Son of a Catholic bookseller named Edmund whose family converted to Anglicanism.
The boy planned to enter his father's trade, but earned a scholarship to Saint John’s College, Oxford under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I's court favorite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
Sought after speaker.
Queen Elizabeth offered him a deaconate in the Church of England.He declined the offer, fled to the continent, and joined the Jesuits.
Ordained in 1578.
He spent some time working in Bohemia, then returned to London as part of a Jesuit mission, crossing the Channel disguised as a jewel merchant, and worked with Jesuit brother Saint Nicholas Owen.
There he wrote a description of his new mission in which he explained his work was religious, not political; it became known as Campion’s Brag.
Widely distributed, it encouraged many Catholics to remain loyal to their faith.
It also led to Edmund's arrest, imprisonment and torture in the Tower of London, and martyrdom.
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