CAMPION, EDMUND, ST.

English Jesuit priest, martyr; b. London, England, c. 1540; hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, London, Dec. 1, 1581. His father, a bookseller, sent him for his education to Christ's Hospital (some say St. Paul's); at age 15 he was awarded a scholarship at St. John's College, Oxford, where two years later he was appointed a junior fellow. He was an outstanding orator and was chosen to speak before Queen Elizabeth when she visited Oxford in 1566; as a schoolboy he had read an address of welcome to Queen Mary on her entry into London in 1553. He won the patronage of the earl of Leicester, and Queen Elizabeth and William Cecil both expressed interest in his future. Brilliant, popular, and the leader of an influential group, he became the most notable figure in the Oxford of his day: Cecil later referred to him as a "diamond of England."

In August 1569 Campion crossed to Dublin to assist in the foundation of a university. After writing his History of Ireland, a superb piece of literature (first published in Holinshed's Chronicles, 1587), he returned to London in 1571, witnessed the trial of Dr. John Storey and then crossed to Douai, where he was reconciled to the Church—he had taken the Oath of Supremacy and deacon's orders according to the Anglican Ordinal (1553). He was ordained subdeacon at Douai in 1573, and went as a pilgrim to Rome, where he was admitted into the Society of Jesus by Father Everard Mercurian. After his novitiate at Brünn in Moravia, he was assigned to teach in the Jesuit school in Prague, where he was ordained in 1578. At the end of the following year Campion, with Father Robert persons, was chosen by Mercurian, at the instigation of Cardinal William allen, to inaugurate a Jesuit mission to England. Campion set out from Rome in the spring of 1580, visiting on his way Cardinal Charles borromeo at Milan and beza at Geneva; he landed at Dover in the guise of a jewel merchant on June 25. On reaching London, where he visited Catholic prisoners, he hurriedly wrote his "Challenge to the Privy Council" (commonly called "Campion's Brag"), in which he proclaimed the purpose of his mission, namely, "of free cost to preach the Gospel, to minister the Sacraments, to instruct the simple, to reform sinners, to confute errors—in brief, to cry alarm spiritual against foul vice and proud ignorance, wherewith many [of] my dear countrymen are abused."

Campion's winning personality, saintliness, and eloquence gave fresh heart to Catholics throughout England, but he was pursued by agents of the crown and more than once narrowly escaped capture. He wrote to Mercurian, describing his labors in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands: "I ride about some piece of country every day. The harvest is wonderful great … I cannot long escape the hands of the heretics … I am in apparel to myself very ridiculous; I often change it and my name too." At Stonor Park, Oxfordshire, he wrote and secretly printed his Decem Rationes, in which he openly challenged Protestant divines to dispute with him the grounds of Catholicism. On June 27, 1581, some 400 copies of this book were secretly distributed in University Church, Oxford, at the service of "Commemoration."

Three weeks later, at Lyford Grange, Berkshire, Campion was betrayed, arrested, and taken to the Tower of London. Attempts were made to bribe him into apostasy. He was racked several times, forced into theological debate, and finally on November 14, together with Ralph sherwin, Luke kirby, and others, condemned to death. Before sentence he addressed the court: "In condemning us you condemn all your own ancestors—all the ancient priests, bishops, and kings–all that was once the glory of England … God lives; posterity will live; their judgment is not so liable to corruption as that of those who are now going to sentence us to death." On December 1, with Sherwin and Alexander briant, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. Campion was beatified by Leo XIII on Dec. 9, 1886 and canonized by Paul VI on Oct. 25, 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Feast: Dec. 1 (Jesuits); Oct. 25 (Feast of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales); May 4 (Feast of the English Martyrs in England).

See Also: england, scotland, and wales, martyrs of; oaths, english post-reformation; recusants; recusant literature.

Bibliography: e. campion, A Place in the City (Ringwood, Vic. and New York 1994). l. campion, The Family of Edmund Campion (London 1975). h. foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, 7 v. (London 1877–82) passim. l. french, The Campion Paintings (Melbourne 1962). t. gavin, High Above the Sun: Lives of St. Thomas More and Bl. Emund Campion (Pulaski, Wis. 1961). t. m. mccoog, ed., The Reckoned Expense: Edmund Campion and the Early English Jesuits (Wood-bridge, Suffolk, UK 1996)s. e. e. reynolds, Campion and Parsons: The Jesuit Mission of 1580–1 (London 1980). r. simpson, Edmund Campion (new ed. London 1896). m. h. south, The Jesuits and the Joint Mission to England during 1580–1581 (Lewiston, N.Y. 1999). j. n. tylenda, Jesuit Saints & Martyrs (Chicago 1998), 415–19. e. waugh, Edmund Campion (New York 1935; Oxford and New York 1980), reprinted as Saint Edmund Campion: Priest and Martyr (Manchester, N.H. 1996).

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