This little book leans much, as every modern work on the subject must do, upon Mr. Richard Simpson’s monograph: Edmund Campion, Jesuit Protomartyr of England . In many points supplementing or contradicting that splendid though biased narrative, the present writer has gratefully taken advantage of the researches of the Rev. John Hungerford Pollen, S.J. It may also be useful to state that the contemporary citations, when not otherwise specified, are from two invaluable witnesses, Parsons and Allen

THE Campion family seem to have been both gentlefolk and yeomen, and to have been widely scattered over the land: in Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Essex, Sussex, and Devon. Nothing is definitely known, at present, as to which branch of the Campion family the Blessed Edmund belonged. Unlike many of the martyrs of Tudor and Stuart times, he was what is called a “born” Catholic: in more accurate phrase, a born heathen, as we all are! but baptized in his parents’ religion soon after his birth in L

THOUSANDS who were comfortably placed in life, and conscientious, too, had a great deal to suffer until things were made plain. Edmund Campion began to fret, and argue, and ponder, and pray for light in secret, for several years going about “that most ingeniose Place” (as a later lover called Oxford) with heavy thoughts. Oxford itself, despite the Ecclesiastical Commission fixed there to worry it, was more Catholic in spirit than any other city in England. Nevertheless Campion’s temptation to co

THE Barnewalls were in feeling both more Catholic and more Irish than the Stanihursts, and they showed Edmund Campion a no less tender hospitality. The great house was in a beautiful and remote situation. Running in and out of it was a horde of laughing children, including the eleven-year-old Janet who was to become Richard Stanihurst’s early-dying wife. Campion loved the hearty Knight, their father, and their lady mother, whom he calls “in very sooth, a most gentle and godly woman.” Though he m

INTERRUPTED sea-voyages were his fate. This time, half-way across the Channel, his ship was hailed by a Government frigate, The Hare , which demanded to be shown the ship’s sailing papers, and the passports of her passengers. Campion had none. Moreover, as his religion was suspected, the dutiful Protestant frigate, homeward bound, promptly swallowed him, bag and baggage. His generous friends in Ireland had forced upon him money for his needs, and the captain who now kidnapped him found it conven

IN Allen’s Apology for Seminaries there is a beautiful account of the ideals of Douay. “The first thought of the founders of the College had been to attract the young English exiles who were living in Flanders from their solitary and self-guided study to a more exact method and to collegiate obedience; and their next, to provide for the rising generation in England a succession of learned Catholics, especially of clergy, to take the place of those removed by old age, imprisonment, and persecutio

CAMPION stayed but two months at Prague, as the small Noviciate was removed to Brünn in Moravia, where the inhabitants were most hostile to Catholicism. The Bishop of Olmütz begged the Jesuits to help him so far as their Rule permitted. Novices were sent out among the neighbouring villages, to catechize and instruct the poorer Catholics; and no one had so instant a success in this little enterprise as “God’s Englishman.” At the year’s end his Novice Master, John Paul Campanus, became Rector of t

FROM Prague to Munich, and from Munich to Innsbrück, Campion had the distinguished and very friendly company of Ferdinand, brother of the reigning Duke of Bavaria. Afterwards he went on alone on foot, as he was always glad to do, as far as Padua. Here he took horse for Rome, which he reached just before Palm Sunday, April 5, 1580, coming “in grave priest’s garb,” we are told, “with long hair, after the fashion of Germany.” He was informed by the Father-General that he was to start for England ni

SIR FRANCIS WALSINGHAM had a wonderfully well-organized spy-system: far superior, as Simpson remarks, to the attempts of the Spaniards in the same line. Therefore each of the missionaries was cautioned to travel under a name other than his own. Campion fell back upon his beloved alias of “Mr. Patrick,” as he had done for the brief visit to Geneva. His friends made him drop it, as they neared the Channel; being Irish, it was doubly dangerous, since here at Rheims the home-goers got their first ta

THE devoted George Gilbert, his fellowship of young men, and those whom they gathered together, met on the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, June 29, to hear, for the first time, Fr. Campion preach. It was no easy task to find a safe and suitable auditorium; but Lord Paget, one of their own number, was daring enough to hire from Lord Norreys the hall of a great house in the neighbourhood of Smithfield. All the servants and porters were turned out for the occasion, and gentlemen took their places. Wit

CAMPION passed four months of pleasant weather in hard and happy work, moving about Northamptonshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire. Some lovely little spiritual adventure starred his path, and the paths of others, wherever he went. He must have seen more than once, from some hilly road afar off, even if he never entered it, “The towery City, branchy between towers,” which was so dear to him to the last. In October of this year, 1580, he was bidden towards London as far as Uxbridge: farther he could ha

ON the morning of July 12, Father Edmund and Brother Ralph, faithful to agreement, were in their saddles again, leaving the pious household refreshed, but lamenting. Of the two priests who formed part of it, one, Fr. Collington, or Colleton, escorted them some distance on their way. Campion had already been waylaid, at an inn near Oxford, by many friendly tutors and undergraduates, when up galloped the other chaplain of Lyford, Fr. Forde. He was a Trinity College man, who had entered Douay just

CAMPION, in between the working of the rollers, was asked his opinion of certain political utterances in the works of his old friends Allen and Bristow, and of Dr. Sander; also whether he considered the Queen “true and lawful,” or “pretensed and deprived.” He refused to answer. Physical anguish could be little worse than the ineffable boredom of these two never-quiet questions. He was then asked by the Governor, the Rackmaster, and others present, by whose command and counsel he had returned to

EVEN thus late, fresh proffers were made to buy Campion over to the State religion. Such a circumstance, as he had claimed previously, is in itself a plain disproof of any treason. Hopton, who hated him, sent Campion’s own sister to him with the repeated offer of a very rich benefice. To the cell door came one day none other than George Eliot, saying that he would never have trapped Fr. Edmund, had he thought that anything worse than imprisonment could be in store. He also told the man of God wh

  Obvious punctuation errors were corrected. Page 77, “Fowers” changed to “Flowers” (Little Flowers of Martyrdom)...