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Edmund Campion

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"My charge is, of free cost to preach the Gospel, to minister the Sacraments, to instruct the simple, to reforme sinners, to confute errors-- in brief, to crie alarme spiritual against foul vice and proud ignorance wherewith many my dear Countrymen are abused.

I never had mind, and am strictly forbidden by our Father that sent me, to deal in any respect with matter of State or Policy of this realm, as things which appertain not to my vocation, and from which I do gladly restrain and sequester my thoughts."

-- the courageous martyr and "seditious Jesuit" Edmund Campion in his famous "Brag"

Kudos to the good people of Ignatius Press for introducing new generations to Waugh's masterful biography of St. Edmund Campion. The brilliant Oxford scholar was destined for any career he chose in Elizabeth's Protestant England. Instead, at a time when being Catholic meant persecution and an uncertain future, Campion chose not only conversion, but ordination as a Jesuit and near-certain death.

Ignatius' new hardcover edition is superbly done, with a tight binding, attractive dust jacket, high quality paper, and a very readable font. It also includes remarks by modern Waugh aficionados like Joseph Pearce and George Weigel and a new introduction by Fr. Joseph Fessio.

Readers might enjoy excerpts from Percy Hutchison's 1936 review in the New York Times:

"For several years Campion, of the Jesuit order and ordained priest, had been on the Continent. Then Rome ordered him to England to give what mental and religious sustenance he could to the persecuted brethren. Though he knew that sooner or later his life would be forfeit, Campion, ten years before the defeat of the Spanish Armada, landed once again on English soil. From that moment on his days might fittingly be described as a progress toward the cross.

He was a marked man. Doubtless it is true, as Evelyn Waugh adduces documentary evidence to show, that Campion was falsely convicted. He was charged with sedition; he had incited no rebellion. He was charged with treason; he had not committed treason. But he had given heart to the English of his faith by surreptitious preaching and surreptitious administrations of the sacraments. At his trial a great show of disputation of doctrine was made, but all this, according to Mr. Waugh, was camouflage."

It is always good to read about the saints, but the writing of those who write on the saints is not always good. It is no surprise that one of the great writers of the last century such as Evelyn Waugh would turn out a great book.

Edmund Campion is a biography of the Jesuit Saint Edmund Campion who was martyred in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation and the increasingly severe penal laws in England. This book was written in 1935 only five years after Waugh's conversion into the Catholic Church. It is a straightforward biography based on the best historical research available at the time. The author does not inject himself in the book in that he tries hard to stick to the historical narrative of what can actually be known and any dialogue in the book is straight from the historical record. This is in no way some syrupy hagiography that diverges from facts with flowery stories or that tries to inflate the actions of Edmund Campion. Though considering the subject this is not much needed when you look at his amazing life.

The book running at a little more than 200 pages is divided into four very appropriate chapters: The Scholar, The Priest, The Hero, The Martyr. I wonder if you have to give a spoiler alert when you are talking a martyr. Evelyn Waugh provides the necessary historical background of the state of the Church and of the politics involved and you fast become involved in the biography as if you were reading a novel. Every time you read about the recusants and those in Church history who were persecuted for the faith it always gives you a greater appreciation of what most Catholics in the modern world take for granted. When we go to Mass we aren't worried that somebody is going to turn us in or that we don't need guards to warn is people are coming so that the priest can hide in the priest-hole.

The first two chapters deal with his academic life and his early career as he initially leaves England because of the growing persecution of Catholics and his decision to become a priest and then a Jesuit. The biographic then moves to his returning to England. Like many saints he was not specifically making decisions that would lead him on the road to martyrdom. In fact circumstances could have left him teaching in Vienna and Prague since the Jesuits at the time had no chapters in England. But also like many saints when it became apparent that he would indeed be traveling down that road it was done with joy.

As Waugh chronicles Campion's year of attending to the Catholics in England you again get caught up in the drama as he and other priests continue to minister to the flock for the good of souls. It is a measure of Campion's genius that his "Brag" that he wrote in a half-hour's time to defend himself from charges of treason was printed and reprinted across England. Or that his famous Ten Reasons would provide much annoyance to the authorities at the time. So annoying that once he was captured and tortured they brought him to a series of debates to try to counter it. Waugh does not dwell much into St. Campion's grisly martyrdom that will be familiar to those that saw Braveheart, but it is quite interesting the stories he describes by those who were converted by Campion in his last days.

Highly recommended and one of those rare biographies that is indeed a page-turner.

This biography of the English saint and martyr Edmund Campion won the Hawthornden Prize in 1936, and I read it because of that. It is very well-written , tho it lacks a bibliography and footnotes. Campion was executed Dec. 1, 1581, after being sentenced to "be hanged and let down alive, and your privy parts cut off, and your entrails taken out and burnt in your sight, then your head to be cut off and your body divided into four parts." It surely makes one grateful for the 8th Amendment against cruel and unusual punishmnet. This is a fast read and eminently worth reading.

Often, when reading a biography of a saint, one is struck by a certain dissonance: the heavenly heights of the subject matter do not correspond to the writing level of the book. The saint biography is one of my favorite genres, but it is at times a chore to get by the substandard writing to penetrate the beauty of the life of the saint.

