In this post I give you a review of a very important new book which I was privileged to have launched on the 27th of October 2010. I commend this book to all who would wish to understand the English Reformation as it was played out in the life and death of one of England's greatest martyrs for the Catholic Faith. The book may be purchased through the publisher's website.
Book Review and Launch
Richard Simpson, Edmund Campion, Revised, edited & enlarged by Peter Joseph, Foreword by George Cardinal Pell, Gracewing, 2010, www.gracewing.co.uk
INTRODUCTION
Father Peter Joseph’s new book, Edmund Campion, deals in great detail with the life and death of one of England’s most outstanding martyrs to the Catholic Faith. The political and religious context within which Saint Edmund Campion carried out his mission to England’s Catholics in the sixteenth century was hardly propitious, but he engaged in his appointed mission knowing that it was all likely to end in his death by execution. The religious programme of Queen Elizabeth I had been carried out with ruthless efficiency and spectacular success from the time of her accession to the Throne in 1558 until Campion’s return to England in 1580. In this review and launch of this splendid new volume I wish to draw attention to the significance of this Holy Man in the context of Elizabethan England of the sixteenth century.
The Political and Religious Context
The first wave of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in Reformation Europe were brought to an end in 1555 in an agreement reached between rulers of the German-speaking states and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. That agreement, The Peace of Augsburg, contained the principle of cuius regio, eius religio; whose realm, his religion. Strictly speaking this accord only included Catholicism and Lutheranism to the exclusion of Calvinism and the Anabaptists. Nevertheless, the principle was widely accepted and applied elsewhere in Europe. It certainly obtained in England where both Queens, Mary and Elizabeth, imposed their religion on the State. In this Elizabeth was the more successful, partly because she reigned for so long, and partly because she was more ruthless in the means she used to achieve her aims. Moreover, Elizabeth had the advantage of the expertise of two of the most gifted and cunning political operators of the day, Lords Cecil and Walsingham.
George Orwell famously remarked in 1949 that whoever controls the past controls the future. But this lesson was well understood by the Protestant Reformers in the 16th century. Building upon Luther’s description of the Catholic Church as the “Whore of Babylon”, a team of Protestant scholars in the 16th century, based at Magdeburg, began work investigating the Church’s past history. The members of this team, known as the “Centuriators of Magdeburg”, was each allocated one century to research. Together they published thirteen volumes of “The History of the Christian Church”. But this work was not history in any ordinary sense. The aim was to discover scandals and calumnies in the Church which would prove the public polemic that the Church was composed of, indeed ruled by, the foulest examples of human depravity.
These volumes produced stories such as that of a ‘Pope Joan’. Unproved allegations about the finding of 6,000 heads of children in a convent fishpond were used to explain why convents were built close to large lakes and swamps. The ‘choice’ language used to tell these stories no doubt greatly assisted their widespread circulation.
The leader of the Centuriators, Flacius Illyricus, had already published his famous catalogue of anti-Papal witnesses. Among these anti-Papal witnesses to truth of which the Pope was the enemy, he included, to the astonishment of Catholics, names such as St Thomas Aquinas and St Gregory the Great. These great Saints and doctors of the Catholic Church were, he argued, among those who stood up against the Antichrist, the Pope of Rome. Thus also were the Fathers of the Church and the Doctors of the Church called to bear witness to the anti-Catholic polemic that the Pope was The Antichrist and The Great Deceiver, while the Catholic Church was The Whore of Babylon.
The context within which we must evaluate the contribution of St Edmund Campion is a social, political, and cultural context in which the Church of Rome and the Papacy had, at least to the satisfaction of many committed Protestants, been proved to be corrupt to the core, having taken the Christian religion and made a mockery of it by distorting it to satisfy their own lusts for power, sex, and money. Overwhelmed by the power of the State, and the success of Protestant polemics against Church and Pope, the Catholics of England had become dispirited. They were being forced to attend the State Church. If they did not comply they were harshly punished with ruinously large fines. For many the choice was between attending the State Church or, ultimately, having all of their assets seized by the State to pay the fines levied as punishment for their non-compliance. Moreover, the brightest and best among the Catholics had had their ranks decimated through imprisonment, execution, or forced conversion to the new religion. There seemed to be no champions left who could take the game on and make any kind of lasting impression on the Protestant hegemony.
One major consequence of the persecution of Catholics was that of syncretism, such that Catholics attended the State Church but also assisted at Mass whenever they could. They did this to avoid fines and other punishments, and persuaded themselves they were not really capitulating to the religion of the Queen. In the 1560s William Allen, not yet a Catholic priest, tried to get Catholics not to go to the State Church but to cling only to the Catholic Church and the Mass. His attempts to separate Catholics from the State Church were bitterly resisted. Writing about this twenty years later Allen said:
This is a very difficult thing to do over there because of the harsh laws, and the fact that they are punished with prison and various penalties; and also because in the past the Catholics themselves in general gave way to this practice through fear. So much was this the case that not only did well-meaning lay people, otherwise firm in their faith and ready to assist at Mass at home when possible, go to their churches and attend schismatic services, sometime even receiving Communion – but even many priests, after saying Mass in secret, publicly conducted the heretical services and Supper, thus (a monstrous crime) on the very same day sharing the chalice of the Lord with the chalice of demons [cf 1 Cor 10:21
Around the time when Campion returned to England for his mission, there were still people who were well-disposed to Catholicism and who hoped for a return to the old religion. They knew that one day the Queen would die and things might change again. And signs and portents abounded suggesting change was at hand.
