Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/62

White dition and of the old faith. Father Oldcorne, the jesuit, was chaplain at Hindlip, and it was most likely through him that young White was introduced to Henry Garnett [q. v.], the jesuit superior, who sent him to St. Omer. On 21 Feb. 1596 he arrived at the jesuit seminary at Valladolid, one of the establishments founded by Robert Parsons (1547–1610) [q. v.], which accustomed the English secular clergy to the Spanish and jesuit influences necessary for the realisation of his intrigues concerned with the succession to the English crown. White was made prefect over his companions. During a dangerous illness in the winter of 1598–9 he vowed to become a Benedictine monk if his life were spared. Already several English youths in Rome, dissatisfied with the attempts the jesuits were making to secure the mastery over the secular priests at home, had joined the Italian monks of Monte Cassino and other Benedictine monasteries with the hope of one day returning to England. White was the first to leave the seminary for the monastery of San Benito in Valladolid, April 1599. After a month's postulancy he was sent to Compostella, where he was received as a novice on 26 May and took the name of Augustine. In 1600 he was professed with four others (one of them being John (Leander) Jones [q. v.]), who had followed him from the seminary. He then went to the university of Salamanca. On 5 Dec. 1602, in spite of the opposition of the jesuits, Clement VIII granted formal permission to the English Benedictines to return to their country as missionaries. As soon as the news arrived in Spain, White with three others set out for England on 26 Dec., and arrived just as Elizabeth was dying.

White had been appointed superior over his companions. He seems to have worked at first in his native county. He is also very likely the White mentioned as a priest haunting Worcestershire and the neighbouring counties (State Papers, Dom. James I, vol. xiii. No. 52). The Benedictines were received with open arms by their co-religionists, and the secular clergy gave them a special welcome as allies in the struggle against the jesuits. So many desired to join their order that it was soon evident that steps must be taken to find a spot more accessible than Spain for a monastery in which English subjects could be trained. So in the spring of 1604 White set out again for Spain to attend the general chapter and lay before his superiors the plan. On his way he called upon the nuncio in Paris, and there it was that most likely his attention was first directed to Douai as a suitable position for the proposed foundation, it being a university town with rich abbeys close at hand. The Spanish abbots agreed to the proposal, and White returned to England with the title of vicar-general.

During the early part of 1605 White was engaged in a scheme for purchasing a toleration from the government (Westminster Archives, viii. 99). Garnett, the jesuit superior, had lately failed in a similar attempt, and did his best to prevent White's success. It was very likely about this time that White came into personal contact with Cecil, who, tradition asserts (, manuscript History), was so struck with the loyalty and Christian spirit of the monk that he promised as far as in him lay that no Benedictine should suffer the penalty of the law for exercising his priestly functions.

In the autumn of 1605 Thomas Arundell, first lord Arundell of Wardour [q. v.], had taken command of an English regiment in the service of the Archduke Albert. He ‘brought Father Augustine Bradshaw [White] out of England with him to be chaplain-general of that regiment’ (Downside Review, xvi. 30 seq.). Coniers, a jesuit and confessor to the English College at Douai, also joined the camp at Ostend as one of the chaplains, but he by no means liked being under the command of the Benedictine chaplain-general. Every means was taken, therefore, by the jesuits to secure White's removal. All other plans failing, it was determined to get rid of White by procuring the dismissal of Lord Arundell. James Blount, one of the officers, was sent, with recommendations, ‘to blast his late colonel’ at the Spanish court, and succeeded so well that at the end of May 1606 Lord Arundell and almost half of the officers were cashiered, and with them, of course, the chaplain-general White. The nuncio at Brussels, Frangipani, and William Giffard, dean of Lille, also lost their posts, being favourers of the Benedictine.

Why the jesuits were so incensed against White is clear from the history of the foundation of the monastery at Douai. Parsons, as a means to an end, had secured the control, directly or indirectly, over all the seminaries on the continent in which the English secular clergy were educated. At Douai, the only college nominally in the hands of the clergy, he was also in power, as the president, Dr. Thomas Worthington [q. v.], had made a secret vow of obedience to the jesuit. Under Worthington the state of the college, both material and intellectual, had been reduced with the express purpose, so the logic