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Edmund Campion’s Alleged Interview with Queen Elizabeth I in 1581

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2016

Extract

The biography of Edmund Campion in the Dictionary of National Biography describes how, after a year of ministering to English Catholics, Campion was captured in Berkshire with three other priests on 17 July 1581, was brought to London, and was imprisoned in the Tower on Saturday 22 July. The DNB continues:

He remained there until the fourth day (25 July), when, with great secrecy, he was conducted to the house of the Earl of Leicester. There he was received by Leicester, the Earl of Bedford, and two secretaries of state, with all honour and courtesy. They told him they had sent for him to know the plain truth, why he and Parsons had come into England, and what commission they brought from Rome . . . Nothing more was known at the time concerning this interview; but at the trial it came out that the queen herself was present, that she asked Campion whether he thought her really queen of England . . .

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1984

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References

Notes

1 Simpson, pp. 239–240.

2 Evelyn, Waugh, Edmund Campion (1935), pp. 170173.Google Scholar

3 Reynolds, E. E., Campion and Parsons (1980), p. 131.Google Scholar

4 Guiney, L. I., Blessed Edmund Campion (1908), pp. 1389 Google Scholar, plate facing p. 144.

5 Bartoli, D., Della Compagnia di Gesù, VoL. 3, Dell’Inghilterra (Turin, 1825), Libro Terzo, p. 30.Google Scholar This was first published in 1667.

6 Simpson, p. 381 (note 272).

7 DNB Allen.

8 Bartoli, op.cit., pp. 30–31.

9 Fathers of the Congregation of the London, Oratory, ed., Letters and Memorials of William Cardinal Allen (1882), pp. 101103.Google Scholar

10 Calendar of State Papers… Milan (1912), No. 1012.

11 Letters and Memorials of William Cardinal Allen, p. 102. ‘Postridie vero is a Turre ad domum Ruberti Comitis Lacestrensis clam navigio deductus est, ibique coram illo alioque comite Bedfordiensi et aliis duobus Reginae secretariis…’

12 Simpson, p. 239. Simpson dates the interview as on 25 July.

13 DNB, Wilson.

14 Martin, C T., ed., Journal of Sir Francis Walsingham (1871), p. 43.Google Scholar

15 Simpson, p. 244.

16 Reynolds, loc. cit.

17 B.L., Lansdowne MSS.982, f.l9v.

18 Owen, G. D., ed., Calendar of the Manuscripts… at Longleat Vol. 5, Talbot Dudley and Devereux Papers (1980), p. 35.Google Scholar

19 DNB Bromley.

20 Simpson, p. 296. Simpson’s wording is that given in Cobbett, W., ed., Complete Collection of State Trials (1809), Vol. 1, p. 1062.Google Scholar

21 Dasent, J. R., ed., Acts of the Privy Council (1896), N.S.13, p. 144.Google Scholar