National Catholic Register, Stephanie Mann: Four hundred and thirty-five years ago, on December 1, 1581, an infamous priest was executed at Tyburn. Edmund Campion, SJ was a traitor in nearly all Englishmen’s eyes (except for the Catholics whom he served). He had once been chosen by Elizabeth and her favorites to be a leader in the Church of England because of his academic brilliance. Even after Campion had been captured, imprisoned, and tortured because he was a Catholic priest, Elizabethan authorities had offered him great offices if he would deny his faith and return to the Church of England. He refused.
Father Campion may not have known it, but he had already affected one person on his way to the scaffold. As I described in an earlier post, Sir Philip Howard, the Earl of Arundel, had heard Campion debate the Anglican divines in the Tower of London and had returned to his ancestors’ Church. Full article here.
