William Cardinal Allen
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William Allen (1532 – October 16, 1594) was an English Catholic priest and cardinal.
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[edit] Early life
Allen was born in 1532 at Rossall, Fleetwood, Lancashire, England. He was the third son of John Allen. In 1547, at the age of fifteen, he entered Oriel College, Oxford, graduated with B.A. in 1550, and was elected Fellow of the College. In 1554 he proceeded M.A., and two years later in 1556 was chosen to become principal of St Mary Hall and proctor. He seems also to have held briefly to a canonry at York in or about 1558, in which case he would have to have already been tonsured, a sign that he had already determined to embrace the ecclesiastical state. On the accession of Elizabeth I, and the re-establishment of Protestantism, he refused the oath of supremacy and was disciplined, but remained in the University until 1561.
His known opposition to the New Religion forced him to leave England and in that year, having resigned all his preferments, he left the country and sought a refuge in the university town of Louvain, to join many students who had left the English universities for conscience's sake. Here he continued his theological studies and began to write controversial treatises. The following year, however, we find him back in England, though not yet in priest's orders and suffering ill health. He devoted himself to evangelizing his native county. He worked to restrain those Catholics who attended the new Anglican church services, a compromise they were making in order to save their property from confiscation.
During this period of clandestine ministry as a missioner in England he formed the conviction that the people were not Protestant by choice, but by force of circumstances; and the majority were only too ready, in response to his preaching and ministrations, to return to Catholicism. He was convinced that the Protestant wave over the country, due to the action of Elizabeth, could only be temporary. When his presence was discovered by the government, he fled Lancashire and retired to the Oxford area, where he influenced many of the students.
After writing a treatise in defence of the priestly power to remit sins, he was obliged to retire to Norfolk, under the protection of the family of the Duke of Norfolk, but was obliged to leave for the Continent soon after, in 1565. This time, had he but known it, he was leaving England for good. Returning to the Low Countries, he was ordained priest at Malines in Flanders shortly afterwards and began to lecture in theology at the Benedictine college there.
[edit] The great enterprise
In 1567 he went to Rome for the first time, and conceived his plan for establishing a college where English students could live together and finish their theological course. This was linked to the conviction, arising from his experience as a missioner, that the whole future of the Catholic Church in England depended on there being a supply of trained clergy and controversialists ready to come into the country when Catholicism would again be restored. The idea subsequently developed into the establishing of a missionary college, or seminary, to supply priests to England as long as the country remained separated from the Holy See. With the help of friends, and notably of the Benedictine abbots of the neighbouring monasteries, a beginning was made in a hired house at Douai on Michaelmas Day, September 29, 1568, which marked the inauguration of the English College, Douai.
Here Allen was to be joined by many English exiles. One of the most famous, St Edmund Campion was to go on from the college to join the Jesuits. Douai was thought of as a suitable place for Allen's new college because of the recent foundation there of the University of Douai by Pope Paul IV, under the patronage of King Philip II of Spain (in whose dominions Douai then was).
The element for which Allen's college is now most famous, though it was not part of his original scheme, was the sending over of missionaries to work for the conversion of England in defiance of the law. Among the "seminary priests", as they were called, over one hundred and sixty former students of Douai are known to have been put to death. Many more suffered in prison for their Faith. Yet such was the spirit which Allen infused into his students that they rejoiced at the news of each successive martyrdom, and by a special privilege sang a solemn Mass of thanksgiving.
[edit] Rome and Rheims
When the number of students had risen rapidly to one hundred and twenty, the Pope summoned Allen to Rome to establish a similar college there. In 1575 Allen made a second journey to Rome, where he helped Pope Gregory XIII to found another college For this purpose possession was obtained of the ancient English hospice in Rome, now turned into a seminary to send missionaries to England and Jesuits were placed there to help Dr Maurice Clennock, the rector. The pope appointed Allen to a canonry in Kortrijk and sent him back to Douai in July 1576, but here he had to face a new difficulty. Besides the reported plots to assassinate him by agents of the English government, the insurgents against Spain, urged on by Elizabeth's emissaries, expelled the students from Douai as being partisans of the enemy (March 1578). Allen moved his establishment to Rheims under the protection of the House of Guise. The collegians took refuge at the University of Rheims, where they were well received, and continued their work as before, Allen being soon afterwards elected canon of the Cathedral Chapter. Often during the College's history at both Douai and Rheims more students were received than the income warranted, a course rendered necessary by the urgent state of Catholic affairs, which Allen met in the spirit of faith; and in the long run, means were never wanting. The names of Thomas Stapleton, Richard Bristowe, Gregory Martin, Morgan Philips, and others are themselves a sufficient record of the ability of Allen's early companions, and of the work done at the college. Allen had the power of instilling his spirit into his followers. They lived together without written rule, but in perfect mutual harmony, working for the common cause.