It was to these Catholics that Campion and the other Jesuits were sent to minister. Their task was to separate their people from the “communion of the heretics and to forbear going to their churches, whatever the penal consequences might be” [page 232]. In this sense they came to undo what the Queen had done, to separate the people when the Queen wanted to unite them in one Church, her Church. So the warnings went out that these Jesuits were enemies of the Church and of the State, since cuius regio, eius religio; whose realm, his religion. Campion and his associates had to be hunted down because they were traitors, enemies of the Church of England and the State, and a danger to the common good. The accusation of “traitor” was enough to damage their reputation even before they arrived in England.
Yet when they came, they were found to be men of peace, churchmen without weapons, teaching the old doctrine, fasting and praying, preaching Confession and restitution, and offering to dispute about these points with the new ministers, whose lives were known to be far distant from any of these things. [page 232]
CAMPION NO GREAT SCHOLAR?
It has been suggested by some that Campion was no great theologian. One might agree if by ‘great’ one is referring to the likes of St Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure, and St Augustine. That he had, however, a brilliant mind cannot in my view be denied. Part of the difficulty in making these kinds of assessment where Campion is concerned is that we have so little to go on. Most famously we have his “Brag” and his “Ten Reasons”, the first in English and the second in Latin. Both of these documents were written literally ‘on the run’ and without access to the kind of library scholars finds necessary to do their work. But it is, I think, clear that Campion had a prodigious memory, a memory which was to serve him well not only in the writing of these two documents, but also in his public debates with the Protestant Divines. In those debates he was allowed to have only a Bible while his adversaries had before them piles of books which they could consult.
The other thing to remember is that Campion was a master of rhetoric. Here was a man who delighted Oxford, and indeed the Queen herself, with his oratorical and rhetorical skills. Rhetoric is ‘the art of impressive speaking or writing’, and the ability to use language and ideas in a way which would be persuasive. What we see in ‘The Brag’, the ‘Ten Reasons’, and in the records of his debates with his adversaries before his execution, is the outstanding synthesis of a man’s learning, his ability to communicate complex ideas simply, and his ability to further employ language to mount arguments that were difficult to rebut. Campion’s use of rhetoric was not of the kind of a ‘used car salesman’, a disingenuous use of language to persuade people to accept something that that person himself does not really accept as true. On the contrary, Campion was driven by the truth as he believed it to be, that the truth was more easily able to be communicated than falsehood, and that in any fair contest with Protestantism, Catholicism would always win. He manifestly did not believe that such a victory would be due to his own brilliance. He was, despite the successes he enjoyed with his great oratorical performances, a modest man, well aware of his own limitations. He knew that the Catholic Faith was the Faith of Christ and the Apostles, that it was these truths which alone could set us free. Moreover, he was convinced that the truth would always out no matter which imperfect human being explained it. So it was that that he said:
If it were confidence in my own talents, erudition, art, reading, memory, that led me to challenge all the skill that could be brought against me, then were I the vainest and proudest of mortals, not having considered myself or my opponents … I have only to evince this, that there is a Heaven, that there is a God, that there is a Faith, that there is a Christ, and I have gained my cause. Standing on such ground should I not pluck up heart? I may be killed, beaten I cannot be. [From The Ten Reasons. Emphasis added]
CAMPION’S CHALLENGE
Upon his arrival in London there was renewed excitement among London Catholics. A huge number met in the hall at Paget House, Smithfield to hear Father Campion deliver a powerful sermon on the subject “Tu es Christus, Filius Dei Vivi”, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”, Peter’s famous declaration of Faith which led to him being appointed the Leader of the Apostles, the one who would have the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Indeed, so successful was this event that the pursuivants significantly increased their efforts to capture Campion and Father Persons.
The two priests left London and met at Hoxton, a village outside London. They were visited by Thomas Pounde of Belmont, a landed gentleman of considerable means and a committed practising Catholic. Pounde persuaded first Father Persons and then Father Campion of the necessity to put in writing their purpose because, he said, they will almost certainly be captured and their enemies put about a false account of just what they were intending to do. Campion then wrote the letter which today is called ‘The Brag’ or ‘The Challenge’.
In this letter Campion assures the authorities that he comes in peace as a priest to provide the Gospel and the Sacraments of the Catholic Church to Catholics, free of charge. He then goes on to say this:
I never had any mind, and am strictly forbidden by our Father that sent me, to deal in any respect with matter of State or Policy of this realm, as things which appertain not to my vocation, and from which I gladly restrain and sequester my thoughts.
