Robert Parsons (Jesuit)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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