From the College press came forth a constant stream of controversial and other Catholic literature, which could not be printed in England on account of the Penal Laws. In this Allen himself took a prominent part. His writings are distinguished by extent of learning and theological acumen. One of the chief works undertaken in the early years of the college was the preparation Under Allen's direction of the well-known Douai Bible. The New Testament was published in 1582, when the college was at Rheims; but the Old Testament, though completed at the same time, was delayed by want of funds. It eventually appeared at Douai, in 1609, two years before the Anglican "Authorized Version".
[edit] Political involvements
In 1577 Allen began a correspondence with Robert Parsons, the Jesuit. He was summoned again to Rome in 1579 to quell the a disturbance that had befallen the English college between the English and Welsh students. It was during this visit that he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Commission for the revision of the Vulgate. Brought into personal contact with Parsons, Allen fell completely under the dominating personality of the redoubtable Jesuit, and submitted entirely to his influence. He arranged that the Society should take over the English college at Rome and should begin the Jesuit mission to England (1580). Under Allen's negotiations, the first Jesuits to be sent Robert Parsons and Edmund Campion, were to work closely with the other priests in England. Although Campion was executed after a years work, and Parsons had to flee the country, their mission was seen as a resounding success in managing to turn the tide against Anglicanism, and won many converts back to Catholicism.
Up to this point the career of Allen had won the universal admiration and gratitude of English Catholics, for what he himself termed his "scholastical attempts" to convert England. Such was not, however, the case with his political labours to secure the same end, which may be said to have begun about this time, and were far less successful. The famous Bull Regnans in excelsis was issued by Pius V in 1570, deposing Queen Elizabeth, and releasing her subjects from their allegiance, but this plan did not take practical shape till seventeen years later, when preparations were made for the invasion of England by the King of Spain.
Returning to Rheims he joined in all the political intrigues which Parsons' fertile brain had hatched to promote the Spanish interest in England. Allen's political career now began. Parsons had already intended to remove Allen from the seminary at Reims, and for this purpose, as far back as the April 6, 1581, had recommended him to Philip II. to be promoted to the cardinalate. In furtherance of the intrigues, Allen and Parsons went to Rome again in 1585 and there Allen stayed for the rest of his life. In 1587, while he was being manoeuvred by Philip's agents, he wrote, helped by Parsons, a book in defence of Sir William Stanley, an English officer, who had surrendered Deventer to the Spaniards. Allen wrote that all Englishmen were bound, under pain of damnation, to follow this example, as Elizabeth was no lawful queen.
Allen helped plan the invasion of England, and was to have been Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor had it succeeded. Allen had the position of the head of the Catholics of England; and as such, just after the death of Mary Queen of Scots, he wrote to Philip II (March 19, 1587) to encourage him to undertake the enterprise against England, stating that the Catholics there were clamouring for the king to come and punish "this woman, hated by God and man." After much negotiation, he was made cardinal by Pope Sixtus V on August 7, 1587, partly to ensure the success of the Spanish Armada.
[edit] Last years
Allen was then once more in Rome, whither he had been summoned by the Pope after a dangerous illness two years before. He never left the Eternal City again, but he kept in constant communication with his countrymen in England. It had been due to his influence that the Society of Jesus, to which he was greatly attached, undertook to join in the work of the English mission; and now Allen and Father Parsons became joint leaders of the "Spanish Party" among the English Catholics.
