[48], 727, [1] pp. Woodcut border on title; woodcut printers device on final leaf. (8vo) 6¼x4, contemporary full blindstamped vellum. "Editio Postrema".
St. John Fisher, Cardinal, Bishop of Rochester, and martyr; born at Beverley, Yorkshire, England, (1459?-1535). By Papal Bull in 1504, Fisher was advanced to the Bishopric of Rochester, and in the same year was elected Chancellor of Cambridge University, to which post he was re-elected annually for ten years and then appointed for life. At this date also he is said to have acted as tutor to Prince Henry, afterwards Henry VIII. When the question of Henry's divorce from Queen Catherine arose, Fisher became the Queen's chief supporter and most trusted counsellor. In this capacity he appeared on the Queen's behalf in the legates' court, where he startled his hearers by the directness of his language and most of all by declaring that, like St. John the Baptist, he was ready to die on behalf of the indissolubility of marriage. In June, 1535 he was arraigned in Westminster Hall on a charge of treason, in that he denied the King to be supreme head of the Church. He was declared guilty, and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, but the mode of execution was changed, and instead he was beheaded on Tower Hill June 22, 1535.
Condition:
Some wear and soiling to vellum, lacking one closure clasp, worming to covers; library bookplate on front free endpaper, penciled library markings on verso of title page, library rubberstamp on bottom edge of page block; evidence of old tape repair in gutter of title page; final 4 leaves tattered at lower edge but without loss of text; two small worm holes extending from approximately page 200 onward, primarily in fore-margin but minimally affecting text at rear; overall very good.