St. Edmund Campion: From a Queen’s Favorite to a Wanted Outlaw

Part Two of the Forty Martyrs series

St. Edmund Campion (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

In the last installment of the “Forty Martyrs of England and Wales,” I said that after St. Thomas More we would look at St. John Fisher, the only cardinal in the entire history of the Catholic Church to be martyred. We will indeed meet St. John soon, but not today. Today, we’ll meet a Jesuit priest far less famous than either Thomas More or John Fisher who was also martyred for the Faith during that same era: St. Edmund Campion.

Campion was born on January 24, 1540, the son of a London bookseller and printer. Young Edmund was a brilliant writer and speaker, and at 17 he became an Oxford Fellow. He earned his master’s degree in 1564, and in 1566 he was among a handful of students chosen to lead a public debate attended by Queen Elizabeth I. He so impressed the queen that shortly afterward he received the patronage of both William Cecil (Elizabeth’s Secretary of State and chief adviser) and the Earl of Leicester (whom many at the time believed would eventually become Elizabeth’s husband).

Campion had been ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church in 1564, and with his newfound popularity at Court he seemed destined for a successful career in the Church of England. By the time of Elizabeth’s visit to Oxford in 1566, however, he was…