Fish was eventually arrested in London on charges of heresy, but he was stricken with bubonic plague and died before he could stand trial.
Fish's pamphlet cries out to the king on behalf of the poor and accuses the Roman Catholic Church and its clergy of 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.
Fish calculates that the English clergy own 1/3 of the land and 1/10 of all farm produce and live stock, and simultaneously receive 1/10 of all servants' wages within England.
The pamphlet finds that, if there were ten households for each of the 52,000 parish churches in England, then just one of five orders of mendicant friars alone would take in an annual £43.333 6s.
With regard to purgatory, he simply contends that "there is not one word spoken of it in all holy scripture", making an argument in line with the Reformation idea of Sola scriptura.
Fish also rejects the sale of indulgences and argues that the supposed act of penance was merely a ruse to fill the clergy's coffers.
The clergy, according to Fish, levy crippling taxes that sap the population of funds they could otherwise use to support the king and finance defence measures.
His pamphlet asserts that this requirement moves the clergy, with their expendable wealth, to entice women to lead lives of sin.
"[8] Fish's shocking claims continue with arguments that priests’ deplorable sexual promiscuity spreads diseases thereby corrupting “the hole generation of mankind yn your realme, that catche the pokes of one woman,” and who “catch the lepry of one woman, and bere it to an other…”[8] Within months of the circulation of Fish's pamphlet, St. Thomas More produced a response in defence of the Catholic Church, entitled The Supplycatyon of Soulys.
The response, printed by October 1529, came in two books, the first addressing the social and economic concerns raised by Fish, and the second defending the doctrine of purgatory.
Joining in a growing anti-clerical movement, Fish's pamphlet, however inflammatory, demonstrates some of the popular objections to the Roman Catholic Church in the years preceding the English Reformation.