Here Father Campion is making his case against the charge of his being a traitor. He is not come as a politician or political operator. These matters lie not within his vocation as a priest. In any case, he has been “strictly forbidden” by his Father Superior who sent him to England from involving himself in any way in matters of state. Campion was ultimately put to death for treason but, as he claimed from the first days of his return to England and at his trial, he was no traitor. At his trial he asserted, to the discomfort of his enemies, that he was in fact being put to death for his religious beliefs.
Campion is loath to “speak anything that might sound of any insolent brag or challenge”. Nevertheless, he makes a challenge of an eirenic kind:
Yet have I such a courage in avouching the Majesty of Jhesus my King, and such affiance in his gracious favour, and such assurance in my quarrel, and my evidence so impregnable, and because I know perfectly that no one Protestant, nor all of the Protestants living, nor any sect of our adversaries … can maintain their doctrine in disputation. I am to sue most humbly and instantly for the combat with all and every one of them, and the most principal that may be found: protesting that in this trial the better furnished they come, the better welcome they shall be.
Campion was challenging the finest Protestant minds to public debate, appealing to her Majesty the Queen, who knew him and personally liked him very much, to make such contestations possible in the cause of the truth to which he believed her to be open. Such open debates were to be far more efficacious to the faithful than the current modus operandi of the Protestant Ministers who “tyrannise over us, as if we were a kingdom of unlearned schoolboys listening to a teacher of grammar.”
THE TEN REASONS
Father Persons, being in charge of the mission, saw the success of The Brag and the heart it had given to many of the faithful. He and Campion believed that the two Universities, Oxford and Cambridge, were the two places from where a great deal of influence could be engendered. Campion, reluctant at first, then agreed to write a series of tracts in a single book to be published and then distributed in the Universities.
Campion titled the work “Ten Reasons for the confidence with which Edmund Campion offered his adversaries to dispute on behalf of the Faith, set before the famous men of our Universities”. Oxford received most copies of The Ten Reasons because Campion was still well remembered and well loved there. He was also widely respected for having the courage to abandon his career at Oxford to become a Catholic missionary.
The book was enormously successful as evidenced by the fact that the Protestant authorities immediately ordered the preparation and publication of elaborate replies. The beauty of the Ten Reasons was its brevity, that it was both concise and persuasive. The Regius Professors of Divinity from Oxford and Cambridge took many months to formulate replies, replies which were as lengthy and turgid as Campion’s work was brief and bright.
Within three weeks of publication Campion had been arrested and jailed. Five months later he was executed, dying the death of a martyr on the 1st of December 1581.
THE POWER OF THE TEN REASONS
One only has to read The Ten Reasons to see why they captured the attention of Catholic students and those who were still of an uncertain mind as to which was the true faith. And one can also see why the authorities were so keen to have the book answered.
On the rejection by the Protestants of some of the books of the Bible, Campion charged them with bad faith. For example, Campion said this:
What induced that crime-laden apostate Luther to call the Epistle of James contentious, turgid, arid, a thing of straw, and unworthy of the Apostolic spirit? Despair. For by his writing the wretched man’s argument of righteousness consisting in faith alone was stabbed through and rent asunder. What induced Luther’s whelps to expunge off-hand from the genuine canon of Scripture, Tobias, Ecclesiasticus, Maccabees, and, for hatred of these, several other books involved in the same false charge? Despair. For by these Oracles they are most manifestly confuted whenever they argue about the patronage of Angels, about free-will, about the faithful departed, about the intercession of Saints.
Campion noted that the first four General Councils of the Church were still accepted by the Church of England. He would appeal to that consensus in the debates.
These I will cite, and I will call thee England, my sweet country, to witness. If, as thou professes, thou wilt reverence these Councils, thou shalt give chief honour to the Bishop of the first See, that is to Peter: thou shalt recognise on the altar the unbloody sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ: thou shalt beseech the blessed martyrs and all the saints to intercede with Christ on thy behalf: thou shalt restrain womanish apostates from unnatural vice and public incest: thou shalt do many things that thou art undoing, and wish undone much that thou art doing.
And in the Eighth Reason, Campion turns on the Reformers with gusto, calling to mind their teachings on life and morals.
There remain the sayings of the heretics concerning life and morals, the noxious goblets which Luther has vomited on his pages, that out of the filthy hovel of his one breast he might breathe pestilence upon his readers. Listen patiently, and blush, and pardon me the recital. If the wife will not, or cannot, let the handmaid come (Serm. de matrimon.); seeing that commerce with a wife is as necessary to every man as food, drink, and sleep. Matrimony is much more excellent than virginity (Liber de vot. evangel.). But perhaps these doctrines are peculiar to Luther. They are not. They have been lately defended by my friend Chark, but miserably and timidly. Do you wish to hear any more? Certainly. The more wicked you are, he says, the nearer you are to grace (Serm. de pisc. Petri). All good actions are sins, in God’s judgment mortal sins; in God’s mercy, venial. No one thinks evil of his own will. The Ten Commandments are nothing to Christians. God cares nought at all about our works. They alone rightly partake of the Lord’s Supper, who bury consciences sad, afflicted, troubled, confused, erring. Sins are to be confessed, but to anyone you like; and if he absolves you even in joke, provided you believe, you are absolved.
