English College, Douai
It is popularly believed that the indemnification funds paid by the French for the seizure of Douai's property were diverted by the British commissioners to complete the furnishings of George IV's Royal Pavilion at Brighton.
[1] In the early years there was a strong English influence, with several of the chief posts being held by professors who had fled the University of Oxford after the accession of Protestants in England.
The foundation of this university coincided with the presence of a large number of English Catholics living at Douai, in the wake of the accession of Elizabeth I and the restoration of Protestantism in England.
Other seminaries or houses of study on the European continent for the training of priests from and for England and Wales (all known typically as English Colleges) included ones in Rome (from 1579), Valladolid (from 1589), Seville (from 1592) and Lisbon (from 1628).
In 1603 under Dr. Thomas Worthington, the third president, a regular college was built, opposite the old parish church of St-Jacques, in the Rue des Morts, so called on account of the adjoining cemetery.
Hardly was the dispute with the "Blackloists" finished, when a further storm of an even more serious nature arose, the centre being Dr. Hawarden who was professor of philosophy and then of theology at the English College for seventeen years.
His reputation became so great that when a vacancy occurred in 1702 he was solicited by the bishop, the chief members of the university, and the magistrates of the town to accept the post of Regius professor of divinity.
In the end, Dr. Hawarden retired from Douai and went on the mission in England; and a visitation of the college, made by order of the Holy See, resulted in completely clearing him of the accusation.
Under the presidency of Dr. Robert Witham (1715–1738) the English College at Douai was rebuilt on a substantial scale and rescued from the overwhelming debt into which it had been plunged when it lost nearly all its endowment in the notorious "South Sea Bubble".
The plea was allowed for a time but, when Louis XVI was executed and Britain declared war, the superiors and students of most of the other British establishments realised their immunity was at an end and fled to England.
However, in October, 1793, they were taken to prison at Doullens in Picardy, together with six Anglo-Benedictine monks who had remained for a similar purpose, and Dr. Stapleton (President of St Omer) and his students.
After the evacuation of the English students in 1793, the building that housed the college was converted to military barracks and named after Douai native and war hero Pierre François Joseph Durutte (1767–1827).
After the Revolution, Bonaparte united all the British establishments in France under one administrator, John Baptist Walsh, an Irishman, Rector of the Irish College in Paris.
It was ruled that as the Catholic colleges were carried on in France for the sole reason that they were illegal in England, they must be considered French, not English, establishments, though the buildings were restored to their rightful owners.
An old tradition, considered credible by antiquarian Joseph Gillow, holds that the funds were diverted to complete the furnishings of George IV's Royal Pavilion at Brighton.
