Simon Fish

Simon Fish (died 1531) was a 16th-century Protestant reformer and English propagandist. Fish is best known for helping to spread William Tyndale's New Testament and for authoring the vehemently anti-clerical pamphlet Supplication for the Beggars (also spelled A Supplycacion for the Beggars) which was condemned as heretical by the Roman Catholic Church on 24 May 1530. His pamphlet can be seen as a precursor to the English Reformation and, more broadly, the Protestant Reformation. Fish was eventually arrested in London on charges of heresy, but was stricken with bubonic plague and died before he could stand trial. His widow subsequently married the vocal reformer James Bainham, and then became a widow twice-over in April 1532, when Bainham was burnt at the stake as a heretic.

It was during his second exile in Antwerp that Fish authored his incendiary pamphlet Supplication for the Beggars' (the "Supplication")'. The sixteen-page pamphlet accused the Roman Catholic Church of everything from avarice to murder to treason. The printer of the subversive pamphlet was most likely Johannes Grapheus of Antwerp, but for obvious reasons this remains unconfirmed. From Antwerp the Supplication was smuggled into England, penetrating the country's borders despite its prohibition. It bore a dedication to the sovereign King Henry VIII. John Foxe dates the arrival of Fish's Supplication as 2 February 1529.

Fish's pamphlet cries out to the king on behalf of the poor and accuses the Roman Catholic Church and Her clergy as daily increasing their miseries.

“Most lamentably compleyneth theyre wofull mysery vnto youre highnes youre poore daily bedemen the wretched hidous monstres (on whome scarcely for horror any yie dare loke) the foule vnhappy sort of lepres, and other sore people, needy, impotent, blinde, lame, and sike that live onely by almesse, howe that theyre nombre is daily so sore encreased that all the almesse of all the weldisposed people of this youre realme is not half ynough for to susteine theim, but that for verey contreint they die for hunger."

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