If there were time for more, I would give you more. What is clear, however, is that The Brag and The Ten Reasons made an enormous impact on people. And ultimately Campion was to get his wish, the opportunity to debate the heretics. The conditions of the debate were most unequal. Nevertheless, the contemporaneous minutes of these disputations show a confident Campion bearing witness to the Catholic Faith, the Faith for which he was prepared to give his life.
CAMPION DEFAMED
While imprisoned in the Tower, his opponents made every effort to discredit Campion, morally and intellectually. Some of the people were caused to think that he might have given in to the torturer. Notwithstanding those attempts to defame him, the problem for the Establishment was the fact that The Ten Reasons as a book was being widely read, that the arguments in it seemed persuasive to many, and that it was written in the most beautiful and elegant Latin prose. In short, the book had become immensely popular and Campion’s challenge to the Protestant authorities was powerful. What to do? Should they ignore the challenge, as the Bishop of London proposed? Or should they grant Campion his debates? Despite the Bishop of London’s strong opposition permission was granted at the highest level for the debates to be held.
The First Debate seemed to many observers to represent a clear victory for Campion and his companion Father Sherwin, especially in the morning session. So much was this the case that the debate degenerated into one characterized by personal abuse on the Protestant side. Impudentissime quamtes? [Most impudent as you are!] The Catholics did not reply in kind, but Father Sherwin was carried away with zeal for the Catholic Faith which he defended with all his might. He was shouted down by the Protestants who told him: “Keep your tongue to yourself!” Father Sherwin retorted: “I shall keep my tongue to myself, and my faith too.” From now on Father Sherwin was to be excluded from any further part in the debates. The Protestant divines allowed themselves opportunity to recapitulate their arguments, but denied Father Campion’s request for equal time to do the same.
By the end of the day a consensus was building among both Catholics and Protestants that Campion had won. From now on the debates were to be held in much smaller venues than the Chapel, so that not too many people would be present to hear the proceedings. And over the course of the debates the conditions became less and less favourable to Father Campion. By the end of the fourth debate the authorities, being convinced that these events were doing no good at all for the Protestant cause, discontinued these encounters.
Campion had had his chance and had used it well. Prior to the debates it was widely held that Campion was “the betrayer of his friends, the man whose faith was hardly secure, who might perhaps one day appear at Paul’s Cross to make his recantation” [p. 426]. But now the popular mood had completely changed and Campion was seen as a saintly and humble man, a brilliant and fearless advocate for the Catholic cause. The state moved to suppress the expression of opinion favourable to Campion and so popular poems and ballads were composed which gave the people their voice. And they illustrate only too well the groundswell of opinion moving in Father Campion’s favour.
Here are some lines from one of the better known poems that seem to have been written by a disappointed Protestant:
If instead of good argument,
We deal by the rack,
The Papists may think
That learning we lack.
Let reason rule, and racking cease,
Or else for ever hold your peace;
You cannot withstand God’s power and His grace,
No, not with the Tower nor the racking-place.
Let reason rule, and racking cease,
Or else for ever hold your peace;
You cannot withstand God’s power and His grace,
No, not with the Tower nor the racking-place.
Sir Henry Walpole, who was converted to the Catholic Faith by Campion’s death, said this of the debates:
From rack in Tower they brought him to dispute,
Bookless, alone, to answer all that came,
Yet Christ gave grace, he did them all confute
So sweetly there in glory of His name,
That even the adverse part are forced to say
That Campion’s cause did bear the bell away.
Campion’s trial for treason was now only a formality. They condemned him to be hung drawn and quartered, but not before he had been subjected to many rackings and sundry other tortures including the removal of his finger nails.
ST EDMUND CAMPION MARTYR AND CHAMPION
In less than a year St Edmund Campion had taken the game right up to the Protestant Establishment. His powers of reason and rhetoric, his prodigious knowledge of the Faith of the Church, his charming manner: all of these he combined with intellectual humility to reassert the credentials of the Catholic Church as the True Church of Jesus Christ. In such a short time he revivified the determination of the English Catholics to stay as true to the Faith as he did, “Come rack! Come rope!”
THE BOOK
“Edmund Campion”, the book, originally written by Robert Simpson but now revised, edited and enlarged by Father Peter Joseph, is a joy to read even though at times the subject matter is harrowing. The book visits the English Reformation through the life of a great Jesuit, a great saint and Martyr of Holy Church. Even more, the book reveals the theological and political issues at stake in what is, for me, one of the worst phases in English history. And I am astonished at just how great an impact one man and his companions could have in just one short year of missionary witness in conditions so unfavourable.
