Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday 16 October 2023

Cardinal William Allen


Today is the 429th anniversary of the death in Rome of Cardinal William Allen, the founder of the English Missionary college at Douai, and a key figure in the survival of Catholicism in England after the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559. A student, and then a Fellow, of Oriel he was to spend most of his life, and all his priestly ministry, in exile.

Cardinal William Allen 

Image: great nephew of cardinal william allen. blogspot.com

Stephanie A. Mann had a post about him on her Supremacy and Survival  blog the other day which can be read at Preview: Another Confessor: William Cardinal Allen, RIP

Previously, in 2013, she had one about him and his career which can be seen at Cardinal William Allen, Vatican Librarian

The New Advent Catholic Dictionary account of him - which assigns him a date of birth a decade earlier than it actually was - can be accessed at CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: William Allen

I have written about him in Cardinal William Allen

Although there are early twentieth century biographies of him by Martin Hailes and Dom. Bede Camm he does not appear to have attracted a contemporary biographer. This seems a gap that needs filling by someone with insight into the source material and an understanding of current thought about the position of Catholics in Elizabethan England.


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