Parsons (II)

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

FATHER ROBERT, the chief of the English Jesuits in their golden age; born in Somersetshire, England, in 1546. When 18 he passed from the free school at Taunton to St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, and after two years to Balliol College, where he took his deg degrees of bachelor and master, and became a fellow and tutor. Here he twice took the oath abjuring the papal supremacy, but he never received orders in the Eng-ference on the next Succession to the lish Church. His enemies in college Crown," written with the assistance of brought charges against him which led forced retirement from Oxford in word became a Roman Catholic and set out on foot to Rome, and offered himself to the Society of Jesus. He was ordained priest in 1578. When in the following year Dr. Cardinal) Allen, superior of Car (afterward the Douay seminary, succeeded in persuading the Jesuits to join with the seminary priests in the work of the English mission, Parsons and Campion were selected. Parsons in 1580 landed at Dover, disguised as a merchant of jewels. He employed six printers on a secret press, and for 12 months baffled all the attempts of the government to catch him. But after the apprehension of his companion, Campion, in July, 1581, Parsons escaped to the Continent, where he schemed for the subjection of England to the Pope by force of arms. He conspired in France with the Duke de Guise, the Provincial of the French Jesuits, the Papal Nuncio and others for an invasion of England. Now began his intimacy and influence with the Spanish king, and the series of political enterprises which culminated in the Armada of 1588. At Rouen in 1582 he had finished his book, the "Christian Directory," which has found favor with Protestant divines; and, with the aid of the Duke of Guise, he founded at Eu a seminary for youth. After the failure of the Armada he organized seminaries or clerical establishemnts for his countrymen at Valladolid in 1589, St. Lucar in 1591, Seville and Lisbon in 1592, and at St. Omer in 1593. Parsons, who went from Madrid to Rome to again assume the rectorship of the sh college, now persuaded the Pope English to appoint George Blackwell, a partisan of the Jesuits, an archpriest over the secular clergy, with the view of keep ing the chief direction of affairs in his own hands. The appointment was resisted by the leaders of the seculars. Parsons, upon whom the odium of the appointment chiefly fell, was accused of deceiving the Pope, of tyranny over the clergy, and of continued treason against country. An appeal carried to Rome by four delegates of the secular clergy led to a diminution of the Jesuits' power. His industry and power of work were extraordinary. His domineering spirit and political partisanship created for him bitter enemies, while his mode of prosecuting his ends justly exposed him to charges of double dealing, equivocation, and reckless slander of his opponents. Among the best known of his voluminous publications is "The Con- Allen and Sir Francis Englefield in favor of the infanta of Spain. He here insists on the right of the people to set aside, on religious grounds, the natural heir to the throne; and advocates principles which afterward obtained for him the title of the first English Whig. Parliament made it treason to possess a copy of the book, which was reprinted in the interests of Cromwell in 1648. It was again reprinted in 1681, and publicly burned at Oxford in 1683. Another curious work by Parsons, was his "Memorial for the Reformation," in which he lays down rules for the guidance of the government, in the expected event of England's subjection to the Pope. His " "Apology" for the government of the archpriest (1601) is his torically interesting, while his "Manifestation of the Great Folly and Bad Spirit of Certain in England Calling Themselves Secular Priests," a passionate attack upon the conduct and morals of his clerical brethren, exhibits him on his weakest side. He died in Rome, as rector of the English college, April 15, 1610.