We should all be deeply thankful to Father Joseph for this labour of love in which he has put to such good use his own undoubted intellectual gifts and abilities. Father has provided us all with the best account currently available of the contribution of St Edmund Campion to the Church and the world in which he lived. And he has done me a great honour in inviting me to launch this book.
As I launch this book, then, I commit us all to the tender mercies of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, to the prayers of St Edmund Campion, Priest and Martyr, and to a renewed commitment to the Catholic Church, our Mother, and the Catholic Faith, the truth which alone can set us free.
Related posts:
Consider these two snippets from the review:
… (a monstrous crime) on the very same day sharing the chalice of the Lord with the chalice of demons [cf 1 Cor 10:21] …
Campion and his associates had to be hunted down because they were traitors, enemies of the Church of England and the State
How can we sympathize with either attitude? Would Mary's reign have been any better for England, if she had lived? Was it not the Bull regnans in excelsis that thrust Catholics into "treason", however peaceable they wished to be? Thank heavens we got all this business over centuries ago, and the dalliance with republicanism and the Glorious Revolution fairly soon afterwards!
Well the Bull was not helpful, but that came later. Would it have been better under Mary? Well thye answer to that would partly depend on whether or not you think that Catholicism is the true religion or the Protestant account. And I guess we will never know which would have been the better reign under which to live. But you miss the point. This book is about how one man who is priest cared for his people against all the odds, was unjustly treated, but was able to carry the argument upntonhis adversaries in a peaceful and peaceable manner. Campion never defended the abuse of Protestants by Mary. Learn what you can from the example of this holy man.
Amen, Father!
Had the papacy not conspired with Spain and others to overthrow the English Crown, had there been no Armada, had Pius V had the sense not to issue in 1570 his disastrous and preposterous claim to have the power to depose monarchs, including Elizabeth I, the situation would have been very different – as the review above indicates, even she admired Campion.
It was the intemperate language – "chalice of demons" could hardly be more offensive – and the political plotting against the life of the Queen herself which resulted in the harsh regime meted out to those considered to be traitors. To compass the death of the monarch is treason, and to attempt to invade England is nothing less than war.
Campion seemingly tried to have it both ways, to issue a declaration that his mission was purely spiritual, but nevertheless to uphold Regnans in Excelsis was a deliberate choice and the consequences were well known.
He was hardly a martyr – he was either a victim of Pius V's ill-advised foreign policy – or an executed traitor who had sought to subvert the Crown.
Sigfrid, you are referring to events which occurred well after Campion's time, eg the Armada. Campion did come in peace. He played no political role. He supported the Queen as the legitimate monarch of the English people. As for "the chalice of demons" quote, that was extremely mild in the context of the times. The Protestant rhetoric was far worse judged by contemporary standards. But we have to judge it in the context of the times. Moreover, there were faults on all sides where the Reformation is concerned, but these were not matters in which St Edmund participated or approved. Please let people not be so defensive. The history of Campion is the history. He was unjustly tried by a completely irregular process. Read the book. It is a really excellent read.
Elizabeth I faced constant threats to her life from the papacy throughout her reign, as did her successors, fed by Regnans in Excelsis and by other continental plotters.
The Spanish Armada of 1588 was not the last of these. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a serious attempt to overthrow the English Crown by violence and insurrection.
It does not matter that Campion happened to be a priest: he chose to become part of an insurgency, committed to treason and to regicide. The consequences for those who were caught were brutal, just as Queen Mary's regime was brutal.
No, Campion foolishly or deliberately set out on a course of action which was intended to overthrow the established Church, to depose the monarch and to put her life in peril. He suffered the contemporary punishment for his crime.
It is anachronistic in the extreme in 2010 to try to resurrect the rhetoric of Campion and his contemporaries as if our understanding of history had not moved on since the 16th century.
There is a much more balanced account of the period to be found in Eamon Duffy's recent book, Fires of Faith which with great honesty describes how a Roman Catholic monarch treated her subjects solely because of their religion – including the Archbishop of Canterbury and several of his bishops. They have a somewhat greater claim to be martyrs, since they died for their faith: not as self-proclaimed enemies of the state, licensed by papal bull to assasssinate the monarch.
Sorry Sigfrid but I don't deal in prejudice. I am very familiar Eamon Duffy's excellent work and I hold no brief for the way "Bloody" Mary went about dealing with Catholics. And nor do I approve of the way in which Elizabeth behaved either with respect to the Catholic martyrs. The Armada and the Gunpowder Plot were later events, one an exercise in an attempted invasion of a sovereign nation to effect regime change, the other an exercise in terrorism. But Sigfrid that has nothing to do with Campion. There is no evidence that Campion wanted to engage in regicide as you allege. On the contrary, he eschewed any political role of that kind. He remained loyal to the Queen. A fair and balanced account of the period requires from you a better reading of Duffy's work than you have so far achieved. And you need to read about Campion with an open mind. The facts might not fit your prejudices but that is what good scholarship does — it challenges our preconceived ideas, our prejudices, and what we would like to be the case. In the context of the age the principle of the Monarch's religion being the religion of the State was well entrenched. Liberal notions of plurality where religion was concerned was simply not on anyone's agenda in the sixteenth century.
