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John Fisher was born in 1469 in Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the son of Robert Fisher, a mercer, and his wife Agnes. After Robert's death Agnes remarried. Fisher was educated locally and then at the University of Cambridge, where he was associated with Michaelhouse. He took the Bachelor of Arts in 1487 and the Master of Arts in 1491, and was ordained priest about the same time. He became a fellow of Michaelhouse, served as senior proctor of the university, and in 1501 proceeded Doctor of Divinity. His learning and austerity brought him into the circle of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby and mother of King Henry VII. Fisher became her confessor and a principal agent of her educational patronage, helping to establish Christ's College and St John's College at Cambridge. In 1504 he was elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, an office he held for the remainder of his life.

In the same year, 1504, he was provided to the bishopric of Rochester, one of the poorest sees in England. He remained there for more than thirty years and declined translation to wealthier dioceses, an unusual choice in that period. As bishop he was known for personal simplicity, regular preaching, and close attention to his clergy and people. He was a leading English opponent of Martin Luther in the 1520s, preaching against Lutheran teaching (including at the burning of Lutheran books in London in 1521) and publishing substantial Latin works of controversy, among them a confutation of Luther's assertions. He also took part in proceedings against persons suspected of heresy. At Cambridge he encouraged Greek and Hebrew studies and the new learning, while remaining a defender of traditional Catholic doctrine and of the authority of the Holy See.

When Henry VIII sought to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon declared invalid, Fisher became one of the queen's chief theological advisers and a public advocate of the marriage's validity. He held that the papal dispensation under which Henry and Catherine had married was sound and that the king lacked authority to set the union aside or to claim headship of the Church in England. After the Act of Succession of 1534 he refused the oath that recognized the issue of Henry and Anne Boleyn as heirs and that implied rejection of papal authority. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London in April 1534. In May 1535 Pope Paul III created him cardinal, with the title of Cardinal Priest of San Vitale, hoping the dignity might protect him; Henry VIII treated the appointment as a challenge. Fisher never received the red hat.

Tried for high treason, he was convicted chiefly on the charge of denying the royal supremacy. He was beheaded on Tower Hill on 22 June 1535. Contemporary accounts describe him as weakened and emaciated by imprisonment. His head was displayed on London Bridge; his body was first buried in the churchyard of All Hallows-by-the-Tower and later moved to the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, where the remains of Thomas More, executed shortly afterward, were also placed. Fisher was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 29 December 1886 among English martyrs of the Reformation period, and canonized by Pope Pius XI on 19 May 1935 together with Thomas More. The Catholic Church keeps their joint feast on 22 June. He is remembered as a scholar-bishop, chancellor of Cambridge, counsellor of Catherine of Aragon, and martyr for papal authority and the unity of the Church.

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