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Robert Persons

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Robert Persons
Engraving of Robert Persons c. 1640
Engraving of Robert Persons c. 1640
Born 24 June 1546
Nether Stowey, United Kingdom
Died 15 April 1610 (aged 63)
Rome, Italy

Robert Persons SJ (24 June 1546 – 15 April 1610),[1] later known as Robert Parsons, was an English Jesuit priest. He was a major figure in establishing the 16th-century "English Mission" of the Society of Jesus.

Early life

Robert Persons was born at Nether Stowey, Somerset, to yeoman parents.[2] Through the favour of local parson named John Hayward, a former monk, he was educated in 1562 at St. Mary's Hall, Oxford. After completing his degrees with distinction, he became a fellow and tutor at Balliol in 1568.[3]

College fellow and priest

As a Fellow of Balliol College, Persons clashed with the Master there, Adam Squire, and also the academic and Roman Catholic priest Christopher Bagshaw.[1] On 13 February 1574, he was subsequently forced to resign. Through discussion and encouraged by pupillage with Father William Good, SJ, he travelled overseas to become a Jesuit priest at St Paul's, Rome on 3 July 1575.

English mission: 1580–1581

Persons accompanied Edmund Campion on his mission to fellow English Catholics in 1580. The Jesuit General, Everard Mercurian, had been reluctant to involve the Society directly in English ecumenical affairs. He was persuaded by an Italian Jesuit provincial, and later by Superior General Claudio Acquaviva, after William Cardinal Allen had found Mercurian resistant to change in October 1579.[4] Persons fast tracked English recruits to the Jesuits, and planned to set up cooperation with the remaining English secular clergy. He became impatient with Father Good's approach to the situation. Campion was much less of an enthusiast than he was.[5]

The mission was immediately compromised as the pope had sent a separate group to the Jesuit mission, to support the Irish rebel, James FitzMaurice FitzGerald. Persons and Campion only learned of this event in Reims while they were en route to England. After the initial invasion force under the mercenary Thomas Stukley had achieved nothing successful in 1578, the intervention under FitzGerald caused the English authorities to monitor the recusants closely, and try to finance the campaign against the papal forces with exactions from them.[6] Campion and Persons crossed separately into England.[4]

In June 1580 Thomas Pounde, then in the Marshalsea Prison, went to speak to Persons. This action then resulted in a petition from Pounde to the Privy Council to allow a disputation where the Jesuits would take on Robert Crowley and Henry Tripp, who used to preach to the Marshalsea inmates. Campion and Persons also prepared their own personal statements, to be kept in reserve. The immediate consequence was that Pounde was then transferred to Bishop's Stortford Castle; but the prepared statement by Campion was later circulated soon after his capture.[7]

Much of the time Persons spent in England was taken up with covert printing, and pamphleteering. He made his negative view on church papism clear to the local Catholic clergy, before a synod in Southwark. The secret printing press needed to be relocated, moving it in early 1581 to Stonor Park. Campion was captured in July of that year; and then Stephen Brinkley, who ran the printing press, was taken captive in August. Quite soon after that date Persons left for France.[4] His underlying strategy of trying to embarrass the English government by demanding a forum for his ideals was consistent with the general approach of Allen and Persons, but met with much criticism from the Catholic members. Allen and Parsons persisted with their demand for another two years, but Jesuit opinion was against further confrontation. Campion was forced into disputation in the Tower of London under adverse conditions.[8] When Persons left England, he was never to return.[1]

To the Armada

Robert Persons spent the winter of 1581–82 at Rouen, and embarked on writing projects. He was in close contact with Henry I, Duke of Guise, and through the Duke founded a school for English boys at Eu, on the coast to the north-east. Father William Creighton, SJ, was on the way to Scotland. He arrived in January 1582 and was briefed by Persons and the duke. In April Creighton returned with word from Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox; and they went to Paris to confer with William Allen, James Beaton and Claude Mathieu, Jesuit provincial in France, on his military plans and the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots. The scheme, which Persons supported confidently, advanced further, but was stopped after the raid of Ruthven of August 1582. One consequence was that Allen was made Cardinal, as Persons had recommended.[1]

