Thomas Worthington (Douai)

Thomas Worthington, D.D. (1549 at Blainscough Hall, near Wigan, Lancashire – 1627 at Biddulph Hall, Staffordshire) was an English Catholic priest and third President of Douai College.

A member of an ancient and wealthy family, he studied at Brasenose College, Oxford (1566–70), where he graduated in arts (17 October 1570). In February 1573, he went to Douai College to study theology.

He visited England (November 1575), to induce his father, who was an occasional conformist, to remove into foreign parts. After his ordination (6 April 1577), he remained teaching the Roman catechism at Douai till September, 1578, and proceeded B. D. at the University of Douai (January 1579).

After ten months in England, he returned to Reims, accompanied William Allen to Rome, and set out again for England, January 1580. He laboured assiduously and successfully, being especially remembered for his zeal in instructing the ignorant poor.

In February 1584, when his four nephews, whom he was conveying to Reims, were seized at Great Sankey near Warrington, he managed to escape detection, and to elude the vigilance of his enemies until July, when he was betrayed by a young man whom he had befriended, and seized at his lodgings in Islington. The Lord Treasurer committed him to the Tower of London, where he was confined in the "pit" for over two months. In January 1585, with twenty other priests, he was put aboard ship by the queen's warrant of perpetual banishment, and conveyed to Normandy.

For the next two years he expounded Holy Scripture at Reims. Sir William Stanley turned traitor in January 1587, and with his Irish regiment entered the Spanish service; on 27 April Worthington became their chaplain at Deventer. He was recalled to Reims on 27 January 1589, to undertake the offices of vice-president and procurator, but resumed his post as chaplain to the regiment at Brussels in July, 1591. He was honoured with the doctorate of divinity in 1588 in the Jesuit college at the University of Trier.

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