LIFE

OF

EDMUND CAMPION.

CHAPTER I.

EDMUND CAMPION, the protomartyr of the English Jesuits, was born in London on St. Paul's day, January 25, 15, the thirtieth year of Henry VIII., a year marked by the suppression of the great religious houses in England, and the inauguration of a persecution of which, forty years after, Campion was to be a victim, as well as by the solemn papal approval of the Society of Jesus, of which he was to be an ornament. His father was also Edmund Campion, citizen and bookseller of London, "His parents were not wealthy in the riches of this world, but very honest and Catholic," says Father Parsons. Campion himself was not so certain of this; he only "hopes" that they died in the faith. They had four children, a girl and three boys, of whom Edmund was either eldest or second. He and his youngest brother took to books; the other preferred adventure, and took a wife, who was occasionally left to herself while her husband served in the wars."

*

* See Note A at end.

B

When Edmund was was come to "years of discretion," that is, when he was nine or ten, his parents wished to apprentice him to some merchant; but some members of one of the London companies-Parsons thinks that of the merchant adventurers, but I think the grocers-having become acquainted with the "sharp and pregnant wit” that he had shown from his childhood, induced their guild to undertake to maintain him "at their common charges to the study of learning." He was sent first to some London grammar-school, and afterwards to the new foundation of Edward VI. at Christ Church, Newgate Street,-if we may call it his foundation; but a new religion had brought in new notions of merit and reparation; it was ample satisfaction for the theft of a hog to bestow its feet in alms. Just three weeks before he died, Henry VIII. not only atoned for his wholesale pillage of the Church, but acquired the honours of a founder and benefactor, by restoring St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, to the service of God and the poor; and his son followed his example by founding schools with some of the confiscated Church property, according to the lesson first taught by Cardinal Wolsey, and since repeated with variations by most of the European governments. ChristChurch Hospital, or the Blue-Coat School was one of these foundations.

In those days there seems to have been a common concursus among the London grammar-schools, as if they had formed a university. Campion is said "ever to have borne away the game in all contentions of learning proposed by the schools of London;" a fact which he would occasionally "merrily mention" in after life, not without some talk of the prizes he had gained. His "championship" was acknowledged; and so when Queen Mary, on her solemn entry into London, August 3, 1553, had

to pass by St. Paul's School, it was none of the "Paul's pigeons" that was selected to address her, but Campion, as the representative of London scholarship, was brought from Newgate Street to make the requisite harangue. Minds that had faith in functions would have triumphed in the prospects which that day opened to the Church. They could not admit that the enthusiasm could be so soon cooled. They noted with admiration the long procession: the lords marching three and three together; the ambassadors surrounded with crowds of their own countrymen, and each attended by one of the privy councillors-the Spanish Ambassador for greater honour attended by St. John, the Lord Treasurer; the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas White, who was afterwards to be Campion's great patron; the Earl of Arundel, bearing the sword before the queen: the queen herself, “in a long-sleeved robe of crimson velvet, with side-sleeves and train of the same, enriched with gold embroidery and precious stones;" followed by her sister, the Lady Elizabeth, and a hundred and sixty other ladies,—duchesses, countesses, dames, mistresses, and maids. Eight thousand horsemen rode in the procession, and the Tower guns kept firing from the first moment the queen passed under Temple Bar till she reached the old fortress; the roofs and streets were crowded with citizens singing, playing organs, and shouting, "God save Queen Mary!"* It was in the midst of this tumult that little Campion had to spout his address, and to share the honours of a day when good-humour ruled, and criticism was mute except to applaud. The queen is said to have been much pleased with him, and the people cheered him heartily, though they probably did not hear a word he said; for at thirteen he had not that "sweet, modulated, full, sonorous

*See Note B.

bass voice"* which afterwards inspired hearts with so high resolves, though there might have been the faciei grata venustas, a youthful beauty against whose rhetoric the people could not hold argument, and anticipations of excellence to make citizens proud of their young champion.

When Sir Thomas White founded St. John's College, Oxford, the Grocers' Company dealt with him to admit this youth as a scholar, "which he did most willingly after he was informed of his towardliness and virtue." The Company gave him an exhibition for his maintenance. In 1557, when the college was increased, Campion became junior fellow; for the founder had conceived a special affection for him, and he had in very short time grown to be much known for his wit, and especially for his grace of speech and gift of eloquence, in which he was thought to be the best man of his time.

In November, 1558, Queen Mary and Cardinal Pole died. Elizabeth succeeded, set up chiefly by the forwardness and forces of the Catholic nobility and people, who at that day, says Parsons, were without comparison the stronger party, but were content to act thus, partly on the hope of Elizabeth continuing in the Catholic religion, of which she had made much demonstration while her sister lived, and partly on a certain politic persuasion that this was the less evil, the best way to preserve peace, and exclude a foreign succession to the crown. But within a few weeks the new queen had forbidden the Host to be elevated in her presence, had chidden her preachers for their doctrine, and had excited such suspicion that a Bishop could hardly be procured to crown her. After her coronation she quite threw off the mask, and by a packed party in the "beardless parliament,"

*See Note C.

and a majority of one voice in the House of Lords, from which, by threats and cajolery, she had caused the chief Catholic nobles to absent themselves, against the unanimous decision of the Bishops, and the expressed wishes of Convocation, she substituted the Anglican Establishment for the Catholic Church. But it was a long time before the law written on paper became transfused into the habits and life of the English; the utmost address and ingenu. ity, the most imperturbable patience, were requisite to enforce it step by step, first in one place, then in another, upon the divided and isolated population of the country.

The change was not immediately felt at Oxford, especially by the undergraduates; the authorities did not want to make Oxford a desert by forcing too many consciences; no oath was required of Champion till he took his degree in 1564. By that time the seductions of the university, a host of friends, and a large following of disciples had entangled him. His eloquence was a dangerous gift; as junior in the act of February 19, 1564, he was orator in the schools, "at which time," says Anthony à Wood, "speaking one or more most admirable orations, to the envy of his contemporaries, he caused one of them, Tobie Mathew, to say, that rather than omit the opportunity to show his parts, and dominari in uná atque alterá conciunculá (to be cock in a spouting-match or two), he took the oath against the supremacy of the Pope and against his own conscience." In this envious stab of Tobie's there is some truth to poison the wound. The orator's success tempted him to desert theology, to which he had addressed himself from his boyhood, and to become a humanist; and why should a humanist and a layman trouble himself with the quarrels of Pope and queen? His own path of duty was plain; he was more certain that he ought to obey his superiors, and fulfil his engagements