Nothing could be further from the case in "Edmund Campion" by Evelyn Waugh. Here we have a combination for the ages: the story of a magnificent saint told by one of the great authors of the 20th century. In many ways, it reminded me of Mark Twain's excellent book on Joan of Arc. Waugh's use of the language allows the story of Campion to come alive in ways a lesser author could have never conveyed. One is swept up into the time of Campion, and allowed to experience the persecution he experienced first-hand, as well as understand the motivating love behind his actions.

Highly recommended for all lovers of literature and the saints.

Evelyn Waugh earned his place in letters as one of the 20th century's great acerbic wits, yet an undeniable cynicism in him was tempered by his Catholic spirituality. His "Edmund Campion" is an early testament to his religious identity, but fails to bring much of his literary gift to bear.

A promising Oxford student whose talent for debate won him many Anglican admirers, including Queen Elizabeth, Campion's life took a U-turn when something in him rebelled against the primrose path set before him. At a time when faith in old religion cost Englishmen their livelihoods if not their lives, Campion joined the Green Berets of the Catholic Church: The Jesuits, where the goal was the gaol, and grisly martyrdom.

"...there was that in Campion that made him more than a decent person; an embryo in the womb of his being, maturing in darkness, invisible, barely stirring; the love for holiness, the need for sacrifice," Waugh writes.

Published in 1935, after Waugh had published his first four scathing social novels, "Edmund Campion" examines a different kind of social transgression. The central problem of the book as I see it is Waugh's respectful handling of the Campion story leaves little room for the voice that Waugh had tempered by this point to such a sharp edge.

Another issue with Waugh's tone is it leaves little room for imaginative reconstruction. He's writing a pure history, just the facts, and except for two bookend episodes, neither of which feature Campion himself (one presents Elizabeth at the end of her life, the other a pair of street performers at the site of Campion's martyrdom), there's no color in Waugh's account. Often he will write something like "we cannot know what hopes stirred in Campion's heart" and leave it there, or else relate some fragmentary comment with some note of its historical dubiousness. It's frustrating, distance-putting reading.

Two sections of the book stick out as memorable. At the English College of Douai, in Holland, Campion prepares for his martyrdom knowingly and gratefully, a very surreal sequence read at this remove in time. In the other, Campion is tried, ridiculously, by a kangaroo court where he is tortured nearly to death between court sessions but still manages to make his case, puncturing the trumped-up charge of treason and calling attention to the fact his real crime was holding to the same faith that Englishmen and women lived under for centuries.

"He and his fellows were to die, but the world must know the cause," Waugh explains.

But there are long arid stretches between those two sections, and much of the rest has Waugh discussing the Campion story as if the priests he wrote it for and already knew the tale were its only audience. A worthwhile endeavor, "Edmund Campion" doesn't quite hit the mark as a Waugh must-read, but is worth checking out for those who admire Waugh and want to know more about what made him tick.

Foxe's famous book of martyrs gave the impression that England's troubled past ended with the martyrs of "Bloody" Queen Mary. But martyrdom continued at the hands of the Protestant soveriegns that followed including the hundreds of priests tortured to death under "Good Queen Bess" (Elizabeth I). One of those priests was the beloved Edmund Campion who gave up a lucrative career as a scholar to follow a calling that would lead to the ultimate sacrifice for love of his homeland.

Mr. Waugh brings his literary skills to bear in the biographical genre to tell us this moving story of this great hero of the faith. Campion had all the promise as a young man in England and Ireland to make a renowned scholar. Mentioning a fellow English scholar of that time, Mr. Waugh makes the profound observation, "Tobie Matthew died full of honours in 1628. There, but for the Grace of God, went Edmund Campion." Campion's life would not end with mere honors of man but the the great honor God gives to those who give their lives for others. Campion's ignominious and gruesome death won him a far greater honor than he might have accomplished as a renowned scholar. He is venerated today as a canonized saint with good reason. His life was one of service and love for his fellow man to the point of facing death in order to encourage those under the brutal persecution of Elizabeth's reign.

When the sovereigns of England attempted to squash the Catholic faith, a school for under-cover priests was founded on the continent. Campion attended and took on the austere life of a Society of Jesus eventually teaching at seminaries far from his home. But always his heart ached for his own country. But, as Waugh observes, "Campion could help the English Mission best by realising his own sanctity." And so he did, eventually landing under cover on his home island to pray for and preach the Catholics denied freedom of worship there. But his capture, long torture and brutal martyrdom were not a defeat. As Waugh says of Campion and the martyr priests like him, "We are the heirs of their conquest, and enjoy, at our ease, the plenty which they died to win."

The final chapter conveys the story of one man present at Campion's death. This man, literally splattered with the blood of the martyr, left England to follow the same path of study to priesthood to return and a common end. The blood of the martyrs are indeed the seeds of the Church. Saint Edmund Campion, pray for us.

