CAMPION, Edmund, English theologian: b. London, 25 Jan. 1540; d. 1 Dec. 1581. He was educated at Christ's Hospital and Saint John's College, Oxford, and distinguished him self greatly, becoming B.A. in 1561 and M.A. in 1564. Though at first a Roman Catholic he adopted nominally the Reformed faith and took deacon's orders in the Church of England.
When Queen Elizabeth visited Oxford in 1566 he was selected to make the oration before her, as formerly while at school he had been chosen to deliver an oration before Queen Mary on her accession. He went from college to Ire land, and while there wrote the history of that country, a superficial work of no real value, and connected himself with the Roman Catholic Church. His enthusiasm leading him to seek to make proselytes to his new faith, he was seized and imprisoned; but after a short time effected his escape to the Low Countries, and soon after joined the English college of Jesuits at Douay, passed his novitiate as a member of that So ciety, and became distinguished for his piety and learning. At Rome in 1573 he was admit ted a member of the order of Jesuits, after which he resided for a time at Vienna, where he composed a tragedy, which was received with much applause and acted before the Em peror; and at Prague, where he taught rhetoric and philosophy for six years. Sent by Gregory
XIII on a mission to England in 1581, he chal lenged the universities and clergy to dispute with him. His efforts were followed by so large a number of conversions as to disquiet the ministry of Elizabeth; and he was arrested and thrown into the Tower upon a charge of having excited the people to rebellion, and of holding treasonable correspondence with foreign powers. Being tried, he was found guilty, condemned to death for high treason and executed at Tyburn. The insults of the populace attended him to the Tower, where torture was fruitlessly applied to extort from him a confession of treason or a recognition of the supremacy of the English Church, and after his death a fragment of his body was sent to each of the principal towns for exposure. Be sides his history of Ireland, he wrote