preserved until the end. Religious difficulties now began to beset him; but at the persuasion of Edward Cheyney, bishop of Gloucester, although holding Catholic doctrines, he took deacon’s orders in the English Church. Inwardly “he took a remorse of conscience and detestation of mind.” Rumours of his opinions began to spread and, giving up the office of proctor, he left Oxford in 1569 and went to Ireland to take part in a proposed restoration of the Dublin University. The suspicion of papistry followed him; and orders were given for his arrest. For some three months he eluded pursuit, hiding among friends and occupying himself by writing a history of Ireland (first published in Holinshed’s Chronicles), a superficial work of no real value. At last he escaped to Douai, where he joined William Allen (q.v.) and was reconciled to the Roman Church. After being ordained sub-deacon, he went to Rome and became a Jesuit in 1573, spending some years at Brünn, Vienna and Prague. In 1580 the Jesuit mission to England was begun, and he accompanied Robert Parsons (q.v.) who, as superior, was intended to counterbalance Campion’s fervour and impetuous zeal. He entered England in the characteristic guise of a jewel merchant, arrived in London on the 24th of June 1580, and at once began to preach. His presence became known to the authorities and an indiscreet declaration, “Campion Brag,” made the position more difficult. The hue and cry was out against him; henceforth he led a hunted life, preaching and ministering to Catholics in Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Lancashire. During this time he was writing his Decem Rationes, a rhetorical display of reasons against the Anglican Church. The book was printed in a private press at Stonor Park, Henley, and 400 copies were found on the benches of St Mary’s, Oxford, at the Commencement, on the 27th of June 1581. The sensation was immense, and the pursuit became keener. On his way to Norfolk he stopped at Lyford in Berkshire, where he preached on the 14th of July and the following day, yielding to the foolish importunity of some pious women. Here he was captured by a spy and taken to London, bearing on his hat a paper with the inscription, “Campion, the Seditious Jesuit.” Committed to the Tower, he was examined in the presence of Elizabeth, who asked him if he acknowledged her to be really queen of England, and on his replying straightly in the affirmative, she made him offers, not only of life but of wealth and dignities, on conditions which his conscience could not allow. He was kept a long time in prison, twice racked by order of the council, and every effort was made to shake his constancy. Despite the effect of a false rumour of retraction and a forged confession, his adversaries in despair summoned him to four public conferences (1st, 18th, 23rd and 27th of September), and although still suffering, and allowed neither time nor books for preparation, he bore himself so easily and readily that he won the admiration of most of the audience. Racked again on the 31st of October, he was indicted at Westminster that he with others had conspired at Rome and Reims to raise a sedition in the realm and dethrone the queen. On the 20th of November he was brought in guilty before Lord Chief Justice Wray; and in reply to him said: “If our religion do make traitors we are worthy to be condemned; but otherwise are and have been true subjects as ever the queen had.” He received the sentence of the traitor’s death with the Te Deum laudamus, and, after spending his last days in pious exercises, was led with two companions to Tyburn (1st of December 1581) and suffered the barbarous penalty. Of all the Jesuit missionaries who suffered for their allegiance to the ancient religion, Campion stands the highest. His life and his aspirations were pure, his zeal true and his loyalty unquestionable. He was beatified by Leo XIII. in 1886.
An admirable biography is to be found in Richard Simpson’s Edmund Campion (1867); and a complete list of his works in De Backer’s Bibliothèque de la compagnie de Jésus. (E. Tn.)
CAMPION, THOMAS (1567–1620), English poet and musician, was born in London on the 12th of February 1567, and christened at St Andrew’s, Holborn. He was the son of John Campion of the Middle Temple, who was by profession one of the cursitors of the chancery court, the clerks “of course,” whose duties were to draft the various writs and legal instruments in correct form. His mother was Lucy Searle, daughter of Laurence Searle, one of the queen’s serjeants-at-arms. Upon the death of Campion’s father in 1576, his mother married Augustine Steward and died herself soon after. Steward acted for some years as guardian of the orphan, and sent him in 1581, together with Thomas Sisley, his stepson by his second wife Anne, relict of Clement Sisley, to Peterhouse, Cambridge, as a gentleman pensioner. He studied at Cambridge for four years, and left the university, it would appear, without a degree, but strongly imbued with those tastes for classical literature which exercised such powerful influence upon his subsequent work. In April 1587 he was admitted to Gray’s Inn, possibly with the intention of adopting a legal profession, but he had little sympathy with legal studies and does not appear to have been called to the bar. His subsequent movements are not certain, but in 1591 he appears to have taken part in the French expedition under Essex, sent for the assistance of Henry IV. against the League; and in 1606 he first appears with the degree of doctor of physic, though the absence of records does not permit us to ascertain where this was obtained. The rest of his life was probably spent in London, where he practised as a physician until his death on the 1st of March 1620, leaving behind him, it would appear, neither wife nor issue. He was buried the same day at St Dunstan’s-in-the-West, Fleet Street.
The body of his works is considerable, the earliest known being a group of five anonymous poems included in the Songs of Divers Noblemen and Gentlemen, appended to Newman’s surreptitious edition of Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella, which appeared in 1591. In 1595 appeared under his own name the Poemata, a collection of Latin panegyrics, elegies and epigrams, which evince much skill in handling, and won him considerable reputation. This was followed in 1601 by A Booke of Ayres, one of the song-books so fashionable in his day, the music of which was contributed in equal proportions by himself and Philip Rosseter, while the words were almost certainly all written by him. The following year he published his Observations in the Art of English Poesie, “against the vulgar and unartificial custom of riming,” in favour of rhymeless verse on the model of classical quantitative poetry. Its appearance at this stage was important as the final statement of the crazy prejudice by one of its sanest and best equipped champions, but the challenge thus thrown down was accepted by Daniel, who in his Defence of Ryme, published the same year, finally demolished the movement.
In 1607 he wrote and published a masque for the occasion of the marriage of Lord Hayes, and in 1613 he issued a volume of Songs of Mourning (set to music by Coperario or John Cooper) for the loss of Prince Henry, which was sincerely lamented by the whole English nation. The same year he wrote and arranged three masques, the Lords’ Masque for the marriage of Princess Elizabeth, an entertainment for the amusement of Queen Anne at Caversham House, and a third for the marriage of the earl of Somerset to the infamous Frances Howard, countess of Essex. If, moreover, as appears quite likely, his Two Bookes of Ayres (both words and music written by himself) belongs also to this year, it was indeed his annus mirabilis.
Some time in or after 1617 appeared his Third and Fourth Booke of Ayres; while to that year probably also belongs his New Way of making Foure Parts in Counter-point, a technical treatise which was for many years the standard text-book on the subject. It was included, with annotations by Christopher Sympson, in Playfair’s Brief Introduction to the Skill of Musick, and two editions appear to have been bought up by 1660. In 1618 appeared The Ayres that were sung and played at Brougham Castle on the occasion of the king’s entertainment there, the music by Mason and Earsden, while the words were almost certainly by Campion; and in 1619 he published his Epigrammatum Libri II. Umbra Elegiarum liber unus, a reprint of his 1595 collection with considerable omissions, additions (in the form of another book of epigrams) and corrections.
While Campion had attained a considerable reputation in his own day, in the years that followed his death his works sank into complete oblivion. No doubt this was due to the nature of the media in which he mainly worked, the masque and the
