At the same time, the Society of Jesuits was establishing its ministry as educators and soldiers for Catholic orthodoxy. This Jesuit engagement with the world marked the period when the myth of the ‘evil Jesuit’ began. This article looks at the effects of Jesuit involvement in the preservation of Catholicism in England during the first century of the Anglican Church.
It is important to note that the English Catholics from Oxford who went to Douai and Rheims were the same men who returned as Jesuit missionaries in the English Mission. With the exodus to the continent of Catholic Oxford Chairs and Fellows who refused to take the Oath of Submission, Douai in the Spanish Netherlands and Rheims in France caught England's most valuable cultural resource: the erudite Catholic.
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