Edmund Campion

Life events

1. Born — 1540

   Born in London on 25 January 1540, the son of a bookseller in Paternoster Row near St Paul's Cathedral; at age 13 he was chosen to deliver the complimentary address when Queen Mary visited the city in August 1553.

2. Educated — 1557

   Sponsored by William Chester, a governor of Christ's Hospital, Campion entered St John's College, Oxford, becoming junior fellow in 1557; he took his B.A. in 1560 and M.A. in 1564, and in 1566 led a public debate before Queen Elizabeth, earning the patronage of William Cecil and the Earl of Leicester.

3. Exiled — 1571

   Having left Oxford in 1569 for Ireland to avoid publicly endorsing the Church of England, Campion escaped to Douai in the Low Countries in 1571, where he was reconciled to the Catholic Church and completed a Bachelor of Divinity granted by the University of Douai on 21 January 1573.

4. Ordained — 1578

   After travelling on foot from Douai to Rome in the guise of a pilgrim and completing his two-year Jesuit novitiate at Brünn (now Brno) in Moravia, Campion was ordained deacon and priest by Antonín Brus, Archbishop of Prague, and celebrated his first Mass on 8 September 1578; he then taught rhetoric and philosophy at the Jesuit college in Prague for six years.

5. Wrote — 1581

   While conducting his clandestine ministry across Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Lancashire, Campion composed the Decem Rationes — ten Latin arguments against the validity of the Anglican Church — printed secretly at Stonor Park, Henley; 400 copies were distributed on the benches of St Mary's, Oxford, at Commencement on 27 June 1581.

6. Imprisoned — 1581

   Betrayed at Lyford Grange on 14 July 1581 by a spy named George Eliot who had infiltrated one of his secret Masses, Campion was taken to London with his arms pinioned and confined in the Tower, where he was tortured on the rack two or three times and held through four public disputations with Anglican adversaries in September 1581.

7. Martyred — 1581

   Convicted of treason at trial on 20 November 1581, Campion was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on 1 December 1581 alongside fellow priests Ralph Sherwin and Alexander Briant; he was 41 years of age.

8. Other — 1970

   Beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 9 December 1886 and canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales; his feast day is 1 December, the day of his martyrdom.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Campion addressed both Queen Mary (1553, age 13) and Queen Elizabeth (1566) on behalf of Oxford; Elizabeth's visit earned him the patronage of William Cecil and the Earl of Leicester. (certain)
• In April 1573 Campion became the first novice accepted into the Society of Jesus by Mercurianus, the order's fourth Superior General, having walked alone from Douai to Rome dressed as a pilgrim. (certain)
• Campion's declaration to the Privy Council — popularly called 'Campion's Brag' — insisted his mission was purely spiritual, not political, yet its wide circulation intensified the official hunt for him across England. (certain)
• On hearing the death sentence pronounced at Westminster on 20 November 1581, Campion and his fellow condemned men responded by singing the Te Deum. (certain)
• The ropes used at Campion's execution are preserved at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, where each year they are placed on the altar of St Peter's Church for Mass on his 1 December feast day. (likely)