Richard Smith

Richard Smith (Hanworth, England, November 1568 – Paris, 18 March 1655), (officially the Bishop in partibus of Chalcedon). Having studied at the English College in Rome, he taught at Valladolid and Seville. He succeeded William Bishop, as the second Catholic Vicar apostolic for England, Wales and Scotland. Life Richard Smith was born in Lincolnshire, England in 1568. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford University where he became a Catholic and in 1586 was admitted to the English College, Rome where he studied under Robert Bellarmine. Smith was ordained in Rome as a priest in 1592. He obtained his doctorate in theology at the English College, Valladolid, where he also taught philosophy. In 1598 became a professor of controversies at the English College of St Gregory in Seville. In 1603 he went on the English mission at a time when Catholicism was officially banned, and could have faced death if caught and tried. He was well known at the Holy See, not only as a student, but as an agent on behalf of the English clergy. He served as chaplain to Viscountess Montague, wife of Anthony-Maria Browne, 2nd Viscount Montagu, at Battle Abbey in Sussex, England. Smith left Sussex in 1613 he became superior of the small body of English secular priests who had rented the Benedictine house in Paris called Arras College, where they devoted themselves to writing controversy.