Of the Life, Imprisonment, and Martyrdom of Father Edmund Campion of the Society of Jesus1

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Book 2, chapter 32 Of the Life, Imprisonment, and Martyrdom of Father Edmund Campion of the Society of Jesus1

Among those jailed were many of the priests who (as we have said) circulated through the kingdom, encouraging the Catholics, strengthening the weak, il- luminating the blind, and reconciling the converted to the Catholic Church. These men were afflicted with harsh prisons and abuses of every kind, con- sumed and dispatched with ghastly deaths. Here I will say something about these illustrious martyrs out of all that has been printed in various books. But whereas the foremost of these, the general and captain of all those who in recent years have died in Elizabeth’s England for the faith of Jesus Christ, has been Father Edmund Campion of the Society of Jesus, in this chapter I will speak at greater length about his life and martyrdom—and in what follows we shall touch upon something of the rest. Father Campion was born in London, the capital of England. After the first years of childhood, he entered St John’s College, Oxford, where, on account of his singular brilliance and amiable disposition, he was well loved by the found- er, Thomas White [Bukito], in whose memory he delivered an elegant and eloquent Latin oration.2 Having completed the course of grades, ranks, and offices that are customarily given to students of his caliber in that university, his friends and confidants, who wished to see him successful and honored, per- suaded him to be ordained a deacon, so that he might ascend to the pulpit and preach—though he was never attracted to the errors of our times. So forcefully 1 2

1 Sander, De origine ac progressu, 462–64. Most of the description of Campion’s life, work, and martyrdom comes from the Italian edition of William Allen’s biographies of the Catholic martyrs: Allen, Historia, 63–96. For an English translation, see William Allen, A Briefe Historie of the Glorious Martyrdom of Twelve Reverend Priests Father Edmund Campion & His Companions, ed. and trans. John Hungerford Pollen (London: Burns and Oates, 1908), 1–26. 2 Edmund Campion was born in London on January 25, 1540. “In 1558, a few months before the accession of Elizabeth, Campion entered St John’s College, founded barely twelve months earlier by Sir Thomas White, a wealthy merchant, devout Catholic and former Lord Mayor of London.” Campion studied philosophy and theology, receiving two degrees and becoming a fellow in 1564. A noted orator, Campion delivered White’s funeral address in 1567. McCoog, Reckoned Expense, xix–xx. Michael A.R. Graves, “Campion, Edmund [St Edmund Campion] (1540–1581),” in odnb, 9:872–76, here 872.

Of the Life, Imprisonment, and Martyrdom of Edmund Campion 457 did they press him that he allowed himself to be conquered and to be ordained according to the new practice of the land, not fully understanding how odious and displeasing these schismatic dignities were to God our Lord.3 Anxious to serve him and to become a valiant soldier and defender of his Church, the young man found an occasion to travel to Ireland, where he wrote a history of that island with surpassing eloquence.4 Then he crossed to Flanders and entered the seminary at Douai, where he studied theology and received his degree, as well as being disabused and instructed in Catholic doctrine and the truths of our sacred faith.5 Now possessing greater judgment and understanding, greater devotion and zeal, he understood the grave error into which he had fallen in having received the rank of a schismatic deacon. And he was seized by such fierce pangs of conscience and such anxieties that his soul could find neither comfort nor peace until he entered religion, to perform penance for that sin and free himself from that horrible, burdensome scruple, which he bore like a nail embedded in his heart. For this reason, he went to Rome and entered the Society of Jesus, and thence he was sent to Bohemia, where he remained for eight years, being ordained a priest in Prague and teaching, writ- ing, and continually working on behalf of the Church of God with the utmost deftness and skill.6 Thus it was that of the first two men the general of the

3 4 5 6

3 In 1568, Campion was awarded an exhibition by the Grocers’ Company, which came with the stipulation that the recipient preach at St Paul’s Cross if asked to do so. Campion was duly ordained a deacon in the spring of the following year. Over the course of 1569, the Company put increasing pressure on the young scholar to fulfill the preaching requirement, driving Campion to resign that autumn. McCoog, Reckoned Expense, xxii–xxiii. 4 Two Bokes of the Histories of Ireland, composed by Campion during several months in Ireland in the spring of 1571. See Edmund Campion, Two Bokes of the Histories of Ireland, ed. A.F. Vossen (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1963). 5 Campion entered the English College at Douai in the late summer of 1571, receiving his degree in 1573. McCoog, Reckoned Expense, xxv. 6 Persons relates that Campion “could not tell what better resolution to take for satisfying both God and man and especially his own conscience than to break utterly with the world, and with a penitent heart to repair to the holy city of Rome, there to cast himself at the feet of the blessed Apostles St Peter and St Paul, special patrons of that place, and afterwards by their good help and motion to seek to be received (if he might) into the religion of the Society of the B. Name of Jesus, and therein to lead the rest of his life according of the direction of his Superiors.” Arriving in Rome in the spring of 1573, Campion was sent to Prague, thence to Brno, and then back to Prague, where he taught rhetoric in the Jesuit college, the Clementina. He was ordained by the archbishop of Prague in 1578. Campion also produced written work during this period, notably the play Ambrosia (1578). Ibid., xxv–xxvi. For Campion’s time in Bohemia, see McCoog, And Touching Our Society, Chapter 3.