A new enterprise was projected for September 1583, this time through England. Persons was sent by the Duke of Guise with written instructions to Rome. He returned to Flanders, and stayed for some time at the court of the Duke of Parma. The discovery of the Throckmorton Plot disrupted the plan, and the Duke of Guise became absorbed in French domestic affairs. Philip II of Spain took over the lead, placed the Duke of Parma in charge, and limited involvement to Persons, Allen, and Hew Owen.[1]

It was during this period that Persons was involved in the work later known as Leicester's Commonwealth. Distributed covertly, it came to light in 1584. Persons is now generally thought not to be the author.[4] The British historian John Bossy of the University of York was inclined to disagree.[9]

There is a scholarly consensus that the intention was to affect French domestic politics, strengthening the Guise faction against Anglophiles. Correspondingly his own standing suffered in some quarters.[4] Claudio Acquaviva by the end of the year was concerned that the Jesuit strategies for France and the English mission would turn out to be inconsistent in the longer term, and consulted Pope Gregory XIII on the matter. Persons as his subordinate had been told to drop plans to assassinate Elizabeth.[10]

In September 1585, Persons and Allen went to Rome after Pope Sixtus V succeeded Pope Gregory XIII. Persons was still there when the Spanish Armada sailed in 1588. At this period Allen and Persons made a close study of the succession to Elizabeth I of England, working with noted genealogist Robert Heighinton.[1] Persons took his vows of final profession in the Jesuits in Rome on 7 May 1587.

Later life

Robert Persons was sent to Spain at the close of 1588 to conciliate Philip II of Spain, who was offended with Claudio Acquaviva. Persons was successful, and then made use of the royal favour to found the seminaries of Valladolid, Seville, and Madrid (1589, 1592, 1598) and the residences of San Lucar and of Lisbon (which became a college in 1622). He then succeeded in establishing at St Omer (1594) a larger institution to which the boys from Eu were transferred. It is the institutional ancestor of Stonyhurst College.[3]

In 1596, in Seville, he wrote Memorial for the Reformation of England, which gave in some detail a blueprint for the kind of society England was to become after its return to the faith. He had hoped to succeed Allen as Cardinal on the latter's death.

Persons was, in 1605, the year of the Gunpowder Plot, the leading Jesuit priest in England. As religious tensions escalated, and Edward Coke pressed to establish the supremacy of the common law over the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, Robert Persons published his polemical response An Answere to the Fifth Part of the Reports, disputing the historical accuracy of Coke's claims about the common law in his report on Caudry's Case, especially the claim that a Tudor era statute asserting the Supremacy of the Crown was based on pre-Conquest common law, pointing to a lack of evidence for authoritative statutes before the reign of Henry III.[11]

He had hoped to succeed Allen as Cardinal on the latter's death. Unsuccessful, he was rewarded with the rectorship of the English College in Rome, where he died at the age of 63. John Donne's Pseudo Martyr (1610) engages critically with Persons' views.

Works

Robert Persons's published works were:[1]

