James Sharpe

(Alias POLLARD).

Born at York, 1577; died at Lincoln, 1630. Converted when young, he made his priestly studies at the English College, Valladolid, was ordained in 1604, and returned to England in 1606. Here a singular trial awaited him. Believing that he must assist his parents to the Faith, he visited them at Everingham, but was insidiously kept a prisoner at home, and subjected to every possible pressure to induce him to renounce the Faith. Disputations and entreaties alternated with threats, the use of violence, and constant surveillance. While his mother conjured him on her knees to yield, his father begged the authorities rather to keep home close in England, than to let him go into exile. But the "Annals" of his College attest that Sharpe was a man "of great courage and learning". His constancy prevailed. He was eventually taken to the archbishop's prison, then deported. Having entered the Society of Jesus (1608), he became professor of Scripture at Louvain for three years, after which he returned, and worked on the English mission until his death. He wrote "The Trial of Protestant Private Spirit." (s.l., 1630)

FOLEYRecords,II (1884), 618; BLACKFAN, Annales collegii S. Albani Vallesoleti (London, 1898); MORE, Hist. prov. anglicanæ S.J. (St. Omers, 1661); GILLOW, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., s.v.

J.H. POLLEN