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CASSIAN OF STANLEY, O.F.M.Cap. FATHER ARCHANGEL OF PEMBROKE AND THE CONVERSION OF GROTIUS Among the notable members of the Capuchin Province of Paris at the end of the sixteenth century and the first decades of the seventeenth century was the English friar, Father Archangel of Pembroke. Whilst many of his contemporaries in religion have in comparatively recent years found their historians, he still awaits his'. The significance of his achievements has scarcely received the attention it deserves, for his influence was not confined to any narrow sphere and his career was an eventful one. When the history of the Capuchin Province of Paris is carried a few stages further than the late Pere Godefroy was able to achieve, then, perhaps, the note– worthiness of Father Archangel's memory will be more apparent and better appreciated than it has so far 2 • It may be that a long-continued misunderstanding and miscon– struction regarding the friar's family and its position in the social scale deterred attempts to investigate his career with any fulness, for fantasy and fiction have been interwoven with fact in many extant accounts of Father Archangel, and his portrayal in several standard works of reference and other works of some consequence leaves much to be desired 3 • l Among such studies we may mention OPTAT DE Vm:nEL, O.F.M.Cap., Benoit de Canfield (1562-1610). Sa vie, sa doctrine et son influence, Rome 1949; M. Dunors-QulN.1Rn, Laurent de Paris. Une doctrine du pur amour en France au dcbut du 17bne siecle, Rome 1959; F.X. MAR– TIN, O.S.A., Friar Nugent. A study of Francis Lavalin Nugent (1569-1635), agent of the· Counter– Refonnation, Rome-London 1962. There are, of course, earHcr accounts of still better known ,contemporaries as, for instance, LouIS DE G0NZAGUE [DE INGRANDES], O.F.M.Cap., Le Pere Ange de Joyeuse, Frere Mineur Capucin Marechal de France (1563-1608), Paris 1928; L. DED0UVRES, Le Pere Joseph de Paris, capucin. L'E.minence Grise, 2 vols., Paris 1932. 2 GonEFROY nE PARIS, O.F.M.Cap., Les Freres Mineurs Capucins en France. Histoire de la province de Paris, 2 vols., Paris 1937-1939, 1949. The second volume of this work takes the story of the province to 1601. 3 The confusion surrounding Father Archangel's origin is continued, for example, in Lexicon Capuccfnum, Romae 1951, col. 120. The article of Father Archangel by M. PREVOST in the Dictionnaire de biographie frwu;afse III, Paris 1939, col. 374, requires correction, as does the mention of this friar in the work of Mmomo nA NEMBR0, O.F.M.Cap., Storia clell'at-

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