  • A brief discovrs contayning certayne reasons why Catholiques refuse to goe to Church... dedicated by I. H. to the queenes most excellent Maiestie. Doway, John Lyon [London], 1580. This work was published through a clandestine printing press in London, printed as a consequence of decisions at a synod at Southwark held not long after Frs. Persons and Campion landed. It was aimed at implementing a 1563 declaration of Pope Pius IV that Catholics should not mix with heretics.[12]
  • A Discouerie of I. Nicols, minister, misreported a Jesuite, latelye recanted in the Tower of London. Doway [London], 1580. Printed by Persons at Stonor Park, it concerned a renegade Catholic priest.[13] In a poem which begins, Gwrandewch ddatcan, meddwl maith ("Hear a song, a great thought,"), St. Richard Gwyn, who was Canonized in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, both summarized Fr. Persons' work and rendered it into a work of Welsh poetry in strict meter. All of the reasons given by Fr. Persons for Catholics to refuse to attend Anglican services were listed by St. Richard Gwyn in the poem, "but of course only in brief poetic way."[14]
  • A briefe censure upon two bookes written in answer to M. Edmund Campians offer of disputation. Doway, John Lyon [really at Mr. Brooke's house near London], 1581. Against William Charke and Meredith Hanmer, who had engaged in controversy with Campion.[13]
  • De persecvtione Anglicana commentariolus a collegio Anglicano Romano hoc anno 1582 in vrbe editus et iam denuo Ingolstadii excusus... anno eodem. Also, De persecutione Angl. libellus, Romæ, ex typogr. G. Ferrarii, 1582.
  • A Defence of the censvre gyven vpon tvvo bookes of William Charke and Meredith Hanmer, mynysters, 1582.
  • The first booke of the Christian exercise, appertayning to Resolution [Rouen], 1582. Preface signed R. P. Afterwards much enlarged, under the title of A Christian Directorie, guiding men to their saluation, divided into three books, anno 1585, and often reprinted (40 editions by 1640). This was a major devotional work in English, and was soon adapted by Edmund Bunny to Protestant needs.[15]
  • Relacion de algunos martyres... en Inglaterra, traduzida en Castellano, 1590. William Thomas Lowndes considered that Persons was the probable author of this work on the English martyrs, as well as its translator into Spanish.[16]
  • Elizabethæ Angliæ reginæ hæresim Calvinianam propvgnantis sævissimvm in Catholicos sui regni Edictvm... promulgatum Londini 29 Nouembris 1591. Cum responsione ad singula capita... per D. Andream Philopatrum, presb. ac theol. Romanum, Lvgduni, 1592. This Latin work was a detailed rebuttal of a proclamation of Elizabeth I of October 1591, against seminary priests and Jesuits.[17] It was published under the pseudonym Andreas Philopater.[18]
  • A Conference abovt the next svccession to the crowne of Ingland, divided into tvvo partes.... Where vnto is added a new & perfect arbor or genealogie.... Published by R. Doleman. Imprinted at N. [St. Omer] with licence, 1594. The book suggests Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain as the proper successor.[19]
  • A Memoriall for the Reformation of England conteyning certayne notes and advertisements which seeme might be proposed in the first parliament and nationall councell of our country after God of his mercie shall restore it to the catholique faith [...]; gathered and set downe by R. P., 1596. Left in manuscript, the circulation having included Isabella Clara Eugenia.[4] It was first published in 1690 by Edward Gee, as Jesuits Memorial for the intended Reformation of England.
  • A Temperate Ward-word to the turbulent and seditious Wach-word of Sir Francis Hastinges, knight, who indevoreth to slander the whole Catholique cause.... By N. D. 1599. Controversy with Sir Francis Hastings.[20]
  • The Copie of a letter written by F. Rob. Persons, the jesuite, 9 Oct 1599, to M. D. Bis[op] and M. Cha[rnock], two banished and consigned priests... for presuming to goe to Rome in the affaires of the Catholicke church. This was printed in Copies of certain Discourses, Roane, 1601, pp. 49–67, edited by William Bishop, one of the appellants in the Archpriest controversy; the other appellant named is Robert Charnock.[21][22]
  • A Briefe Apologie or Defence of the Catholike ecclesiastical hierarchie & subordination in England, erected these later yeares by our holy Father... and impugned by certayne libels printed... by some vnquiet persons under the name of priests of the seminaries. Written... by priests vnited in due subordination to the right rev. Archpriest [early in 1602]. Anti-appellant work in the Archpriest controversy.[23]
