'Cardinal Allen'
A. L. ROWSE (Fellow of All Souls
College, Oxford)
WILLIAM ALLEN was born at Rossall in 1532, the year in which Henry VIII secretly married Anne Boleyn. That act of the king's is the keynote ot Allen's life, for it changed the existing religion without shaking Allen's faith. It seems surprising that he was still at Oxford after Queen Elizabeth's accession. He crossed to Flanders in 1561 and was accepted as the head of the Roman Catholic exiles at Louvain University.
By many admirers of Elizabeth he has been denounced as a traitor ; he has, just as naturally, been commended by the other side. His fearlessness in returning to England and defying the government is incontestable. Lancashire, Oxford, Norfolk saw him, and felt his presence, before he was compelled to leave England for good in 1565. He founded the English College at
Douay in 1568. In common with his fellow exiles he considered the Roman Catholic religion to be essential to the welfare of his countrymen and, wrong or right, to that cause he devoted his life. He was created Cardinal in 1587 ; he died at Rome in 1594.