William Allen (cardinal) - Early Life

Early Life

Allen was born in 1532, at Rossall, near Fleetwood, Lancashire, England. He was the third son of John Allen. In 1547, at the age of fifteen, he entered Oriel College, Oxford, became a Bachelor of Arts in 1550, and was elected to the Fellowship of the College. In 1554, he became a Master of Arts, and two years later, in 1556, was made Principal and Proctor of the then Saint Mary's Hall.

He seemed also to had been a canon at York Minster in or about 1558, indicating that he was likely to had made the tonsure, a step towards ordination. Upon the accession of Elizabeth I, and the second schism of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church, he refused to take the Oath of Supremacy, but was allowed to remain within the University of Oxford, until 1561.

His public opposition to the Church of England forced him to leave the Kingdom and in that year, having resigned himself from all of his preferments, he left England and sought refuge in the town and the University of Leuven, or Louvain, to join many other students from England who had left the English Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in order to avoid having to take the Oath of Supremacy. From there, he continued his theological studies and began to write apologetic, polemic and controversialist treatises. In the following year he returned to his native England, although not yet an ordained priest and suffering from ill health. He devoted himself to the re-conversion of his native land to the old faith. He worked to dissuade the Roman Catholic faithful from attending Protestant worship of the Church of England, an outward compromise of faith and conscience that they were making in order to save themselves from fines, confiscations, disabilities and ruin, a fate that eventually befell upon other members of his own family.

During this period as a clandestine missionary in England he formed the conviction that the people was not set against Rome by choice, but by force and by circumstances; and the majority were only too ready, in response to his sermons and ministrations, to return to Roman Catholicism. He was convinced that the Church of England's hold over the Kingdom, due to the action of Elizabeth, could only be temporary. When his presence was discovered by the Queen's agents, servants and representatives, he fled from Lancashire and retired to Oxfordshire.

After writing a treatise in defence of the priestly power to remit sins, he was obliged to retire to Norfolk, under the protection of the family of the Duke of Norfolk, but was once again obliged to leave for the Continent soon afterwards, in 1565. He would never return to England. Travelling to the Low Countries, he was ordained as a priest at Mechelen in Flanders shortly afterwards, and began to lecture in theology at the Benedictine College there.