  • An Appendix to the Apologie lately set forth for the defence of the hierarchie [1602]. A Latin translation of the 'Appendix' was also published in the same year.
  • A Manifestation of the great folly and bad spirit of certayne in England calling themselves secular priestes, who set forth dayly most infamous and contumelious libels against worthy men of their own religion. By priests liuing in obedience, 1602. Anti-appellant work in the Archpriest controversy.[13]
  • The Warn-word to Sir F. Hastings Wastword: conteyning the issue of three former treatises, the Watchword, the Ward-word, and the Wastword... Whereunto is adjoyned a brief rejection of an insolent... minister masked with the letters O. E. (i.e. Matthew Sutcliffe). By N. D., 1602.
  • A Treatise of Three Conversions of England... divided into three parts. The former two whereof are handled in this book.... By N. D., author of the Ward-word, 1603. Polemical work against John Foxe's anti-Catholic reading of history.[24]
  • The Third part of a treatise intituled of the Three Conversions of England. Conteyning an examen of the Calendar or Catalogue of Protestant saints... devised by Fox. By N. D. (preface dated November 1603).
  • A Review of ten pvblike dispvtations or conferences held within the compasse of foure yeares vnder K. Edward and Qu. Mary. By N.D., 1604 (separately paged but issued with third part of Three Conversions).
  • A Relation of the triall made before the king of France upon the yeare 1600 betweene the bishop of Évreux and the L. Plessis Mornay. Newly reviewed... with a defence thereof against the impugnations both of the L. Plessis in France and O. E. in England. By N. D., 1604. On the debate at Fontainebleau on 4 May 1600 between Jacques-Davy Duperron and Philippe de Mornay.[25]
  • An Ansvvere to the fifth part of Reportes lately set forth by Syr Edward Cooke knight, the King's attorney generall, concerning the ancient and moderne municipal lawes of England, which do appertayne to spiritual power and jurisdiction. By a Catholick Deuyne [St. Omer], 1606. Polemical work against Sir Edward Coke's anti-Catholic reading of the common law.[24]
  • Quæstiones duæ: quarum 1a est, an liceat Catholicis Anglicanis... Protestantium ecclesias vel preces adire: 2da utrum non si precibus ut concionibus saltem hæreticis... licite possint interesse easque audire [St. Omer], 1607. Pope Paul V had repeated the declaration against Catholics attending Protestant churches.[26]
  • A treatise tending to mitigation tovvards Catholicke-subiectes in England.... Against the seditious wrytings of Thomas Morton, minister. By P. R., 1607 (the first part is on rebellion, the second concerns the doctrine of equivocation). Written in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, the work argues for religious toleration in England.[27]
  • The Judgment of a Catholicke Englishman liuing in banishment for his religion... concerning a late booke [by K. James] entituled: Triplici nodo triplex cuneus, or an apologie for the oath of allegiance.... wherin the said oath is shewn to be vnlawful.... 1608. Contribution to the allegiance oath controversy.[28]
  • Dutifull and respective considerations upon foure severall heads... proposed by the high and mighty Prince James... in his late book of Premonition to all Christian princes.... By a late minister and preacher in England, St. Omer, 1609 (written by Persons for Humphrey Leech, under whose name it appeared). Argues for tolerance for Catholicism in its integrity.[29]
  • A quiet and sober reckoning with M. Thomas Morton, somewhat set in choler by his advesary P. R.... There is also adioyned a peece of reckoning with Syr Edward Cooke, now LL. Chief Justice, 1609. Against Thomas Morton, who had argued that recusant Catholics were necessarily disloyal, Persons argued that Catholicism could co-exist peacefully with the Church of England.[4]
  • A Discussion of the answer of M. William Barlow, Doctor of Diuinity, to the book intituled, The Judgment of a Catholic Englishman, St. Omers, 1612 (published after Persons's death, with a supplement by Thomas Fitzherbert). Reply to William Barlow in the allegiance oath controversy.[28]
  • Epitome controversiarum hujus temporis was a manuscript preserved in Balliol College.[1]

