Publisher's Synopsis
St. Edmund Campion SJ (1540-1581) Edmund Campion was martyred at Tyburn in 1581 at the age of only 41. He had been a "don" or lecturer, at St John's College, Oxford, and something of a cult figure there, his pupils imitating him and calling themselves "Campionists". He was also a gifted Latin orator, and his speech of welcome when Queen Elizabeth visited the College was so impressive that she wanted him to join her service; and it seems that she never forgot him. Two years later, in 1569, he became a deacon in the Anglican Church, but gradually his reading led him to become more and more convinced that the Catholic church was the true one. So Campion left Oxford and went first to Dublin, then to France, where he started his studies for the Catholic priesthood. Then he went on to Rome to join the Jesuits. He did his novitiate in what is now Czechoslovakia, and taught in a school there, writing and producing plays for his pupils, reconciled apparently to spending the rest of his life in that country. In 1579, however, it was decided to open a Jesuit mission in England, so Edmund was recalled to Rome, and then sent off amid so much razzmatazz that the British intelligence services knew the Jesuits were coming long before they had even left. However, Campion's disguise as a jewellery merchant named Edmunds deceived the authorities, and after being questioned for some hours he was allowed into the country. Campion's time in England has never been forgotten. But exciting though his mission was, it was very short - only just over a year. He started in London, where he dashed off "Campion's Brag", the manifesto of his mission, which with a touch of arrogance and more than a hint of showmanship not merely announced his presence, but actually stated his aim of converting England back to the old faith. He worked in the Thames Valley area, and also in the North of England, though we cannot reconstruct his ministry in any detail. In May 1581 he issued a public challenge to a debate with any Protestant divines. He called it "Ten Reasons", and 400 copies were left on the benches of the university church at Oxford on the university's graduation day. Two months later a professional priest-hunter caught up with him at Lyford Grange in Berkshire and he was arrested and taken to prison in London. Queen Elizabeth had not forgotten him, however, and she arranged a meeting, at which she virtually offered him the Archbishopric of Canterbury if he would only renounce Catholicism. He refused, and was then given the chance he had asked for, to debate with Protestant theologians before a university audience. He was allowed no time to prepare, however, and was still weak from being tortured; but he was so forceful in the debates that he had to be executed in order to shut him up. So, after a thoroughly unconvincing trial, he was hanged on December first, 1581, still professing his loyalty to the queen.