Cuis regio eius religio is the term which you are reaching for.
It is not good scholarship to attempt to revive the controversies of the 16th century as if they had any validity for the circumstances of the Church of today. By modern standards Campion and many of his contemporaries were plotters against the lawful authority of the state, and would today find themselves in HMP Belmarsh, rather than the Tower, facing long prison sentences rather than the block.
You will note that I referred to Pius V with particular reference to Regnans in Excelsis in 1570, and to the papacy being involved in the Armada (1588) and subsequent plots. The Armada took place during the reign of Elizabeth I, reinforcing the state's opinion of foreign-trained priests as insurgents and traitors, and thus perpetuating the convictions and executions.
When I say the Bull came after, I mean after the Elizabethan Setlement. The Bull was 1570 and Campion came back to England in 1580. The Queen had made Catholicism illegal. Campion had to face the factbthat from the Queen's point of view he was a traitor. But he was not and he was killed for his religion.
FYI: If you would like to read the book.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13133.html.gen
TEN REASONS PROPOSED TO HIS ADVERSARIES FOR DISPUTATION IN THE NAME OF THE FAITH AND PRESENTED TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS MEMBERS OF OUR UNIVERSITIES BY EDMUND CAMPION PRIEST OF THE SOCIETY OF THE NAME OF JESUS Nihil Obstat S. GEORGIUS KIERAN HYLAND, S.T.D, CENSOR DEPUTATUS Imprimatur + PETRUS EPUS SOUTHWARC
I am afraid that my view is different from those here. Elizabeth was all along a wicked dissembling hypocrite, feigning a conversion to Catholicism under Mary (whereas Mary defied the Edwardian regime to do its worst against her by having the Mass and only the Mass said in her private chapel throughout Edward's reign, even after it became illegal in 1549) — she even received communion at Mass publicly in August 1556 and swore on the sacrament that she was about to receive that her conversion to Catholicism in 1554 was genuine and that she would live and die a Catholic — and then showing her true colors after she became Queen in 1558. I think it a great pity that she was not executed in the course of Mary's reign, and the reason for this was the preference of King Philip, Mary's consort, to risk Elizabeth's succession rather than the chance of Mary Queen of Scots (at that time Dauphiness of France) becoming Queen of England — and to this end he forced Mary to forego any investigation of the connections between some of Elizabeth's household servants and the ringleaders of the Dudley Conspiracy of 1557, which, if investigated, would undoubtedly have resulted in charges of treason being brought against her.
As to St. Pius V's excommunication of Elizabeth, I applaud it, my only regret being that it came too late to do any good. She should have been excommunicated (and deposed) in 1559, when it became clear that she was intending to repudiate England's submission and obedience to the Holy See. Indeed, the two most zealous of Mary's surviving Catholic bishops, White of Winchester (d. 1560) and Watson of Lincoln (d. 1584) proposed to excommunicate Elizabeth openly and publicly in March 1559, but were dissuaded from doing so by the firmly Catholic but timorous Archbishop of York, Nicholas Heath (d. 1578) — who although he refused to go along with the Elizabethan Settlement and was deprived of his archbishopric as a consequence, was allowed to retire to his country estate at Chobham, Surrey, where he twice entertained Queen Elizabeth as his guest, whereas White and Watson spent the remainder of their days in prison.
It would have been comparatively easy to have been rid of that pest Elizabeth in 1559, had King Philip been willing to send his army across from Flanders, just as the 1569 Northern Rebellion would have had a good chance of succeeding, had King Philip allowed his governor in the Netherlands, the Duke of Alba, to provide support and assistance to the rebels, as he wished to do. As far as the Spanish Armada is concerned, Philip would have been better advised to stick to his original plan, which was to send the Armada to Ireland to provoke an island-wide rebellion against English rule, which is what Elizabeth's ministers feared most, and which would have been a fair requital for England's support of the Dutch Calvinist rebels against Spanish rule. My only regret about the Spanish Armada is that it failed, just as my only regret about the papal excommunication is that it didn't come a decade earlier.
I can think of many people who would make outward professions, given Mary's preferred method of dealing with those who refused to conform.
Or Elizabeth's, for that matter; but as I wrote, Mary was a brave Catholic, and Elizabeth a hypocritical and dissembling Protestant.
Elizabeth reigned alone from 1558-1603 and of her bravery in a world which was determined to kill her and overthrow the state, there can be no doubt.
Her reign laid the foundations of a true reformed Catholicism in spite of the best efforts of foreign powers and popes, many of whose best aspects were adopted by the second Vatican Council, several hundred years too late, but better late than never.