Misattributed

An Apologicall Epistle: directed to the right honourable lords and others of her majesties privie counsell. Serving as well for a preface to a Booke entituled A Resolution of Religion [signed R. B.], Antwerp, 1601, is by Richard Broughton rather than Persons (as the Dictionary of National Biography says).[30] Some works against Thomas Bell were thought to be by Persons (as in the DNB), but were in fact by Philip Woodward.[31]

See also

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Robert Persons — (Also, but less correctly, PARSONS)

Jesuit, b., at Nether Stowey, Somerset, 24 June, 1546; d. in Rome, 15 April, 1610.

I. Early Life

His parents were of the yeoman class (for the controversy about them, see below, "Memoirs", pp. 36-47), but several of his many brothers rose to good positions. By favour of the local parson, John Hayward (once a monk at Taunton), Robert was sent to St. Mary's Hall, Oxford (1562). After taking his degrees with distinction he became fellow and tutor at Balliol (1568); but 13 Feb., 1574, he was forced to resign, partly because of his strong Catholic leanings, partly through college quarrels. Before long, he went abroad, and was reconciled, probably by Father William Good, S.J., and after a year spent in travel and study, he became a Jesuit at Rome (3 July, 1575).

II. English Mission (1579-1581)

At Rome he suggested the English mission for the Society, and when the students of the English College there came into difficulties with their first rector, he exerted himself to maintain peace, and proposed the "oath of the missions", an idea which was taken up, and is now in vogue throughout the Church. When the college was entrusted to the Jesuits, he was temporarily installed as rector (19 March, 1579). Dr. Allen came to Rome, 10 Oct., 1579, to complete the college arrangements, already so well begun, and at his instance the Jesuit mission to England was decided upon (Dec., 1579). The year of mission in England (12 June, 1580, to late August, 1581), was the most useful of Persons's life. Ever at the post of danger, he yet managed to avoid seizure, while he organized means of missionary enterprise not for Jesuits only but for the whole country. Laymen and secular priests carried out his plans with whole- hearted enthusiasm, and deserve unstinted praise for the results that followed. Persons not only preached, confessed, arranged missionary tours, and posts, he also wrote books and pamphlets, and set up his "magic press" (Stephen Brinkley), which printed and set forth Campion's "Decem Rationes", while several books of his own, answers to onslaughts of Protestants, were brought out within a few days of the attack. Considering the losses previously incurred through want of courage and energy, it would be impossible to praise this pioneer work too highly. But later on the missionary methods had to be modified: the presses were transferred abroad, and the challenges to disputation were dropped. Though not initiated by Persons, they had been subsequently approved by him. (See Counter-Reformation, vii. England; Edmund Campion, Blessed.)

III. Politics (1582-84)

After Campion had been taken (17 July, 1581) and the press captured (8 August), Persons slipped across to France hoping to do some business with Allen, to set up a new press, and return. The press was begun again under George Flinton at Rouen, but Persons never saw England again, and found himself in entirely new circumstances, which led to new, and much less desirable results. He was now living under the French Provincial Père Claude Matthieu, an advocate of armed resistance to the Huguenots; and he was necessarily under the influence of the King of Spain and the Duke of Guise, afterwards the leader of "La Sainte Ligue" and the champion of Mary Stuart. A great change too had come over her fortunes. Esmé Stuart, Sieur d'Aubigny, created Duke of Lennox, the favourite of the youthful King James, espoused her side (7 March, 1582). Never had she had such an ally, who actually controlled the chief ports of Scotland, and enjoyed the king's entire confidence. Father William Crichton, S.J., an enthusiastic Scot, who had just gone to Edinburgh as a missioner, was completely carried away by the prospect, and returned at once to lay Lennox's offers before the Duke of Guise. Persons and Allen were summoned for advice, and a meeting was held in Paris (18-24 May), in which both they and the papal nuncio, and the Archbishop of Glasgow took part. Everyone agreed that the King of Spain and the pope should be called upon to help. If they did not, there was no chance of Lennox maintaining his position for long, with England and the Scottish Kirk allied against him. The congress decided that Persons should go to Philip, and Crichton to Pope Gregory; and though the two Jesuits demurred, as having other orders from their superiors, the papal nuncio insisted and his authority of course prevailed. Persons now undertook two journeys, to Philip in Spain (June-Oct., 1582) and to Rome (Sept., 1583). Pope Gregory fully approved the plans, but the king always refused to consent, with qualifications, however, which led Allen and Persons to hope on till the beginning of 1584, by which time Lennox had fallen, and the other favourable circumstances has ceased. Looking back we now recognize how great Father Persons's error was; but it is also easy to see that with the approbation of the pope and of Allen and the other leading English Catholics living abroad, he had many excuses. He certainly did not contemplate the subjection of his country, but its liberation from an insufferable burden of persecution (see also Armada, The Spanish, IV, Catholic Co-operation).

