Richard Smith

Richard Smith

Bishop of Chalcedon, second Vicar Apostolic of England; b. at Hanworth, Lincolnshire, Nov., 1568 (not 1566 as commonly stated); d. at Paris, 18 March, 1655. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, where he became a Catholic. He was admitted to the English College, Rome, in 1586, studied under Bellarmine, and was ordained priest 7 May 1592. In Feb., 1593, he arrived at Valladolid, where he took the degree of Doctor of Theology, and taught philosophy at the English College till 1598, when he went to Seville as a professor of controversies. In 1603 he went on the English mission, where he made his mark as a missioner. Chosen to represent the case of the secular clergy in the archpriest controversy, he went to Rome, where he opposed Persons, who said of him: "I never dealt with any man in my life more heady and resolute in his opinions". In 1613 he became superior of the small body of English secular priests at Arras College, Paris, who devoted themselves to controversial work. In 1625 he was elected to succeed Dr. Bishop as vicar Apostolic, but the date usually assigned for his consecration as Bishop of Chalcedon (12 Jan., 1625) must be wrong, as he was not elected till 2 Jan. He arrived in England in April, of the same year, residing in Lord Montagu's house at Turvey, Bedfordshire. As vicar Apostolic he came into conflict with the regulars, claiming the rights of an ordinary, but Urban VIII decided (16 Dec., 1627) that he was not an ordinary. In 1628 the Government issued a proclamation for his arrest, and in 1631 he withdrew to Paris, where he lived with Richelieu till the cardinal's death in 1642; then he retired to the convent of the English Augustinian nuns, where he died.

He wrote: "An answer to T. Bel's late Challenge" (1605); "The Prudentiall Ballance of Religion", (1609); "Vita Dominae Magdalenae Montis-Acuti" i.e., Viscountess Montagu (1609); "De auctore et essentia Protestanticae Religionis" (1619), English translation, 1621; "Collatio doctrinae Catholicorum et Protestantium" (1622), tr. (1631); "Of the distinction of fundamental and not fundamental points of faith" (1645); "Monita quaedam utilia pro Sacerdotibus, Seminaristis, Missionariis Angliae" (1647); "A Treatise of the best kinde of Confessors" (1651); "Of the all-sufficient Eternal Proposer of Matters of Faith" (1653); "Florum Historiae Ecclesiasticae gentis Anglorum libri septem" (1654). Many unpublished documents relating to his troubled episcopate (an impartial history of which yet remains to be written) are preserved in the Westminster Diocesan Archives.

DODD, Church History, III (Brussels vere Wolverhampton, 1737-1742) the account from which most subsequent biographies were derived. See also Tierney's edition of Dodd for further documents; BERINGTON, Memoirs of Panzani (London, 1793); Calendar State Papers: Dom., 1625-1631; BUTLER, Historical Memoirs of English Catholics (London, 1819); SERGEANT, Account of the English Chapter (London, 1853); FULLERTON, Life of Luisa de Carvajal (London, 1873); FOLEY, Records Eng. Prov. S. J., VI (London, 1880); BRADY, Episcopal Succession, III (Rome, 1877), a confused and self-contradictory account with some new facts; ALGER in Dict. Nat. Biog.; GILLOW, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath.; CEDOZ, Couvent de Religieuses Anglaises a Paris (Paris, 1891); Third Douay Diary, C.R.S. Publications, X (London, 1911).

EDWIN BURTON

Richard Smith

Richard Smith

Born in Worcestershire, 1500; died at Douai, 9 July, 1563. He was educated at Merton College, Oxford; and, having taken his M.A. degree in 1530, he became registrar of the university in 1532. In 1536 Henry VIII appointed him first Regius Professor of divinity, and he took his doctorate in that subject on 10 July in the same year. He subsequently became master of Whittington College, London; rector of St. Dunstan's- in-the-East; rector of Cuxham, Oxfordshire; principal of St. Alban's Hall; and divinity reader at Magdalen College. Under Edward VI he is said by his opponents to have abjured the pope's authority at St. Paul's Cross (15 May, 1547) and at Oxford, but the accounts of the proceedings are obscure and unreliable. If he yielded at all, he soon recovered and accordingly suffered the loss of his professorship, being succeeded by Peter Martyr, with whom he held a public disputation in 1549. Shortly afterwards he was arrested, but was soon liberated. Going to Louvain, he became professor of divinity there. During Mary's Catholic restoration he regained most of his preferments, and was made royal chaplain and canon of Christ Church. He took a prominent part in the proceedings against Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. He again lost all his benefices at the change of religion under Elizabeth, and after a short imprisonment in Parker's house he escaped to Douai, where he was appointed by Philip II dean of St. Peter's church. There is no foundation for the slanderous story spread by the Reformers to account for his deprivation of his Oxford professorship. When Douai University was founded on 5 Oct., 1562, he was installed as chancellor and professor of theology, but only lived a few months to fill these offices. He wrote many works, the chief of which are: "Assertion and Defence of the Sacrament of the Altar" (1546); "Defence of the Sacrifice of the Mass" (1547); "Defensio cœlibatus sacerdotum" (1550); "Diatriba de hominis justificatione" (1550); "Buckler of the Catholic Faith" (1555-56); "De Missæ Sacrificio" (1562); and several refutations of Calvin, Melanchthon, Jewell, and Beza, all published in 1562.

Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, IV (Oxford, 1891); Pits, De illustribus Angliæ Scriptoribus (Paris, 1619); Dodd, Church History, II (Brussels vere Wolverhampton, 1737-42); Gardiner, Letters and Papers of Henry VIII; Cooper, Dict. Nat. Biog., s. v.

Edwin Burton