Robert Persons

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

Early years

Parsons was born the son of a blacksmith in the county of Somerset. He received his education in Taunton and Stogursey. Then studied and taught Parsons at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1575 he had to quit his teaching after disputes over its inclination to the Catholic Church. About London he traveled to Padua to study medicine. Just three years later, Parsons went to Rome and joined on July 4, 1575 the Jesuit order at. 1578 was followed by his ordination to the priesthood.

On Mission in England

On April 18, 1580, he went along with Edmund Campion on a mission to England. About Reims and Saint- Omer came the two Jesuits to London. Shortly after his arrival in England Parsons organized a secret meeting catholic priest in Southwark, to discuss the way forward. Subsequently, Parsons traveled as a preacher by England. The end of 1580 he erected in Barking a Catholic secret printing. There he moved his writings A brief discourse Containing Certain Reasons Why Catholics refuse to go to Church and Confessio fidei. In July 1851 it was possible the state power to arrest Campion and Parsons decided to go their separate ways.

Parsons escape and stay in Spain

On August 30, 1581 Parsons reached Rouen, where he founded a school for boys. Later the school was moved to St. Omer, today it is in Stonyhurst. In the spring of 1582 Parsons traveled to Spain to win Philip II to invade England. The success failed to materialize. Parsons went to Rheims, where he was commissioned by Cardinal William Allen to schedule a Jesuit mission in England from the mainland and to lead. 1585 he went to Rome to work at the English College. There arose with Directorium be spiritually important work. 1588 Parsons was sent back to Spain, where he built in Valladolid, Seville and Madrid schools for the new priests. 1594 he published his most famous work politically A Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England, where the succession of the Spanish Infanta Isabella is advocated.

Lord Burghley

On October 18, 1591 a likely caused by Lord Burghley "Royal Proclamation ", the " seditious Jesuit seminaries " denounced in anklägerischem sound appeared. In contrast, the exiled leader of the Jesuits in 1592, Parsons developed in his " Philopater " a polemical critique of the religious policy of Lord Burghley and the members of the Privy Council ( Privy Council ). He argued that the persecution of Catholics was based on ridiculous, atheistic and hypocritical arguments. This held in Latin memoir formed with other pamphlets by Parsons (eg Conference about the next Sucession 1594/95 ) and Richard Verstegen a unit about the dilemma of Catholics in England.

Last years

1597 he returned to Rome to conduct the English College until his death. When William Allen died in 1598, he appointed George Blackwell Archpriest of England and so dissolved the Erzpriesterstreit from. The end of the debate Robert Parsons did not live. 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 Pole Mists. In: The Huntington Library Quarterly, 1945, ISSN 0018-7895.