IV. Spain (1588-97)

Recalled to Rome in 1585, he was professed there (7 May, 1587) and sent to Spain at the close of 1588, to conciliate King Philip, who was offended with Father Acquaviva. Persons was successful, and then made use of the royal favour to found the seminaries of Valladolid, Seville, and Madrid (1589, 1592, 1598) and the residences of San-Lucar and of Lisbu (which became a college in 1622). Already in 1582 he had founded a school at Eu, the first English Catholic boys' school since the Reformation; and he now succeeded in establishing at St. Omers (1594) a larger institution to which the boys from Eu were transferred, and which, after a long and romantic history, still flourishes at Stonyhurst. Whilst in Rome and Spain Persons wrote several still extant State papers, which show that he was still in favour of armed intervention on behalf of the English Catholics, but his main policy was to wait for the next succession, when he expected there would be a variety of claimants, for it was one of Elizabeth's manias to leave the succession an open question. Persons thought that a Catholic successor and by preference the Infanta (who was a representative of the house of Lancaster) would have a fair chance. On this topic there appeared in 1594, under the pseudonym of N. Dolman, the important "Conference on the next succession". The penman was really Richard Verstegan (see also, Record Office, "Dom. Eliz.", 252, n. 66, and Vatican Archives, "Borghese", 448, ab. f. 339) but both Cardinal Allen and Sir Francis Englefield had helped and approved, while Persons had also revised the MS. and rewritten many passages. The book was a manifesto of his party, and though declining the authorship, he always defended its principle, which was the people's right of participation in the settlement of a ruler, as opposed to the Gallican theory of the Divine right of kings. (See Origin of Government, Gallicanism.) But though Persons's theory is praiseworthy, his practical conclusion (mentioned above) was illusory. Owing to the unpopularity of Spain, the book was very badly received, and he could not effectively prevent its popular attribution to himself. Ten years earlier (1584) another political publication in favour of Mary Queen of Scots, widely known as "Leicester's Commonwealth", had also been popularly ascribed to him; presumably because he very unwisely allowed a Jesuit lay-brother, Ralph Emerson, to take the first consignment of them to England, where they were seized. The real author was probably Charles Arundel.

V. The Apellants (1598-1603)

Cardinal Allen died in 1594 and after he had gone, the English Catholics were tried by a series of the most distressing disturbances, which originated in the misery and consequent discontent of the exiles, and which gradually affected the seminaries, the clergy, and even the Catholic prisoners. Allen had ruled by personal influence; and left no successor. The clergy were without superior or organization. Persons returned to Rome (April, 1597) to quiet the disturbances at the English College, which no one else could calm. He was immediately and remarkably successful; and there was talk of making him a cardinal. But, as the pope never intended to do so, it is unnecessary to discuss what might have happened had he received that dignity. Cardinal Cajetano, the Protector, now ordered him to draw up a scheme of government for the rest of the clergy. His first idea was to establish an archbishop in Flanders, and a bishop in England, but considering the fury of the persecution a hierarchy of priests was preferred. In England an archpriest with assistants was appointed (7 March, 1598); in Flanders, Spain, and Rome, "Prefects of the Mission", while the nuncio in Flanders was to be the vicegerent of the cardinal-protector, with supreme jurisdiction. In point of fact it was found more convenient to deal directly with the archpriest, George Blackwell, who, albeit a good scholar and an amiable man, had not the skill and experience necessary to calm the disputes then raging, and his endeavours turned the complainants against himself. An appeal was carried against him to Rome; but was decided in his favour, 6 April, 1599. But Father Persons, who had defended him, misunderstood the nature of the opposition, and treated the appellant envoys like recalcitrant scholars, and Blackwell misused his victory. A second appeal ensued (Nov., 1600), which was backed up by the publication of many books, some of which contained scandalous attacks on Father Persons, who defended himself in two publications "A briefe Apologie" (St. Omers?, 1601), and the "Manifestation" (1601). The appellants were patronized by the French ambassador, the archpriest by the Spanish, and the debate grew very warm, Father Persons's pen being busily engaged the whole time. Clement VIII in the end maintained the archpriest's authority, but justified the grounds of the appeal, ordering that six of the appellant party should be admitted among the assistants, cancelled the instruction which commanded the archpriest to seek the advice of the Jesuit superior in matters of greater moment, and forbade all further books on either side. Thus the appellants won the majority of points, and a party supported by France, but hostile to Persons, became influential among the English clergy.

