Worldly success
Like St Thomas More, whose feast day he shares, St John Fisher had a reputation for holiness long before his actual martyrdom. A Yorkshireman by birth (in 1459), he went to Cambridge, where the Catholic chaplaincy is named after him.
Fisher rose in the university, eventually becoming chancellor, and in the Church: Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII, asked Fisher to be her confessor. In 1504 he became Bishop of Rochester.
This was a time of widespread clerical corruption, when bishops used their placements to climb the career ladder. Fisher, by contrast, stayed in this little-regarded diocese and cared profoundly for his flock. He went about his diocese comforting the poor and sick, disciplining his clergy and preaching against heresy. He prayed, fasted and studied hard, but was also close to the people of his diocese.
