Robert Parsons

This article deals with the English Jesuit and politician Robert Parsons; for the US politician of the same name, see Robert E. Parsons .

Robert Parsons

Robert Parsons (occasionally Robert Persons ; born June 24, 1546 in Nether Stowey , Somerset , † April 15, 1610 in Rome ) was an English Jesuit and politician.

Early years

Parsons was born the son of a blacksmith in Somerset. He received his school education in Taunton and Stogursey . Then Parsons studied and taught at Balliol College , Oxford . In 1575 he had to end his teaching activity after disputes over his inclination to the Catholic Church. He traveled to Padua via London to study medicine there. Just three years later, Parsons went to Rome and joined the Jesuit Order on July 4, 1575 . In 1578 he was ordained a priest.

On a mission in England

On April 18, 1580 he went on a mission to England with Edmund Campion . The two Jesuits reached London via Reims and Saint-Omer . Shortly after arriving in England, Parsons organized a secret meeting of Catholic priests in Southwark to discuss how to proceed. Parsons then traveled to England as a preacher. At the end of 1580 he set up a secret Catholic printing plant in Barking . There he published his writings A brief discourse containing certain Reasons Why Catholics refuse to go to Church and Confessio fidei . In July 1581, the government succeeded in arresting Campion, and Parsons decided to flee.

Parsons escape and stay in Spain

On August 30, 1581, Parsons reached Rouen , where he founded a boys' school. The school was later relocated to St. Omer and is now located in Stonyhurst . In the spring of 1582 Parsons traveled to Spain to win Philip II for an invasion of England. However, there was no success. Parsons went to Reims, where he was commissioned by Cardinal William Allen to plan and lead a Jesuit mission in England from the mainland. In 1585 he went to Rome to work at the English College. It was there that his most spiritually important work was created with the Directory . In 1588 Parsons was sent back to Spain, where he set up schools for young priests in Valladolid, Seville and Madrid. In 1594 he published his best known work A Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England , in which the succession to the throne of the Spanish Infanta Isabella is advocated.

Lord Burghley

On October 18, 1591, a “ Royal Proclamation ”, probably initiated by Lord Burghley , appeared , denouncing the “incitatory Jesuits and seminaries” in an accusatory tone. In contrast, the Jesuit leader Parsons, who lived in exile, developed a polemical criticism of Lord Burghley's religious policy and the members of the Privy Council in his “Philopater” in 1592 . He argued that the persecution of Catholics was based on ridiculous, atheistic and hypocritical arguments. This treatise, held in Latin, formed a unit with other pamphlets by Parsons (e.g. Conference about the next Sucession 1594/95) and Richard Verstegen on the dilemma of Catholics in England.

Last years

In 1597 he returned to Rome to head the English college until his death. When William Allen died, he appointed in 1598 George Blackwell for archpriest of England and so triggered the Erzpriesterstreit out. Robert Parsons did not live to see the end of the argument. He died on April 15, 1610 in Rome and was buried in the church of the English college .

swell

• Victor Houliston: The Lord Treasurer and the Jesuit. Robert Person's satirical "Responsio" to the 1591 Proclamation . In: Sixteenth Century Journal. The journal of early modern studies . Vol. 32 (2001), pp. 383-401, ISSN  0361-0160 .
• Ernest A. Strathmann: Ralegh and the Catholic Polemists . In: The Huntington Library Quarterly 1945, ISSN  0018-7895 .

literature

• Ronny Baier:  Parsons, Robert. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 21, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-110-3 , Sp. 1133-1137.

proof

1. ↑ under the pseudonym R. Doleman ( [1] ); also attributed to Richard Verstegen
2. ↑ The reign of Elisabeth III ( Memento of the original from June 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ A declaration of great Troubles pretended against the Realme by a number of Seminarie Priests and Jesuits, sent and very secretly dispersed in the same, to work great Treason under a false pretence of Religion, with a provision very necessary for remedy thereof
4. ^ A German edition of the second edition of the Philopater appeared in Ingolstadt as early as 1593
5. ^ R. Verstegen, A Declaration of the True Causes of the Great Troubler, Presupposed to be Intended against the Realme of England (1592)