to get married. King Charles V of Spain threatened to invade England if the marriage took place, but Henry ignored his threats and the marriage went ahead on 25th January, 1533. It was very important to Henry that his wife should give birth to a male child. Without a son to take over from him when he died, Henry feared that the Tudor family would lose control of England. Thomas More was careful to make it clear that despite his growing opposition to the King's church policies, he accepted Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn as being part of God's providence, and would neither "murmur at it nor dispute upon it", since "this noble woman" was "royally anointed queen".

Elizabeth was born on 7th September, 1533. Henry expected a son and selected the names of Edward and Henry. While Henry was furious about having another daughter, the supporters of his first wife, Catherine of Aragon were delighted and claimed that it proved God was punishing Henry for his illegal marriage to Anne. (21) Retha M. Warnicke, the author of The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn (1989) has pointed out: "As the king's only legitimate child, Elizabeth was, until the birth of a prince, his heir and was to be treated with all the respect that a female of her rank deserved. Regardless of her child's sex, the queen's safe delivery could still be used to argue that God had blessed the marriage. Everything that was proper was done to herald the infant's arrival."

In December 1533 Henry VIII gave Thomas Cromwell permission to unleash all the resources of the state in discrediting the papacy. "In one of the fiercest and ugliest smear campaigns in English history the minister showed his mastery of propaganda techniques as the pope was attacked throughout the nation in sermons and pamphlets. In the new year another session of parliament was summoned to enact the necessary legislation to break formally the remaining ties which bound England to Rome, again under Cromwell's meticulous supervision."

During this period Bishop Fisher was in close communication with Katherine of Aragon's most determined political supporter, Eustace Chapuys, the ambassador in England of her nephew, King Charles V of Spain. He managed to smuggle out of England, Fisher's literary enterprises on the divorce. Fisher also supported Elizabeth Barton granting her an audience. Barton was prophesying the King's death within a month if he married Anne Boleyn.

In March 1534 Pope Clement VII eventually made his decision. He announced that Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn was invalid. Henry reacted by declaring that the Pope no longer had authority in England. In November 1534, Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy. This gave Henry the title of the "Supreme head of the Church of England". A Treason Act was also passed that made it an offence to attempt by any means, including writing and speaking, to accuse the King and his heirs of heresy or tyranny. All subjects were ordered to take an oath accepting this.

John Fisher and Sir Thomas More refused to take the oath and were imprisoned in the Tower of London. In May 1535, Pope Paul III created Fisher a Cardinal. This infuriated Henry VIII and on 11th June he appeared before a jury at Westminster Hall. This included Thomas Cromwell, Charles Brandon and Thomas Audley. To test their loyalty, Gertrude Courtenay and her husband, Henry Courtenay, were placed on the jury. They both agreed that he should be executed.

On Tuesday 22nd June, 1535, the seventy-six year old Fisher was decapitated on Tower Hill. A shocked public blamed Queen Anne Boleyn for his death, and it was partly for this reason that news of the stillbirth of her child was suppressed as people might have seen this as a sign of God's will. Anne herself suffered pangs of conscience on the day of Fisher's execution and attended a mass for the "repose of his soul".

On this day in 1839 Cherokee leader Elias Boudinot is assassinated. Buck Oowatie, a member of the Cherokee tribe was born at Pine Ridge, Georgia, in 1800. Educated by missionaries he learnt to speak English. In 1818 he journeyed to Washington where he had a meeting with Thomas Jefferson. He also met the writer and politician, Dr. Elias Boudinot, who offered to do all he could to help the Cherokee nation. In return, Oowatie decided to adopt the name Elias Boudinot.

Soon afterwards Boudinot announced his engagement to a white woman called Harriet Gold. This created a great deal of anger and an effigy of Harriet Gold was burnt in the town square. Despite the outbreak of racism, the couple married in March 1826.

Boudinot and his wife moved to New Echota and worked closely with the missionary Samuel Worcester. The two men became convinced that the Cherokees needed their own newspaper. This was now possible as Sequoyah had just completed the development of Talking Leaves, a graphic representation of the Cherokee language. Worcester raised funds to build a printing office and with the help of Boudinot, began publishing Cherokee Phoenix in February 1828.

Boudinot became editor of the newspaper and his wife ran the local school. Boudinot also created a hospital and a Christian mission in New Echota. At first Boudinot argued strongly against the 1830 Indian Removal Act. However, his views gradually changed and in 1832 he argued that removal was the "course that will come nearest benefiting the nation". As a result of this new stance he was forced to resign as editor of the Cherokee Phoenix.

In 1835 Boudinot, Major Ridge, and 18 other members of Cherokee tribe signed the Treaty of New Echota. This agreement ceded all rights to their traditional lands to the United States. In return the tribe was granted land in the Indian Territory. Although the majority of the Cherokees opposed this agreement they were forced to make the journey by General Winfield Scott and his soldiers.

In October 1838 about 15,000 Cherokees began what was later to be known as the Trail of Tears. Most of the Cherokees travelled the 800 mile journey on foot. As a result of serious mistakes made by the Federal agents who guided them to their new land, they suffered from hunger and the cold weather and an estimated 4,000 people died on the journey.

On 22nd June, 1839, Elias Boudinot was stabbed and tomahawked to death by a group of Cherokee warriors who had been opposed to the signing of the Treaty of New Echota.

