Robert Persons

Robert Persons (24 June 1546 – 15 April 1610), later known as Robert Parsons, was an English Jesuit priest. He was a major figure in establishing the 16th-century "English Mission" of the Society of Jesus.
Early life.
Robert Persons was born at Nether Stowey, Somerset to yeoman parents. Through the favour of local parson named John Hayward, a former monk, he was educated in 1562 at St. Mary's Hall, Oxford. After completing his degrees with distinction, he became a fellow and tutor at Balliol in 1568.
College fellow and priest.
As a Fellow of Balliol College, Persons clashed with the Master there, Adam Squire, and also the academic and Roman Catholic priest Christopher Bagshaw. On 13 February 1574, he was subsequently forced to resign. Through discussion and encouraged by pupillage with Father William Good, SJ, he travelled overseas to become a Jesuit priest at St Paul's, Rome on 3 July 1575.
English mission: 1580–1581.
Persons accompanied Edmund Campion on his mission to fellow English Catholics in 1580. The Jesuit General, Everard Mercurian, had been reluctant to involve the Society directly in English ecumenical affairs. He was persuaded by an Italian Jesuit provincial, and later by Superior General Claudio Acquaviva, after William Cardinal Allen had found Mercurian resistant to change in October 1579. Persons fast tracked English recruits to the Jesuits, and planned to set up cooperation with the remaining English secular clergy. He became impatient with Father Good's approach to the situation. Campion was much less of an enthusiast than he was.
The mission was immediately compromised as the pope had sent a separate group to the Jesuit mission, to support the Irish rebel, James FitzMaurice FitzGerald. Persons and Campion only learned of this event in Reims while they were en route to England. After the initial invasion force under the mercenary Thomas Stukley had achieved nothing successful in 1578, the intervention under FitzGerald caused the English authorities to monitor the recusants closely, and try to finance the campaign against the papal forces with exactions from them. Campion and Persons crossed separately into England.
In June 1580 Thomas Pounde, then in the Marshalsea Prison, went to speak to Persons. This action then resulted in a petition from Pounde to the Privy Council to allow a disputation where the Jesuits would take on Robert Crowley and Henry Tripp, who used to preach to the Marshalsea inmates. Campion and Persons also prepared their own personal statements, to be kept in reserve. The immediate consequence was that Pounde was then transferred to Bishop's Stortford Castle; but the prepared statement by Campion was later circulated soon after his capture.
Much of the time Persons spent in England was taken up with covert printing, and pamphleteering. He made his negative view on church papism clear to the local Catholic clergy, before a synod in Southwark. The secret printing press needed to be relocated, moving it in early 1581 to Stonor Park. Campion was captured in July of that year; and then Stephen Brinkley, who ran the printing press, was taken captive in August. Quite soon after that date Persons left for France. His underlying strategy of trying to embarrass the English government by demanding a forum for his ideals was consistent with the general approach of Allen and Persons, but met with much criticism from the Catholic members. Allen and Parsons persisted with their demand for another two years, but Jesuit opinion was against further confrontation. Campion was forced into disputation in the Tower of London under adverse conditions. When Persons left England, he was never to return.
To the Armada.
Persons spent the winter of 1581–82 at Rouen, and embarked on writing projects. He was in close contact with Henry I, Duke of Guise, and through the Duke founded a school for English boys at Eu, on the coast to the north-east. Father William Creighton, SJ, was on the way to Scotland. He arrived in January 1582 and was briefed by Persons and the duke. In April Creighton returned with word from Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox; and they went to Paris to confer with William Allen, James Beaton and Claude Mathieu, Jesuit provincial in France, on his military plans and the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots. The scheme, which Persons supported confidently, advanced further, but was stopped after the raid of Ruthven of August 1582. One consequence was that Allen was made Cardinal, as Persons had recommended.
A new enterprise was projected for September 1583, this time through England. Persons was sent by the Duke of Guise with written instructions to Rome. He returned to Flanders, and stayed for some time at the court of the Duke of Parma. The discovery of the Throckmorton Plot disrupted the plan, and the Duke of Guise became absorbed in French domestic affairs. Philip II of Spain took over the lead, placed the Duke of Parma in charge, and limited involvement to Persons, Allen, and Hew Owen.
It was during this period that Persons was involved in the work later known as "Leicester's Commonwealth". Distributed covertly, it came to light in 1584. Persons is now generally thought not to be the author. The British historian John Bossy, from the University of York, is inclined to disagree.
There is a scholarly consensus that the intention was to affect French domestic politics, strengthening the Guise faction against Anglophiles. Correspondingly his own standing suffered in some quarters. Claudio Acquaviva by the end of the year was concerned that the Jesuit strategies for France and the English mission would turn out to be inconsistent in the longer term, and consulted Pope Gregory XIII on the matter. Persons as his subordinate had been told to drop plans to assassinate Elizabeth.
In September 1585, Pope Sixtus V succeeded Pope Gregory XIII, and Persons and Allen went to Rome; Persons was still there when the Spanish Armada sailed in 1588. At this period Allen and Persons made a close study of the succession to Elizabeth I of England, working with noted genealogist Robert Heighinton. Persons took his vows of final profession in the Jesuits in Rome on 7 May 1587.
Later life.
Persons was sent to Spain at the close of 1588 to conciliate Philip II of Spain, who was offended with Claudio Acquaviva. Persons was successful, and then made use of the royal favour to found the seminaries of Valladolid, Seville, and Madrid (1589, 1592, 1598) and the residences of San-Lucar and of Lisbon (which became a college in 1622). He then succeeded in establishing at St Omer (1594) a larger institution to which the boys from Eu were transferred. It is the institutional ancestor of Stonyhurst College.
In 1596, in Seville, he wrote "Memorial for the Reformation of England", which gave in some detail a blueprint for the kind of society England was to become after its return to the faith. He had hoped to succeed Allen as Cardinal on the latter's death. Unsuccessful, he was rewarded with the rectorship of the English College in Rome, where he died at the age of 63. John Donne's "Pseudo Martyr" (1610) engages critically with Persons' views.
Works.
Persons's published works were:
Misattributed.
"An Apologicall Epistle: directed to the right honourable lords and others of her majesties privie counsell. Serving as well for a preface to a Booke entituled A Resolution of Religion" [signed R. B.], Antwerp, 1601, is by Richard Broughton rather than Persons (as the "Dictionary of National Biography" says). Some works against Thomas Bell were thought to be by Persons (as in the DNB), but were in fact by Philip Woodward.