The Right Reverend Richard Smith |
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Vicar Apostolic of England | |
Appointed | 29 November 1624 |
Term ended | 1632 |
Predecessor | William Bishop |
Successor | John Leyburn |
Other posts | Titular Bishop of Chalcedon |
Orders | |
Ordination | 7 May 1592 |
Consecration | 12 January 1625 by Bernardino Spada |
Personal details | |
Born | November 1568 Hamworth, England |
Died | 18 March 1655 | (aged 86)
Nationality | English |
Denomination | Roman Catholic |
Alma mater |
Richard Smith (Hanworth, England, November 1568 – Paris, 18 March 1655), (officially the Bishop in partibus of Chalcedon), was the second Catholic bishop for England, Wales and Scotland after Catholicism was banned in England in 1559. He followed William Bishop, who died in 1624.
Richard Smith was born in Lincolnshire, England. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford University and in Rome, where he was admitted to the English College in 1586.
In 1592 Smith was ordained as a priest. Between 1598 and 1603 he spend some time in Valladolid, where he became a Doctor of Theology, and in Seville.
Smith served as a priest in England at a time when Catholicism was officially banned, and could have faced death if caught and tried. From 1603 to 1609 he was chaplain to Viscountess Montague, wife of Anthony-Maria Browne, 2nd Viscount Montagu, at Battle Abbey in Sussex, England. He left Sussex in 1609 to go to Paris to study and write at Arras College, which had been founded for English priests.