On this day in 1846 Matilda Chaplin, the daughter of John Clarke Chaplin, a solicitor, was born in Honfleur. As a young woman she decided to become a doctor. She attended classes at the London School of Medicine for Women in 1867and passed the preliminary examination for the licence of the Society of Apothecaries just before the society closed its professional examinations to candidates who had not attended regular medical schools.

In 1869, Sophia Jex-Blake was trying to be admitted to medical classes at Edinburgh University. The university court refused consent for mixed classes and was not prepared to make special arrangements for Jex-Blake alone, but conceded that special classes for a group of women might be possible. Jex-Blake advertised for women to join her and Matilda Chaplin was one of those who accepted her invitation. In October 1869 Chaplin, together with four other women, passed the matriculation examination for Edinburgh University, the first women to be fully enrolled at a modern British university.

In 1870–71 Chaplin took high honours in anatomy and surgery at the extramural examinations of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Edinburgh. In 1871 attended some medical classes in Paris. She was also involved in the struggle for women's suffrage and was a member of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage.

On 21st December, 1873 she married her cousin, Professor William Ayrton. The couple moved to Japan as her husband had just been appointed professor of physics and telegraphy at the new Imperial Engineering College in Tokyo. Matilda started a school for Japanese midwives while living in the country. She also continued with private medical studies and wrote and illustrated several newspaper articles about her travels. A daughter, Edith Ayrton, was born in 1879.

Matilda Ayrton continued with her studies and after obtaining a MD in Paris she became a licentiate of the King and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland in 1880. She then began practice in Sloane Street, while studying diseases of the eye at the Royal Free Hospital.

Matilda Ayrton died of tuberculosis on 19 July 1883, aged thirty-seven, at her home, 68 Sloane Street and was buried in Brompton Cemetery. Her husband, William Ayrton, married Hertha Ayrton in 1885.

On this day in 1940 Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain signs an armistice with Germany. The terms of the agreement divided France into occupied and unoccupied zones, with a rigid demarcation line between the two. The Germans would directly control three-fifths of the country, an area that included northern and western France and the entire Atlantic coast. The remaining section of the country would be administered by the French government at Vichy under Petain.

Other provisions of the armistice included the surrender of all Jews living in France to the Germans. The French Army was disbanded except for a force of 100,000 men to maintain domestic order. The 1.5 million French soldiers captured by the Germans were to remain prisoners of war. The French government also agreed to stop members of its armed forces from leaving the country and instructed its citizens not to fight against the Germans. Finally, France had to pay the occupation costs of the German troops.

On this day in 1944 Mary Neal died at her home at Green Bushes, 31 St Flora Road, Littlehampton. Mary Neal, the daughter of a successful businessman, was born in Edgbaston on 5th June 1860. She was educated at Birmingham Ladies' College but later became a student of economics.

Deeply influenced by the writings and speeches of Keir Hardie and Edward Carpenter, she was converted to Christian Socialism and lectured at the Nottingham Labour Church.

In 1890 Mary Neal became a voluntary social worker at the West London Methodist Mission. The following year she met Emmeline Pethick. The two women became close friends. Emmeline later commented that Mary had a "strong sense of humour and a profound aversion from unreality". As Elizabeth Crawford, the author of The Suffragette Movement (1999), has pointed out: "Emmeline Pethick and Mary Neal left the Mission in order that they might carry on their social missionary work free from what they had come to perceive as the restrictions of its Methodist ethos and without the restrictions of institutional living."

In 1895 Mary Neal and Emmeline Pethick formed the Espérance Club that was influenced by the ideas of William Morris, Edward Carpenter, and Walt Whitman. This involved helping a group of young women establish a co-operative dressmaking business, Maison Espérance, in Wigmore Street. In 1900 the two women developed a hostel at Littlehampton for working girls' holidays. However, the partnership broke up when Emmeline married Frederick Lawrence.

In 1906 Mary Neal joined the Women Social & Political Union. She later became a member of the national committee of the WSPU. Unlike her close friend, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, she refused to take part in any militant action.

Mary Neal joined forces with Cecil Sharp, the brother of Evelyn Sharp, in order to revive English Folk Dance. In 1910 she published The Espérance Morris Book, which includes detailed description of 12 Morris dances and a selection of folk songs. Later that year she travelled to the United States where she lectured on folk dance.

In October 1912, Christabel Pankhurst told Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence about the proposed arson campaign. When Emmeline and Frederick objected, Christabel arranged for them to be expelled from the the organisation. Emmeline later recalled in her autobiography, My Part in a Changing World (1938): "My husband and I were not prepared to accept this decision as final. We felt that Christabel, who had lived for so many years with us in closest intimacy, could not be party to it. But when we met again to go further into the question… Christabel made it quite clear that she had no further use for us."

Mary Neal also left the WSPU and became a "special commissioner" for Votes for Women, a newspaper owned by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence. On 6th February, 1914, she became one of the founding members of the United Suffragists. Other members included Evelyn Sharp, Lena Ashwell, John Scurr, George Lansbury, Gerald Gould, Hertha Ayrton, Louisa Garrett Anderson, Eveline Haverfield, Edith Zangwill, Israel Zangwill, Laurence Housman and Henry Nevinson. She was also a member of the Tax Resistance League.

Mary Neal was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1937.