Charles Plowden (born at Plowden Hall,

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

, 1743; died at

Jougne Jougne () is a commune in the Doubs department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France. Geography The commune is situated from Pontarlier and from the Swiss border. It lies in the Jura Mountains, which form the border betwee ...

Doubs Doubs (, ; ; ) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Eastern France. Named after the river Doubs, it had a population of 543,974 in 2019.Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

, teacher, writer and administrator.

Life

He was a descent of

Edmund Plowden Edmund Plowden (1519/20 – 6 February 1585) was an English lawyer, legal scholar and theorist during the late Tudor period. Early life Plowden was born at Plowden Hall, Lydbury North, Shropshire. He was the son of Humphrey Plowden (1490� ...

, and was raised in a Catholic family. Educated at the

College of St Omer A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary education, tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding academic degree, degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further educatio ...

, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1759, and was ordained

at Rome, in 1770.Burton, Edwin. "Charles Plowden." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 12 January 2019 At the suppression of the Society, in 1773, he was minister of the College of Bruges. The Austro-Belgic government, in its execution of the decree of suppression, kept him imprisoned for some months after the closing of the college. He wrote an account of its destruction. After his release from confinement, he was for a time at the College of Liège, which the

prince-bishop of Liège A prince-bishop is a bishop who is also the civil ruler of some secular principality and sovereignty, as opposed to '' Prince of the Church'' itself, a title associated with cardinals. Since 1951, the sole extant prince-bishop has been the B ...

had offered to the English ex-Jesuits. Returning to England, he became a tutor in the family of Thomas Weld, and chaplain at

Lulworth Castle Lulworth Castle, in East Lulworth, Dorset, England, situated south of the village of Wool, is an early 17th-century hunting lodge erected in the style of a revival fortified castle, one of only five extant Elizabethan or Jacobean buildings of ...

, where he assisted at the consecration of Bishop Carroll, in 1790. He preached the sermon on the occasion, and published an account of the establishment of the new See of Baltimore. Plowden had a large share in the direction of

Stonyhurst College Stonyhurst College or Stonyhurst is a co-educational Catholic Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing education for boarding school, boarding and day school, day pupils, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition. It is ...

, founded in 1794. After the restoration of the Society of England, he was the first master of novices, at Hodder. In 1817, he was appointed Provincial, and at the same time, Rector of Stonyhurst, holding the later office till 1819. Summoned to Rome for the XXth

General Congregation The General Congregation is an assembly of the Jesuit representatives from all parts of the world, and serves as the highest authority in the Society of Jesus. A General Congregation (GC) is always summoned on the death or resignation of the adm ...

(1820) and election of the Superior General of the Jesuits, he died suddenly in

(France), on his journey homeward, and, through mistaken information to his mission and identity, he was buried with full military honours. His attendant had gathered the information that he had been at Rome in connection with business concerning a "general", and the town authorities, mixing things, concluded that he was a general of the British army, hence the military funeral.

Works

In addition to his many administrative activities and occupations, Plowden was a prolific writer. He was protagonist in the Catholic polemics ahead of the eventual Catholic Relief Bill.

Sommervogel Carlos Sommervogel (8 January 1834 – 4 March 1902) was a French Jesuit scholar. He was author of the monumental ''Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus'', which served as one of the major references for the editors of the Catholic Encyclo ...

gives a list of twenty-two publications of which he was the author, besides several works in manuscript which have been preserved. He was a lifelong correspondent of Bishop Carroll and wrote a eulogy on the death of his friend in 1815. A large collection of the letters which the interchanged, originals or copies, exists at Stonyhurst and

Georgetown College Georgetown College is a private Christian liberal arts college in Georgetown, Kentucky. Chartered in 1829, Georgetown was the first Baptist college west of the Appalachian Mountains. The college offers over 40 undergraduate degrees and a Mas ...

, as also in the Baltimore diocesan archives.

References

;Attribution * {{DEFAULTSORT:Plowden, Charles 1743 births 1821 deaths Recusants 18th-century English Jesuits 19th-century English Jesuits