VI. Conclusion (1602-10)

Persons remained till his death rector of the English College, but he nearly lost that post in 1604. Clement VIII had been told by the French ambassador that James would be favourably impressed, if he proved his independence of the Jesuits, by sending Father Persons away. Persons, as it happened, was ill, and had to go to Naples (Nov., 1604); whereupon the pope gave orders for him not to return. But the pontiff himself died 3 March, 1605, and his successor, Paul V, reversed his policy, which was unpopular at Rome. Persons returned to his post, and enjoyed full papal favour until his death. Father Persons's greatest work, his "Christian Directory" [originally called "The Book of Christian Exercise", and known as "The Book of Resolution" (Rouen, 1582), with innumerable editions and translations], had been conceived during his heroic mission in England. His edition of Sander's "De Schismate Anglicano" (Rome, 1506) had also an immense circulation. His later works were controversial, written with wonderful vigour, irony, incisiveness, and an easy grasp of the most complex subjects; but they lack the deep sympathy and human interest of his missionary books. Father Persons was a man of great parts, eloquent, influential, zealous, spiritual, disinterested, fearless. Yet he had some of the defects of his qualities. He was masterful, sometimes a special pleader, and greater as a pioneer or sectional leader than as Generalissimo. Though his services in the mission field, and in the education of the clergy were priceless, his participation in politics and in clerical feuds cannot be justified except in certain aspects.

PERSONS, Memoirs (CATHOLIC RECORD SOCIETY ), II, IV (London, 1906, 1907); MORE, Historia Provincia Anglicanæ (St. Omers, 1660); KNOX, Letters of Cardinal Allen (London, 1882); POLLEN, Politics of English Catholics in The Month (1902-04); KRETZSCHMAR, Invasionsprojecte der katholischen Mächte gegen England (Leipzig, 1892); MEYER, England und die katholische Kirche unter Elizabeth (Rome, 1911); BELLESHEIM, Cardinal Allen und die englische Seminare (Mainz, 1885); DODD-TIERNEY, Church History of England (London, 1838); LAW, Appellant Controversy (CAMDEN SOCIETY, 1896, 1898); COUZARD, Une ambassade à Rome sous Henri IV (Paris, 1900?); LAFLEUR DE KERMAIGNANT, Christophe de Harlay, comte de Beaumont (Paris, 1895); OSSAT, Letters, in various editions by AMELOT DE LA HOUSSAIE (Amsterdam, 1708); DÉGERT (Paris, 1894), TAMIREZ DE LARROQUE (Paris, 1872), etc.; DE FRESNE, Ambassades (Paris, 1635); SOMMERVOGEL Bibl. de la C. de J.; Biol. Dict. Eng. Cath.; Dict. Nat. Biog.

