Before Parliament assembled Chapuys [Spanish ambassador to the English court] had heard threats against John Fisher’s life, threats which grew louder with the exasperation of the radicals, and in March something very queer happened at Fisher’s London dwelling. A dozen people who ate the broth at one of Fisher’s modest dinners were made violently ill. Several died, and the Bishop himself was prostrated by convulsions, and so weakened that he could not walk or stand for nearly a month. The Bishop’s cook, promptly arrested, confessed under torture that he had put a white powder someone had given him into the broth, just for a joke. He hadn’t known it was poison.
Henry [VIII] was horrified. Poison was as mysteriously dreadful as the plague, and like the plague might not spare even the person of a king. Parliament needed little urging to pass a statute ordering for poisoners the most excruciating death they could think of, and with sublime disregard for the rule of ex post facto, the Bishop’s wretched cook was hung in a cradle of chains, and slowly dipped and redipped in a caldron of boiling oil.
Source:
Mattingly, Garrett. “Part III: The Divorce of Henry VIII (1527-1536); Chapter Three, Section iii” Catherine of Aragon. New York: Quality Paperback , 1990. 321. Print.
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