The Catholic Historical Review

MISCELLANY THE EXECUTION OF JOHN FISHERVIEWED THROUGH ITALIAN EYES. A LETTER OF CARDINAL ERCOLE GONZAGA BY Paul Y Murphy* News of the beheading of Cardinal John Fisher on June 22,1535, broke dramatically on a Europe already struggling -with momentous religious change.1 A little more than a month later Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga wrote to his brother Federico II, Duke ofMantua, about the execution ofthe English prelate. This letter has not been previously published.2 The letter reveals the understanding of the execution by one who was a leader ofthe imperial faction in the College of Cardinals. It shows that details of the execution were not altogether clear and that there were already different accounts ofthe execution itself. Thus, the letter indicates the character of the information about the execution that was available to the papal court and how at least one cardinal at the court responded. The writer of the letter, Ercole Gonzaga (1505-1563), was the second son of Francesco Gonzaga and Isabella d'Esté.3 He had been reared in the opulent Ren- *Mr. Murphy is a lecturer in the Department ofHistory ofthe University ofToronto and a fellow of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at Victoria University in the University of Toronto. He wishes to thank Professor Paul F. Grendler for having read and commented upon an earlier draft of this article. The following abbreviations will be used in the notes: CSPFD = Calendar ofState Papers, Foreign andDomestic ofthe Reign ofHenry VIII Vol.VIII (London, 1885) ASM1AG = Archivio di State di Mantova,Archivio Gonzaga On Fisher see FrançoisVan Ortroy, S.J.,"LaVie du bienheureux martyrJean Fisher, Cardinal , Évêque de Rochester (+1535). Texte anglais et traduction latine du XVI' siècle," Analecta Bollandiana, X (1891), 121-365, and ?? (1893), 97-287, for the definitive edition of the earliest Life. Analyses of Fisher's thought may be found in Edward Surtz, S.J., The Works and Days ofJohn Fisher (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967); Brendan Bradshaw and Eamon Duffy (eds.), Humanism, Reform, and the Reformation (Cambridge, 1985), Richard Rex, The Theology ofJohn Fisher (Cambridge, 1991). 2Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga to Federico, Duke of Mantua, Jury 31, 1535, ASM, AG, busta 885, fols. 156-157. 3On Gonzaga see the introduction ofJosé Fernández Montesinos (ed.), Cartas inéditas deJuan de Valdés al cardenal Gonzaga (Madrid, 1931), pp. xix-liv, which provides bio69 70THEEXECUTIONOFJOHN FISHER aissance court of Mantua. His early education came from the humanist and philosophical circle of which his parents were patrons. Pietro Pomponazzi instructed him in philosophy at the University of Bologna. He learned Greek and Latin and even studied some Hebrew. Isabella d'Este,who harbored great hopes for the ecclesiastical career of her son, ensured that he received the cardinal's hat in 1527 at the age of twenty-two. Cardinal Gonzaga moved firmly into the imperial camp in the College of Cardinals after 1530 in keeping with his brother's foreign policy. For many years he resided in his diocese and carried out a reform ofhis clergy and the laity in the manner ofhis colleague, Gian Matteo Giberti ofVerona. At the end of his life Gonzaga presided over the concluding sessions of the Council ofTrent as papal legate from 1561 until his death in March of 1563. Between 1528 and 1537 he resided at the papal court,where he acted essentially as the chief Mantuan agent in Rome. He was present at the consistory on July 26, 1535, when the pope announced the death of Fisher to the assembled cardinals. The transcription presented here is from one of two identical accounts sent by Cardinal Gonzaga soon after the news of Fisher's death reached Rome. It is of the letter that he sent to the Duke Federico of Mantua dated July 31, 1535, found in the Archivio di Stato di Mantova.4 The same account is contained in a letter sent to the Gonzaga ambassador inVenice,GiovanniAgnello, datedJuly 27.' Cardinal Gonzaga's account of the imprisonment and execution of Fisher is based largely on a letter of the papal nuncio in France, Rodolfo Pió da Carpi.6 The nuncio wrote with news of the death as he had learned it from the Adrniral...