References

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  2. Back to citation João Vicente Melo, "Robert Parsons", in Nandini Das (ed.), Lives in Transit in Early Modern England: Identity and Belonging (Amsterdam University Press, 2022), p. 115. doi:10.2307/j.ctv2fzkpnj.21
  3. Back to citation occurrence 3.0 Back to citation occurrence 3.1 Pollen, John Hungerford. "Robert Persons." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 25 March 2016
  4. Back to citation occurrence 4.0 Back to citation occurrence 4.1 Back to citation occurrence 4.2 Back to citation occurrence 4.3 Back to citation occurrence 4.4 Back to citation occurrence 4.5 Back to citation occurrence 4.6 Houliston, Victor. "Persons, Robert". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21474. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  5. Back to citation McCoog 1996, p. 124 n. 22.
  6. Back to citation McCoog 1996, p. 259.
  7. Back to citation McCoog, Thomas M. "Pounde, Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/69038. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
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  11. Back to citation Brooks, Christopher W. (2009). Law, Politics and Society in Early Modern England. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 121. ISBN 9780521323918.
  12. Back to citation Peter Lake; Michael C. Questier (2000). Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church: c. 1560 - 1660. Boydell & Brewer. p. 214. ISBN 978-0-85115-797-9. Retrieved 16 July 2013.
  13. Back to citation occurrence 13.0 Back to citation occurrence 13.1 Back to citation occurrence 13.2 Victor Houliston (1 January 2007). Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England: Robert Persons's Jesuit Polemic, 1580-1610. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-7546-5840-5. Retrieved 16 July 2013.
  14. Back to citation Collected and Edited by John Hungerford Pollen, S.J. (1908), Unpublished Documents Relating to the English Martyrs. Volume I: 1584-1603. Pages 93-95.
  15. Back to citation Robert Parsons (1998). Robert Persons S.J.: The Christian Directory (1582): The First Booke of the Christian Exercise, Appertayning to Resolution. BRILL. p. xi. ISBN 978-90-04-11009-0. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  16. Back to citation William Thomas Lowndes (1834). The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature: L - R. Pickering. p. 1227. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  17. Back to citation Ethelred Luke Taunton, The History of the Jesuits in England, 1580-1773 (1901), p. 148; archive.org.
  18. Back to citation Houliston, Victor (1 June 2001). "The Lord Treasurer and the Jesuit: Robert Person's Satirical Responsio to the 1591 Proclamation". The Sixteenth Century Journal. 32 (2): 383–401. doi:10.2307/2671738. ISSN 0361-0160. JSTOR 2671738. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  19. Back to citation Clark Hulse (2003). Elizabeth I: Ruler and Legend. University of Illinois Press. p. 102. ISBN 978-0-252-07161-4. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  20. Back to citation Victor Houliston (1 January 2007). Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England: Robert Persons's Jesuit Polemic, 1580-1610. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-7546-5840-5. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  21. Back to citation Thomas Graves Law, A Historical Sketch of the Conflicts between Jesuits and Seculars in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (1889), p. lxxxvi; archive.org.
  22. Back to citation Thomas Graves Law, The Archpriest Controversy vol. 1 (1838), p. 235 note; archive.org.
  23. Back to citation Victor Houliston (1 October 2007). Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England Robert Persons's Jesuit Polemic 1580-1610. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-7546-8668-2. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  24. Back to citation occurrence 24.0 Back to citation occurrence 24.1 Victor Houliston (1 January 2007). Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England: Robert Persons's Jesuit Polemic, 1580-1610. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-7546-5840-5. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  25. Back to citation Mack P. Holt (1 January 2007). Adaptations of Calvinism in Reformation Europe: Essays in Honour of Brian G. Armstrong. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 174. ISBN 978-0-7546-8693-4. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  26. Back to citation Peter Lake; Michael C. Questier (2000). Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church: C. 1560 - 1660. Boydell & Brewer. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-85115-797-9. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  27. Back to citation Roger D. Sell; Anthony W. Johnson (1 April 2013). Writing and Religion in England 1558-1689: Studies in Community-Making and Cultural Memory. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 59. ISBN 978-1-4094-7559-0. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  28. Back to citation occurrence 28.0 Back to citation occurrence 28.1 Victor Houliston (1 January 2007). Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England: Robert Persons's Jesuit Polemic, 1580-1610. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 142–3. ISBN 978-0-7546-5840-5. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  29. Back to citation Victor Houliston (1 January 2007). Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England: Robert Persons's Jesuit Polemic, 1580-1610. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-7546-5840-5. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  30. Back to citation Molly Murray (15 October 2009). The Poetics of Conversion in Early Modern English Literature: Verse and Change from Donne to Dryden. Cambridge University Press. p. 89 note 77. ISBN 978-0-521-11387-8. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
  31. Back to citation Michael C. Questier (13 July 1996). Conversion, Politics and Religion in England, 1580-1625. Cambridge University Press. p. 48 note 42. ISBN 978-0-521-44214-5. Retrieved 17 July 2013; Suellen Mutchow Towers (2003). The control of religious printing in early Stuart England. Boydell Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-85115-939-3. Retrieved 17 July 2013; Frederick Wilse Bateson (1940). The Cambridge bibliography of English literature. 2. 1660-1800. CUP Archive. p. 327. GGKEY:QNELW3AWW36. Retrieved 17 July 2013.

Bibliography

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