This was an amazing book. It was difficult to read as it is of any wholesale murder and suppression of a people. I had never been able to study the effects of the anti-catholic legislation and brutal suppression of the Church in England. I had alway studied it from the Irish perspective. I think that Saint Edmund Campion lived for as long as he did because he spent 10 years in Europe. Otherwise, he would have had a much shorter life, like Man-of-God Father Michael McGivney. He was already well-known in England for his writings, and oratory as a student and Deacon at Oxford University.

I was struck by a few items in this book. The first was Queen Elizabeth I's remark to her bishops and clergy as she neared death, calling them "hedge priests", meaning not being actually ordained and shooing them out. The other was the shear emptiness of the English people's lives created merely to satisfy the political and power ambitions of the English Government and ministers as opposed by the people at large who were generally sympathetic and preferred to remain Catholic. Evelyn Waugh commented about the Queen's Government doing all that it could to "removing the people from the Sacraments of the Church so that it would die out in a generation" was quite striking and saddening to picture. How desolute were their lives already, but to take away the one thing that they had for hundreds of years? Mr. Waugh also points out the destruction of the abbeys and great places of learning, "...that flowed to and from Europe, suddenly cutting off England from the rest of the Church", and the greatest minds and service of the monks and priests of the Church from the English people.

In Ireland, it was well known to us in America that there were safe houses and secret rooms to hide the priests and the vessels and vestments for Mass. I was surprised that this also occurred in England. I think that in many areas of history, Americans hear an "anglicized version" of the event and we see that prejudice in our books and common history.

I highly recommend this book. It can be painful to read, but should be read. I would recommend some research first on the creation of the Church of England by King Henry VIII, and the Penal Laws, the Law of Supremecy, and the Catholic Faith in England first. This system of suppression remained in force until the middle of the 19th Century! There is a whole litany of English saints and martyrs that have been lost, but are waiting to be rediscovered by you.

A bio of the English Catholic martyr. Detailed. Not a light read, but if the era or the subject interests you, the book will not disappoint.

This is one of the most powerful, moving and inspiring books I've ever read. In an age when, by and large, the Faith has been watered down to a Disney version of itself, this reminds us of the eternal Truths of the Holy Catholic church.

Evelyn Waugh's Edmund Campion is about the making of a martyr in 16th century England. It will appeal most obviously to Catholics. But it is equally a picture of the politics of the time leading from Henry VIII to James I--with implications beyond, with occasional snapshots of unbelievable coarseness of manners: Queen Elizabeth accepting the hospitality of unsuspecting families and ordering their arrest when they try to honor her as she leaves; her ordering a performance from a courtier, who falls, with her roaring in laughter and kicking him, dubbing him Sir Ox.

There is the torture and beastly punishments, etc. But there is in the great changes things we might recognize from our own time. Vast resources were changing hands at the will of the "government," ending the tenure and foundation of religious enterprises. It was, you might say, past time for it. But it is hard to argue that the public benefitted. In fact in the short run the public lost by the change. The support the public needed and was used to from the foundations vanished. The charities and schooling were cut off at their source. Oxford itself became unfunded.

Still, one might think it was time to end the medieval pattern and to assert change that would tend to secular control of the people's business. But the reality was, from Henry to Elisabeth, the plunder went to the ministers' cronies and supporters, creating big establishments to ennoble and enrich them--thus not only paying for their support, but binding them to it. On the other hand, the engine of reform, the public factions agitating for supremacy and the elimination of Catholics and their foundations, were easily steered. There were competing Protestant views. It was only a question of appropriate reinforcement depending ministerial choice: punish those deemed too extreme; the others would feel supported by the government actions of disestablishment. Such turns of events are not unknown in politics at other times.

About Elizabeth: "All her life she had been surrounded by plots; plots to implicate her in Wyatt's rebellion, plots against her life . . . many of them real enough . . . plots that had no existence except in the brains of Walsingham and the Cecils [p. 19 EC]." Waugh says this only in reference to her dying. From his narrative a reader can see that she led an uncertain life, with every reason to be afraid: of judicial death at the hands of her half sisters or their supporters, for one thing. (She reluctantly condemned two of her half sisters to death at the instigation of her chief minister.) Henry VIII had officially declared her illegitimate and blocked her from the succession--later reversing this. Waugh's picture of Elizabeth needs a further level of generalization to register the totality in which her danger grew up with her and stayed with her to the end. She was brilliant, gifted person: but the sense of danger must have been central in her life. I think that she could see that there was no safety for her to try to live an ordinary life: she couldn't even marry without crown permission (very, very unlikely).

Elizabeth could see the likeliest safety was for her to be queen. She would have the power of government behind her. I think that she saw marrying as queen would be a threat to her control, and a merry dance she led them on this. But it made her, too, susceptible to manipulation by her principal minister, William Cecil, Lord Burghley. Neither of them were actuated by fervent religious motive. Elizabeth had to sense the danger potential of the religious disorders; Cecil loved power. He may have called it something else, but the reality for him was his ability to be in control and to build a new power structure based on his sense of what could work. The definitive shift in power between Crown and Parliament would grow out of such interplays of actual power.

In the end I can recommend this book to anyone interested in any these things, or their romance, whether Catholic or not--with the warning that it is the story of Edmund Campion, martyr and saint.Edmund Campion