Robert Persons

[2] As a Fellow of Balliol College, Persons clashed with the Master there, Adam Squire, and also the academic and Roman Catholic priest Christopher Bagshaw.

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.

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.

This action then resulted in a petition from Pounde to the Privy Council to allow a disputation where the Jesuits would take on Robert Crowley and Henry Tripp, who used to preach to the Marshalsea inmates.

The immediate consequence was that Pounde was then transferred to Bishop's Stortford Castle; but the prepared statement by Campion was later circulated soon after his capture.

[3] His underlying strategy of trying to embarrass the English government by demanding a forum for his ideals was consistent with the general approach of Allen and Persons, but met with much criticism from the Catholic members.

In April Creighton returned with word from Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox; and they went to Paris to confer with William Allen, James Beaton and Claude Mathieu, Jesuit provincial in France, on his military plans and the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots.

Philip II of Spain took over the lead, placed the Duke of Parma in charge, and limited involvement to Persons, Allen, and Hew Owen.

[3] Claudio Acquaviva by the end of the year was concerned that the Jesuit strategies for France and the English mission would turn out to be inconsistent in the longer term, and consulted Pope Gregory XIII on the matter.

At this period Allen and Persons made a close study of the succession to Elizabeth I of England, working with noted genealogist Robert Heighinton.

Persons was successful, and then made use of the royal favour to found the seminaries of Valladolid, Seville, and Madrid (1589, 1592, 1598) and the residences of San Lucar and of Lisbon (which became a college in 1622).

As religious tensions escalated, and Edward Coke pressed to establish the supremacy of the common law over the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, Robert Persons published his polemical response An Answere to the Fifth Part of the Reports, disputing the historical accuracy of Coke's claims about the common law in his report on Caudry's Case, especially the claim that a Tudor era statute asserting the Supremacy of the Crown was based on pre-Conquest common law, pointing to a lack of evidence for authoritative statutes before the reign of Henry III.

Robert Persons's published works were:[1] An Apologicall Epistle: directed to the right honourable lords and others of her majesties privie counsell.