At the request of King Philip, Allen was created cardinal in 1587, and held himself in readiness to go to England immediately, should the invasion prove successful. In estimating the number of those who would be adherents to the scheme, however, Allen and Parsons were both at fault. The large majority of English Catholics, generously forgetting the past, sided with their own nation against the Spanish, and the defeat of the Armada (1588) was a subject of rejoicing to them no less than to their Protestant fellow countrymen. Allen survived the defeat of the Armada six years. To the end of his life he remained fully convinced that the time was not far distant when England would be Catholic again. During his last years there was an estrangement between him and the Jesuits, though his personal relations with Father Parsons remained unimpaired
On his promotion Allen wrote to Rheims that he owed the hat to Parsons. One of his first acts was to issue, under his own name, two works for the purpose of inciting the Catholics of England to rise against Elizabeth: The Declaration of the Sentence of Sixtus V, a broadside, and a book, An Admonition to the nobility and people of England (Antwerp, 1588). After the failure of the Armada, Philip, to get rid of the burden of supporting Allen as a cardinal, nominated him to the be Archbishop of Malines, but for some reason which has never been satisfactorily explained, the nomination, although publicly allowed to stand several years, was never canonically confirmed.
Pope Gregory XIV gave him the title of Librarian of Holy Roman Church. In 1589 he co-operated in establishing a new English college at Valladolid, in Spain. He took part in four conclaves, though his influence was diminished after the failure of the Armada. Before his death, which took place in Rome, he appears to have changed his mind about the wisdom of Jesuit politics in Rome and England, and would have tried to curb their activities, had he been spared. Certainly his political involvements gave a pretext to Elizabeth's government, if pretext was needed, for regarding the Continental English seminaries as hotbeds of sedition.
He continued to reside at the English College, Rome, until the end. As a cardinal, Allen had lived in poverty and he died in debt, at Rome on October 16, 1594. He was buried in the chapel of the Holy Trinity adjoining the college.
Allen's foundation at Douai survives today in two Catholic seminaries, Ushaw College, near Durham, and Allen Hall, Chelsea, London, the successor of St Edmund's College, Ware. The English College at Valladolid continues to train English and Welsh men for the priesthood. There is also a Catholic secondary school named in his honour in his home town of Fleetwood.
[edit] Printed works
The following is a list of William Allen's printed works:
- Certain Brief Reasons concerning the Catholick Faith (Douay, 1564)
- A Defense and Declaration of the Catholike Churches Doctrine touching Purgatory, and Prayers of the Soules Departed (Antwerp, 1565), re-edited in 1886
- A Treatise made in defense of the Lawful Power and Authoritie of the Preesthoode to remitte sinnes &c. (1578)
- De Sacramentis (Antwerp, 1565; Douay, 1603)
- An Apology for the English Seminaries (1581)
- Apologia Martyrum (1583)
- Martyrium R.P. Edmundi Campiani, S.J. (1583)
- An Answer to the Libel of English Justice (Mons, 1584)
- The Copie of a Letter written by M. Doctor Allen concerning the Yeelding up of the Citie of Daventrie, unto his Catholike Majestie, by Sir William Stanley Knight (Antwerp, 1587), reprinted by the Chetham Society, 1851
- An Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland, concerning the present Warres made for the Execution of his Holines Sentence, by the highe and mightie Kinge Catholike of Spain, by the Cardinal of Englande (1588)
- A Declaration of the sentence and deposition of Elizabeth, the usurper and pretended Queene of England (1588; reprinted London, 1842).
[edit] Some studies
- Thomas Francis Knox, Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen (London, 1882)
- Thomas Francis Knox, First and Second Diaries of the English College, Douay: Historical Introduction" (London, 1877)
- Alphons Bellesheim, Wilhelm Cardinal Allen und die englischen Seminare auf dem Festlande (Mainz, 1885)
- First and Second Diaries of the English College, Douai (London, 1878)
- Nicholas Fitzherbert, De Antiquitate et continuations religionis in Anglia et de Alani Cardinalis vita libellus (Rome, 1608)
- Ethelred Taunton, History of the Jesuits in England (London, 1901)
- Alexandre Teulet, vol. v.; the Spanish State Papers (Simancas), vols. lii. and iv.
A list of Allen's works is given in Joseph Gillow, Biographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, vol. L, under his name.
[edit] Reference
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
