Edmund Campion - martyr, saint and 'distinguished traitor'

Born in London in 1540, Edmund Campion became a great scholar - probably sponsored in his studies by the Worshipful Company of Grocers.

He completed his master’s degree at Oxford in 1564 and received Holy Orders in the Anglican Church in the same year.

But Edmund had a secret – he was an adherent to Catholic doctrines.

Suspicion was eventually raised. He became a wanted man and fled, in fear of his life, to Ireland, France and then to Rome.

There he recanted of Protestantism, joined the Jesuits and in 1578 was ordained a Catholic priest.

In 1580 he became part of a clandestine mission to England, preaching to underground Catholics. Word got out and he was once more a hunted man, hiding in the homes of sympathisers across the country.

He was finally captured in Berkshire on July 15, 1581, having been betrayed by the government spy George Eliot, a former servant of the Petre family, of Ingatestone Hall. (The Petres were themselves recusants and sheltered a number of Catholic priests at Ingatestone Hall, including John Payne, executed in Chelmsford in 1582).

Having languished in the Tower of London, Campion was tortured on the rack, tried, found guilty and was hanged, drawn and quartered on December 1, 1581.

The sign of the Jesuits (Image: Stephen Nunn)

Fast forward 305 years and, in 1886, Edmund Campion was beatified by Pope Leo XIII. In 1970, he was then canonised by Pope Paul VI and is today recognised as Saint Edmund Campion SJ.

Amongst other places, Campion School in Hornchurch is named after him – founded by the Jesuit order in 1962.

As interesting as that story is, especially to Catholic scholars, you might wonder what it has to do with Maldon.

At that time our town was also home to a number of closet Catholics. It is known that a young apprentice, William Maldon, attended (sometime in the 1540s) a clandestine Bible reading at the back of Chelmsford Church (now cathedral).

A number of other Maldon residents were under suspicion – not least the Gaywood and Church families.

Elizabeth Gaywood was imprisoned in the Tower in 1561 and John Church and his son were under close surveillance.

There were also closet Catholics in Maldon’s surrounding villages, including Cold Norton, home to (believe it or not) the Campion family.

Members of the Campion family lived in Cold Norton (Image: Stephen Nunn)

It is known that Edmund Campion had a sister and two brothers. One of those brothers was Mark Campion.

In June 1578 (the same year that Edmund became a Catholic priest), Mark married Elinor Erford, a widow, at St Stephen’s Church, Cold Norton, and the couple set up home in the village.

Their neighbours would have known about Mark’s brother and doubtless treated the newly-weds with some caution.

Mark and Elinor had a son, whom they rather bravely named Edmund. Elinor died in 1581 and, just a few months later, Mark took a second wife, Joane Barbo, of Woodham Ferrers.

Mark Campion died in Cold Norton in 1594 and left specific instructions in his will that Joane should “be good to my boye”.

He also appointed a John Copsheaf as Edmund’s guardian. That unusual surname occurs in the annals of Beeleigh Abbey, where a John Copsheaf was the last abbot, before its suppression in 1536. This John may well have been a relation of the abbot’s (and most probably a Catholic).

Joane Campion died in May 1599 and young Edmund appears to have moved to North Fambridge.

On October 6, 1604, he was visiting some friends, the Ellis family, at Stow Maries. A surviving account of an inquest tells us what happened on that ill-fated day.

A “dun mare” (says the coroner) "struck him in the belly, giving him a mortal wound”. He died the next day and was laid to rest in North Fambridge churchyard on October 9.

The uncle whose name he shared, had been dead some 23 years, a butchered victim of religious intolerance.

As the vicar of North Fambridge, the Rev Jerome Wright, himself an alumni of Oxford and a fervent Protestant, filled in the burial register, he couldn’t help himself and added a scribbled footnote, “Nephew of Edmund insignissimi et proditoris et Jesuitae” – “the most distinguished of both traitors and Jesuits”.