Early life and education

Fisher was the son of Payne Fisher, one of the captains in the royal life guard while Charles I

Charles I of England

Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

 was in Oxfordshire, and grandson of Sir William Fisher, knight. He was born at Warnford

Warnford

Warnford is a village and civil parish in the City of Winchester district of Hampshire, England.The village lies on the A32 in the valley of the River Meon between West Meon and Exton. It has a church and a pub, . There is an infrequent bus service from Bishop's Waltham to Petersfield...

, Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, in the house of his maternal grandfather, Sir Thomas Neale. He matriculated at Hart Hall, Oxford, in Michaelmas term, 1634; three years later he moved to Magdalene College, Cambridge

Magdalene College, Cambridge

Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene...

. While at Cambridge he first developed 'a rambling head' and a turn for verse-making. He left the university suddenly, around 1638, and entered the army in the Netherlands. There he fought in the defence of Boduc.

Returning to England before long, he enlisted as an ensign in the army raised (1639) by Charles I for the Bishops' War, and during this campaign made acquaintance with the cavalier poet Richard Lovelace

Richard Lovelace

Richard Lovelace was an English poet in the seventeenth century. He was a cavalier poet who fought on behalf of the king during the Civil war. His best known works are To Althea, from Prison, and To Lucasta, Going to the Warres....

. Subsequently Fisher took service in Ireland, where he rose to the rank of captain, and, returning about 1644, was made, by Lord Chichester

Edward Chichester, 1st Viscount Chichester

Edward Chichester, 1st Viscount Chichester was the younger brother of Arthur Chichester, Baron Chichester. He was knighted in 1616, and after his brother's death in 1625 was in his memory ennobled as Viscount Chichester, of Carrickfergus in the County of Antrim, and Baron Chichester, of Belfast in...

's influence, sergeant-major of a foot regiment in the royalist army. By Prince Rupert's command he marched at the head of three hundred men to relieve York

York

York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

.

Fisher was present at Battle of Marston Moor

Battle of Marston Moor

The Battle of Marston Moor was fought on 2 July 1644, during the First English Civil War of 1642–1646. The combined forces of the Scottish Covenanters under the Earl of Leven and the English Parliamentarians under Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester defeated the Royalists commanded by Prince...

, but found himself on the losing side. He deserted the royalist cause after the battle, and went to London, where he lived as best he could by his pen.

Later life

Fisher's character was too notorious for him to gain favour by his flatteries, and he lived poor and out of favour after the Restoration

English Restoration

The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...

.

Fisher died in poverty in a coffee-house in the Old Bailey

Old Bailey

The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...

 2 April 1693, and was buried 6 April in a yard belonging to the church of St. Sepulchre's

St Sepulchre-without-Newgate

St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, also known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre , is an Anglican church in the City of London. It is located on Holborn Viaduct, almost opposite the Old Bailey...

. William Winstanley

William Winstanley

William Winstanley was an English poet and compiler of biographies.-Life:Born about 1628, William Winstanley was the second son of William Winstanley of Quendon, Essex, by his wife Elizabeth. Henry Winstanley was his nephew. William was sworn in as a freeman of Saffron Walden on 21 April 1649. He...

 summed up Fisher's character in the following words: 'A notable undertaker in Latin verse, and had well deserved of his country, had not lucre of gain and private ambition overswayed his pen to favour successful rebellion.' Winstanley adds that he had intended to 'commit to memory the monuments in the churches in London and Westminster, but death hindered him'.

Works

Fisher's first poem, published in 1650, celebrating the parliamentary victory of Marston Moor, was entitled 'Marston Moor, Eboracense carmen; cum quibusdam miscellaneis opera studioque Pagani Piscatoris, . . .' London, 1650. He always wrote under this name, or that of Fitzpaganus Fisher. By his turn for Latin verse and his adulatory arts, or, as Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood or Anthony à Wood was an English antiquary.-Early life:Anthony Wood was the fourth son of Thomas Wood , BCL of Oxford, where Anthony was born...

 termed it, by his ability 'to shark money from those who delighted to see their names in print,' Fisher soon became the fashionable poet of his day. He was made poet-laureate, or in his own words after the Restoration, 'scribbler' to Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

.

He wrote not only Latin panegyrics and congratulatory odes on the Protector, dedicating his works to John Bradshaw

John Bradshaw (judge)

John Bradshaw was an English judge. He is most notable for his role as President of the High Court of Justice for the trial of King Charles I and as the first Lord President of the Council of State of the English Commonwealth....

 and the most important of the parliamentary magnates, but also composed elegies and epitaphs on the deaths of their generals. Thus the 'Irenodia Gratulatoria, sive illus. amplissimique Oliveri Cromwellii . . . Epinicion,' London, 1652, was dedicated to the president (Bradshaw) and the council of state, and concluded with odes on the funerals of Edmund Ludlow

Edmund Ludlow

Edmund Ludlow was an English parliamentarian, best known for his involvement in the execution of Charles I, and for his Memoirs, which were published posthumously in a rewritten form and which have become a major source for historians of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. After service in the English...

 and Edward Popham

Edward Popham

Edward Popham was a General-at-Sea during the English Civil War.Edward Popham was son of Sir Francis Popham and his wife Anne . By 1636 he was a naval lieutenant. During the English Civil War he supported parliament and joined the forces of Oliver Cromwell. He was elected M.P. for Minehead in...