"laid the foundations of a true reformed Catholicism "
Surely you jest in so speaking of a "reformed Catholicism" that purports to ordain women, and, increasingly, to bless sodomitic pseudogamy. I think your remark, had it appeared on April 1st, might have won a prize as being the best of the day.
If you wish to trade blows such as this, perhaps you can explain why not one but two American cardinals have taken refuge in the Vatican?
My only regret about the Spanish Armada is that it failed
Gosh.
I asked a hardcore Calvinist I'm friendly with whether she really thinks, as the Westminster Confession says, that the Pope is the Antichrist. She says she does (I'd have been surprised if she'd said no).
Why should I be offended because she thinks the Pope is the antichrist? It's sad that she thinks so, and I try to think of ways to show her it's not true, but in what way is it offensive? I assume she finds the pope offensive, which given he's the antichrist (or one of them, I think she said) is reasonable. But on what possible grounds could I be offended by her holding what she holds?
Rhetorical questions apropos comments on "cup of demons".
I followed up my previous posting, in response to some private inquiries about it, with the following:
Elizabeth demurred at going to Mass when the Mass was restored and the Cranmerian services abolished by Parliament in October 1553; the reason she gave, in a letter to Queen Mary, was that she had been "raised otherwise." Hearing nothing from Mary, and fearing (one supposes) what would befall, she wrote to Mary a month later asking her to send her Catholic books and godly men to "reason with her" — and after some weeks professed herself converted. Mary's suspicions of Elizabeth, always latent, were reignited by Wyatt's Rebellion (January/February 1554) whose leaders' purpose was to restore Protestantism and to replace Mary with Elizabeth, although publicly they claimed that they were rebelling to protest the forthcoming marriage of Mary to Phillip of Spain. Verbal messages passed between Elizabeth and the rebel leaders, but after the rebellion ended all of its leaders denied communicating with her, and Elizabeth herself claimed that the messages she had sent were no more than a refusal to associate with them in any way. Mary was manifestly keen to find evidence to support bringing charges against Elizabeth, but after the marriage of Phillip and Mary (July 1554), Phillip persuaded Mary to drop the charges and to stage a "reconciliation" with Elizabeth, and the same thing happened after the Dudley Conspiracy of 1555-56. Elizabeth was allowed to retire to her country estates, but kept under supervision, and when some of her close female servants were discovered associating with Protestant colporteurs, Elizabeth's response was to profess her Catholicism fervently, and to stage (as I wrote previously) her public oath on the Sacrament that she was a Catholic.
Elizabeth was, in other words, the archetypical "Nicodemite," to use John Calvin's condemnatory term for those who were Protestant "inwardly" but who feigned Catholicism "outwardly." This may explain the coded censures, and rather disparaging ones at that, about Elizabeth's religious and moral character, that John Jewel, as Bishop of Salisbury from 1560 to 1571 one of the strongest defenders of the Elizabethan Settlement, made in 1559-60 in his private letters to the Reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli (originally an Italian Dominican who turned Reformed Protestant in 1542, served as a professor at Oxford in Edward VI's reign, where he became Jewel's friend and mentor, and ended up as an academic in Zurich). Gary Jenkins has teased out the meaning of these oblique and obscure disparagements in Jewel's letters, but I don't think his work has been published yet.
WJT
What is all the fuss about? Simpson's life of Campion dates from 1867, was used by Evelyn Waugh as the foundation of his life of Campion and has long been a source of reference. Surely this is only a revision, not a new book? Campion studies have proceeded by leaps and bounds in the c20 and the most finished work is to be found in Fr Thomas McCoog's collection of essays, 'The Reckoned Expense'.
As for Simpson, he was a tiresome convert leader of mid-c19 liberal Catholicism. He turned Campion's death into artful polemic against the Ultramontanes of his own day, particularly those who were arguing for papal infallibility and the temporal power of the papacy. At the time no audience could have missed the contemporary significance of Simpson's remark, ostensibly about the c16 English Jesuits: 'Those who think themselves infallibly certain that they are infallibly in the right can never profit from the lessons of history.' Newman warned Simpson against getting into trouble.
Either Fr Fleming has been had, or he does not know much about Simpson and his odd career.
I am Father Peter Joseph, the reviser of Simpson's biography of Campion. If you obtain the new biography just printed by Gracewing, you will see that it is a major revision. The whole text has been enlarged from 156,00 to 239,000 words. I removed small & large passages of Richard Simpson on the temporal power of the Papacy, and anything else of his, such as his final reflections on the English mission, that was not biographical. My bibliography has 73 books and articles written after Simpson's time, apart from recent scholarly editions of the primary works he cited. In my 97 pages of endnotes, there are frequent references to the articles collected in Jesuit Father Thomas McCoog's "The Reckoned Expense" (1996, 2007). My "Editor's Note" (pp. 629-34) explains the details and methodology of my revision. All sources used by Simpson I checked with modern scholarly editions and made the necessary amendments. Before now, there was no full summary of the four debates in the Tower of London, provided in chapter 16. The chronology of Campion's life has been carefully revised and settled, by a thorough analysis of all the original sources, and modern ones.
