Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Strange, Richard

471966Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 55 — Strange, Richard1898Thompson Cooper

STRANGE, RICHARD (1611–1682), jesuit, born in Northumberland in 1611, entered the Society of Jesus in 1631, and was professed of the four vows on 21 Nov. 1646. After teaching classics in the college of the English jesuits at St. Omer, he was sent to Durham district in 1644, and about 1651 was removed to the London mission, in which he laboured for many years. In 1671 he was appointed rector of the house of tertians at Ghent. He was in 1674 declared provincial of his order in this country, and he held that office for three years. His name figures in Titus Oates's list of jesuits, and also in the narrative of Father Peter Hamerton. Having escaped to the continent in 1679, he became one of the consultors of father John Warner, the provincial, and died at St. Omer on 7 April 1682.

His principal work is ‘The Life and Gests of S. Thomas Cantilvpe, Bishop of Hereford, and some time before L. Chancellor of England. Extracted out of the authentique Records of his Canonization as to the maine part, Anonymous, Matt. Paris, Capgrave, Harpsfeld, and others. Collected by R.S.S.I.,’ Ghent, 1674, 8vo, pp. 333. A reprint forms vol. xxx. of the ‘Quarterly Series,’ London, 1879, 8vo. Strange translated one of Nieremberg's works, ‘Of Adoration in Spirit and Truth,’ Antwerp, 1673, 8vo; and left in manuscript ‘Tractatus de septem gladiis, seu doloribus, Beatæ Virginis Mariæ.’

[De Backer's Bibl. des Écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus (1876), iii. 960; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 313; Foley's Records, v. 623, vii. 743; Oliver's Collections S. J., p. 199; Southwell's Bibl. Scriptorum Soc. Jesu, p. 719.]

T. C.