 (London, 1652). To another, 'Veni vidi, vici, the Triumphs of the most Excellent and Illustrious Oliver Cromwell . . . set forth in a panegyric, written in Latin, and faithfully done into English verse by T. Manly' (London, 1652, 8vo), was added an elegy upon the death of Henry Ireton

Henry Ireton

Henry Ireton was an English general in the Parliamentary army during the English Civil War. He was the son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell.-Early life:...

, lord deputy of Ireland. The 'Inauguratio Oliveriana, with other poems' (Lond. 1654), was followed the next year by 'Oratio Anniversaria in die Inaugurations . . . Olivari . . .' (London, 1655, fol.), and again other panegyrics on the second anniversary of 'his highness's' inauguration (the 'Oratio . . .' and 'Paean Triumphalis,' both London, 1657). To the 'Paean' was added an epitaph on Admiral Robert Blake

Robert Blake

Robert Blake may refer to:*Bob Blake , American professional ice hockey player*Robert Blake , English naval commander*Robert Blake , pioneering Irish dentist...

, which, like most of Fisher's odes and elegies, was also published separately as a 'broadsheet' (see list in Wood, ed. Bliss, Athenæ Oxon. iv. 377, &c.)

He celebrated the victory of Dunkirk in an 'Epinicion vel elogium . . . Ludovici XIIII . . . pro nuperis victoriis in Flandria, praecipue pro desideratissima reductione Dunkirkæ captaa . . . sub confœderatis auspiciis Franco-Britannorum' (London ? 1655 ?). The book has a portrait of the French king in the beginning, and French verses in praise of the author at the end. Fisher afterwards presented Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...

 with a copy of this work 'with his arms, and dedicated to me very handsome'. It was a usual habit of the poet's to put different dedications to such of his works as might court the favour of the rich and powerful.

He once attempted to recite a Latin elegy on Archbishop Ussher in Christ Church Hall, Oxford (17 April 1656), the undergraduates made such a tumult that he never attempted another recitation at the university. He printed 'what he had done' in the 'Mercurius Politicus' (1658), which called forth some satire doggerel from Samuel Woodford in 'Naps upon Parnassus' (1658) (see Wood). It was not till 1681 that the elegy on Ussher was separately issued, and then an epitaph on the Earl of Ossory was printed with it. With the return of the Stuarts the time-server turned his coat, and his verses were now as extravagant in praise of the king

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

 as they had been of the Protector

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

. At the Restoration there was a pamphlet entitled 'The Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton, and John John Bradshaw, intended to have been spoken at their execution at Tyburn

Tyburn

Tyburn is a former village just outside the then boundaries of London that was best known as a place of public execution.Tyburn may also refer to:* Tyburn , river and historical water source in London...

e 30 June 1660, but for many weightie reasons omitted, published by Marchiament Needham and Pagan Fisher, servants, poets, and pamphleteers to his Infernal Highness,' 1660, (Bodl.)

He spent several years in the Fleet Prison

Fleet Prison

Fleet Prison was a notorious London prison by the side of the Fleet River in London. The prison was built in 1197 and was in use until 1844. It was demolished in 1846.- History :...

, and while there he published two works on the monuments in the city churches, written before or just after the Great Fire of London

Great Fire of London

The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...

. The first of these compilations is 'A Catalogue of most of the Memorable Tombs, &c., in the Demolisht or yet extant Churches of London from St. Katherine's beyond the Tower to Temple Barre,' written 1666, published 1668, 'two years after the great fire,' London. The second is 'The Tombs, Monuments, and Sepulchral Inscriptions lately visible in St. Paul's Cathedral . . . by Major P. F., student in antiquity, grand-child to the late Sir William Fisher and that most memorable knight, Sir Thomas Neale, by his wife, Elizabeth, sister to that so publick-spirited patriot, the late Sir Thomas Freke' of Shroton, Dorset; from the Fleet, with dedication to Charles II, after the fire, London, 1684. Several editions were published of both these catalogues, including that revised and edited by G. B. Morgan, entitled 'Catalogue of the Tombs in the Churches of the City of London,' 1885.

Besides the works above, and a quantity of other odes and epitaphs, Fisher edited poems on several choice and various subjects, occasionally imparted by an eminent author (i. e. James Howell

James Howell

James Howell was a 17th-century Anglo-Welsh historian and writer who is in many ways a representative figure of his age. The son of a Welsh clergyman, he was for much of his life in the shadow of his elder brother Thomas Howell, who became Lord Bishop of Bristol.-Education:In 1613 he gained his B.A...

); collected and published by Sergeant-major P. F., London, 1663; the second edition, giving the author's name, is entitled 'Mr. Howel's Poems upon divers emergent occasions,' and dedicated to Dr. Henry King

Henry King (poet)

-Life:The eldest son of John King, Bishop of London, and his wife Joan Freeman, he was baptised at Worminghall, Buckinghamshire, 16 January 1592. He was educated at Lord Williams's School, Westminster School and in 1608 became a student of Christ Church, Oxford...

, bishop of Chichester, with a preface by Fisher about Howell, whom he describes as having 'asserted the royal rights in divers learned tracts,' London, 1664. Fisher also published:

• 'Deus et Rex, Rex et Episcopus,' London, 1675.
• 'Elogia Sepulchralia,' London, 1675, a collection of some of Fisher's many elegies.
• 'A Book of Heraldry,' London, 1682.
• 'The Anniversary of his Sacred Majesty's Inauguration, in Latin and English; from the Fleet, under the generous jurisdiction of R. Manlove, warden thereof,' London, 1685.