After seeing Fr Joseph's gracious reply, I think Peter Jameson owes an apology to Fr Joseph – and to the readers of this blog – for posting such an ignorant comment. He obviously did not even see the book before offering his review and criticism of it! I suggest the blogmaster remove his post.
Where is Father Joseph's reply? I cannot see it.
Thanks for clarifying the ambiguity of Fr Fleming's post. If he had begun his review by stating that the book was an extensive revision of Simpson's work of 1867 my comment would not have been written. But he creates the impression that the book in question is an entirely new work, which all who know about Campion will also know to be untrue. Now that the truth has emerged I look forward to seeing this new edition.
Peter, you really are a bit much. The heading of my review piece said this: "Richard Simpson, Edmund Campion, Revised, edited & enlarged by Peter Joseph, Foreword by George Cardinal Pell, Gracewing, 2010, http://www.gracewing.co.uk". How could you have misunderstood?
The third last paragraph in the section where I discuss the book, said this: "“Edmund Campion”, the book, originally written by Robert Simpson but now revised, edited and enlarged by Father Peter Joseph, is a joy to read even though at times the subject matter is harrowing. The book visits the English Reformation through the life of a great Jesuit, a great saint and Martyr of Holy Church. Even more, the book reveals the theological and political issues at stake in what is, for me, one of the worst phases in English history. And I am astonished at just how great an impact one man and his companions could have in just one short year of missionary witness in conditions so unfavourable." Where is the ambiguity? I sometimes have the impression that people see a word, or a name, and it triggers off something in their mind and they respond on that basis rather than what was said. There was no ambiguity and no one else has suggested there was. So please get over your issues with Simpson and approach a brilliant new book with objectivity, reading what it says rather than merely reacting from a pre-prepared position.
I do think people should read a book before commenting on it, Peter. This new book is about twice the length of the original and, as was made clear by me, is an edited AND EXPANDED form of the book. Father McCoog's work is referred to throughout as are many other contemporary scholars. Moreover, this book contains new material.
The parts of Simpson to which you take objection have in fact been removed from this edition which takes full account of the contentious nature of some of his opinions. Your attack on Simpson is really not relevant to this brilliant new book as you will see once you have purchased a copy and read it. I really do commend this book to you for the best and most up-to-date account of contemporary scholarship on Campion, using as a basis what was until now a book more forgotten than it should have been. Anyway, Peter, give it a go and let me know what you think once you have read it.
There is an interesting theory that Shakespeare was educated by Campion, or at an underground Catholic school started by him. This explains some of his erudition without calling for his role as a front for Francis Bacon or the many other conspiarcy theories. Shakespeare the factual person is very well documented, but it has long been wondered how he became so learned. It would be interesting to see a thorough study of the possibilities of this connection.
Siegfried said a little earlier in a response directed at me: "Cuis (sic) regio eius religio is the term which you are reaching for." It is bad enough, Siegfried, to pass judgement on a book you have not read, but when, I presume, you read my review you must surely have noticed that I refer at some length to "cuius regio eius religio". I was not "reaching" for the term as you put it. I spoke about it!
You then say, "It is not good scholarship to attempt to revive the controversies of the 16th century as if they had any validity for the circumstances of the Church of today."
That is just extraordinary. Of course we learn from history and its past disputes, wars, philosophies, beliefs and so on. That is a good part of what historical scholarship is about!
You then say, "By modern standards Campion and many of his contemporaries were plotters against the lawful authority of the state, and would today find themselves in HMP Belmarsh, rather than the Tower, facing long prison sentences rather than the block." By "modern standards" Campion would not have been guilty of anything! He was not a political operative, made no statement in support of the Papal Bull upon which you seem very fixated, and affirmed his loyalty to the Queen as Sovereign. And this he did for the last time just before his execution.
Father Joseph's book is a masterpiece of contemporary scholarship which brings to bear on this new biography which was based upon an older book but very much updated and improved. Please read the book. You will really enjoy it for the fine work it is. And if you don't, then write an informed critique and post it here.
I bear responsibility for the inaccurate typing of the Latin tag. I am barely able to read web pages because my eyes have deteriorated very badly and I only have peripheral vision.
My point is not that this is a good or a bad book. That is immaterial. The point is that to extrapolate from the claimed virtues of a 16th century "martyr" in order to pursue contemporary controversies is a woefully anachronistic error. Such events are best regretted, not trumpeted.
Dear Sigfrid
I am sorry to hear about the state of your sight. I have some hearing impairment and I know how difficult that can be for me in certain settings.
Please understand though that this a biography of a holy man, St Edmund Campion. In no way does it seek to extrapolate to contemporary issues. It is meant to assist us in understanding a little bit more of a very important part of English history.