That death, once shameful but soon to be rendered glorious by the
Carthusians, was denied to Fisher. His sentence was commuted to that
of death by beheading upon Tower Hill, where he suffered upon June
22, 1535. His head was exposed on London Bridge; his body, interred
without ceremony, now lies in the Tower, where a little later that of
Blessed Thomas More was laid beside it--two countrymen of St Thomas
Becket martyred in the same cause.

They might seem to have died in vain; their cause, as old as
Christendom, might seem to have been long since defeated. Not so: this
battle truly is decided, but in their favour, and my little son may
live to see the glory of their victory. For he shall know and believe
in his heart that his love and hope are set upon a country and a city
founded in the heavens of which David sang, to which St John looked
forth from Patmos, and of which these our Saints have told us.




CHAPTER IV

THE PILGRIMS' ROAD

ROCHESTER TO FAVERSHAM


The old road leaves Rochester to pass through Chatham, and is by no
means delightful until it has left what Camden called "the best
appointed arsenal the world ever saw." Chatham, indeed, is little else
but a huge dockyard and a long and dirty street, once the Pilgrim's