BAGSHAW, CHRISTOPHER

Priest and controversialist; b. Lichfield?, c. 1552; d. Paris?, c. 1625. From Oxford he received his B.A. (July 12, 1572) and M.A. (June 21, 1575) degrees; he became principal of Gloucester Hall in 1579, but resigned and went to France in 1582. After his conversion to Catholicism, he began his studies at the English College, Rome, on Oct. 1, 1583. In January of 1585 he was expelled as "unwilling to take the oath" (Liber Ruber ). He "did not behave well." Passing through Italy to France, he acquired a doctorate at Padua; hence his nickname "Doctor per saltum." He arrived at Douai on April 2, 1585, and was sent to England on May 27. Captured upon landing, he was imprisoned in the Tower, and then in Wisbich (Wisbech, Wisbeach) from 1588? until November of 1601 when, with the approval of the bishop of London, and the Privy Council, he passed with other appellants to Paris en route to Rome. He remained in Paris, a controversial figure, difficult to friends, and irreconcilable to the Jesuits. He was the author, most probably, of A True Relation of the Faction begun at Wisbich by Fa: Edmonds, alias Weston, a Jesuit, 1595… (London 1601); Relatio compendiosa Turbarum quas Jesuitae Angli una cum D. Georgio Blackwello…concivere (Rouen 1601); An Answer…to certain points of a libell called an Apologie of the subordination in England (Paris 1601); and A sparing discoverie of our English Jesuits, and of Fa: Parsons …(London 1601).

Bibliography: a. À. wood, Athenae Oxonienses, ed. p. bliss, 5 v. (London 1813–20) 2:389–90. t. g. law, ed., The Archpriest Controversy, 2 v. (Camden Society 56, 58; London 1896–98). "Liber Ruber," ed. w. kelly (Publications of the Catholic Record Society 37; 1940) 43. p. renold, "The Wisbech Stirs," (ibid. 51;1958). a. h. bullen, The Dictionary of National Biography from the Earliest Times to 1900 1:872–73. j. gillow, A Literary and Biographical History or Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics from 1534 to the Present Time 1:100–101.

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