Edmund Campian, an English author and theologian, born in London in 1540, died Dec. 1, 1581. He studied at Oxford, and was ordained as deacon in the Anglican church. When Queen Elizabeth visited Oxford in 1566, he was selected to make the oration before her, as formerly while at school he had been chosen to deliver an oration before Qneen Mary on her accession. He went to Ireland, wrote the history of that country, and connected himself with the Roman Catholic church. Endeavoring to make proselytes to his new faith, he was seized and imprisoned; but after a short time he effected his escape to the Low Countries, and soon after joined the English college of Jesuits at Douai, passed his novitiate as a member of that society, and became distinguished for his piety and learning. At Rome, in 1573, he was admitted a member of the society of Jesus, after which he resided for a time at Vienna, where he composed a tragedy, which was received with much applause and acted before the emperor; and at Prague, where he taught rhetoric and philosophy for six years. Afterward he was sent by Gregory XIII. on a mission to England, where, on his arrival at the beginning of 1581, he challenged the universities and clergy to dispute with him.

His efforts were followed by so many conversions as to disquiet the ministry of Elizabeth, and he was arrested and thrown into the tower upon charge of having excited the people to rebellion, and of holding treasonable correspondence with foreign powers; he was tried, found guilty, condemned to death for high treason, and executed at Tyburn. The insults of the populace attended him to the tower, where torture was fruitlessly applied to extort from him a confession of treason or a recognition of the supremacy of the English church, and after his death a fragment of his body was sent to each of the principal towns for exposure. Besides his history of Ireland, he compiled a "Universal Chronology," and wrote Narratio de Dnortio Henrici VIII. A volume containing his orations, letters, and De Imitatione Bhetorica was published after his death (Ingol-stadt, 1602). His life has been written by the Jesuit Paul Bombino (Mantua, 1620).