Saint Edmund Campion

Edmund Campion, SJ (25 January 1540 – 1 December 1581) was an English Jesuit priest and martyr. While conducting an underground ministry in officially Anglican England, Campion was arrested by priest hunters. Convicted of high treason, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. Campion was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. His feast day is celebrated on 1 December. Born in London on 25 January 1540, Campion was the son of a bookseller in Paternoster Row, near St Paul's Cathedral. He received his early education at Christ's Hospital school and, at the age of 13, was chosen to make the complimentary speech when Queen Mary visited the city in August 1553.: p30  William Chester, a governor of Christ's Hospital, took a special interest in him, and sponsored him as a scholar to St John's College, Oxford, where he became junior fellow in 1557 and took the required Oath of Supremacy, probably on the occasion of his B.A. degree in 1560. He took a master's degree at Oxford in 1564. Two years later, Campion welcomed Queen Elizabeth to the university, and won her lasting regard. He was selected to lead a public debate in front of the Queen. By the time the Queen had left Oxford, Campion had earned the patronage of the powerful William Cecil and also the Earl of Leicester, reputed by some to be the future husband of the young Queen. When Sir Thomas White, the founder of the college, was buried in 1567, it fell to Campion to give the Latin oration. Campion began to question Anglican teachings and was open to Catholic doctrines. However, at the persuasion of Richard Cheyney, Bishop of Gloucester, he received Holy Orders in 1564 and was ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church. However, he continued to struggle inwardly. Rumours of his support of Catholic opinions began to spread, and he left Oxford in 1569 and went to Ireland for private study and research.