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The Benedictine community
of St Gregory the Great was founded at Douai, France,
in 1606 by a group of English and Welsh monks who were
in exile because of the penal laws in England against
Catholics. The community received the protection of the
Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain and Portugal,
the joint ruler of the Spanish Netherlands, and they
were furnished with buildings by Philip de Caverel, Abbot
of St Vedast's in Arras. By 1617 English Catholics were
sending their boys across the Channel to be educated
there. The School has been in existence since that time,
with the monks engaged not only in teaching but also
in scholarly work, writing and lecturing, and in priestly
and pastoral work.
In the 17th century, the death
penalty was inflicted on Catholic priests found in England.
Many members of St Gregory's nonetheless came to England
to exercise their priestly duties, and six of them have
been recognised as martyrs by the Church. Two of these,
St John Roberts and St Ambrose Barlow, were canonized
as saints in 1970. Another martyr who has yet to be canonized
is Blessed Philip Powell, who was put to death in 1646.
In 1681, St Oliver Plunkett, the Irish Archbishop of
Armagh, was executed in London. Before his execution
he was helped by an English Benedictine, Dom Maurus Corker,
who later took care of his body. His relics are now housed
in the principal shrine in Downside Abbey. St Oliver
was canonized in 1975.
By the beginning of the 18th
century the School was held in such high esteem in England
that Queen Anne ordered the Duke of Marlborough to spare
it when he stormed Douai in 1710. In the 1790s, however,
French revolutionaries plundered the Abbey and School,
but the monks and boys were allowed to escape to England
in February 1795. After nineteen years at Acton Burnell
in Shropshire, in the house of Sir Edward Smythe, a former
pupil, the Abbey and School moved to Downside and the
present buildings were begun. The School has therefore
been on its present site since 1814; the cedar tree near
the main entrance was planted in that year. Downside
became a fully co-educational school, admitting boys
and girls in all years, in 2005.
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