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Three Pamphlets Concerning Father Edmund Campion, S. J.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
Anthony Munday was a protege of John Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Leicester himself was a member of the progressive Protestant nobility in Elizabethan England, which sought to turn completely away from Rome and toward Geneva. These progressives wanted vernacular translations of great works such as the Bible and the classics. They aimed at founding an English and Protestant tradition of literature.
In 1579 Philip II of Spain continued to press for an alliance with Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth seriously considered marrying the Due d'Alencon. Such a marriage would cement ties between England and France. The leading progressives, Leicester, Walshingham and Cecil could tolerate neither one of these Roman Catholic alliances. Thus, Leicester intensified his patronage of Puritan propagandists.
When the Campion controversy arose in 1581, it proved a boon to Leicester and the progressives. Here was an opportunity to garner Elizabeth's support, if they could prove that Jesuits and Roman Catholics were plotting regicide and the return of England to Roman Catholicism.
Between 1581 and 1584 Munday produced a series of pamphlets designed to arouse English opinion against “popish recusants.” This essay deals with one of these pamphlets: A discoverie of Edmund Campion and his confederates, their most horrible and traiterous practices against her majestye's most royal person and realm. … In this essentially propagandistic tract, Munday equates priestly activity of the Jesuits with subversion. This equation was based upon a Parliamentary statute of 1581, which declared that priests sent from abroad to convert Englishmen were guilty of treason.
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NOTES
1 Leicester patronized Protestant authors who produced works in English. In 1578 William Hunnis published A Hyve Full of Honye: Contayning the First Book of Moses, Called Genesis. Turned Into English Meetre, and dedicated it to his patron Leicester. In 1582 John Harmer dedicated his translation of Beza's Sermons Upon the Canticle of Canticles to Leicester. These are but two results of the Earl's patronage. Rosenberg, Eleanor, Leicester, Patron of Letters (New York, 1955), 222Google Scholar. This is an invaluable source for the study of Elizabethan literature.
2 Ibid., 234.
3 The three pamphlets are in factual agreement; rhetorically, they are at odds. Of the three tracts, only the anonymous French pamphlet contained page numbers. The original spelling in each tract has not been altered in this essay.
4 Waugh, Evelyn, Edmund Campion (Boston, 1946), 19.Google Scholar
5 Rosenberg, , Leicester, 89.Google Scholar
6 Waugh, , Campion, 198.Google Scholar
7 Mattingly, Garrett, The Armada (Boston, 1962), 52–67, passimGoogle Scholar. Mattingly provides an excellent discussion of this fear which possessed England in the decade of the 1580's. This neurosis of an invading army has made it a traditional aim of England's foreign policy to keep the European Channel countries independent and free of foreign occupation.
Considering the extensive preparations for an invasion of England, and supposing the Armada had sailed as early as it should have, then, that “great armie” would have followed Campion almost immediately. This and the letter to Mr. Pounde (see below) casts some doubt on Campion's sincerity.
8 L'Historie De La Mort Que Le R.P. Edmund Campion Prefetre de la Campaigne du nom de Jesus & autres ont souffert en Angleterre (Paris, 1582), 9.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., 13.
10 Ibid., 15.