Colleges of St Omer, Bruges and Liège
The Colleges of St Omer, Bruges and Liège were successive expatriate institutions for the Catholic education run by the Jesuits for English students. Founded in 1593 by Father Robert Parsons SJ as the College of Saint-Omer in Artois, France (then part of the Spanish Netherlands), the school was forced in the 18th c. to relocate twice due to the suppression of the Jesuit order in France. It moved to Bruges in 1762 and Liège in 1773. It migrated a third and final time to Stonyhurst in England, where it became Stonyhurst College  in 1794. Foundation. During the reign of Elizabeth I religious education for Catholics was subject to penal legislation in England. The English Catholic church had created several colleges in continental Europe to make up for this, at Douai, Rome, and Valladolid, but these primarily addressed the training of priests. Especially the English College, Douai was associated with the faculty of theology of the University of Douai. Robert Parsons (1546–1610), had been instrumental in founding the English College, Valladolid, but recognised a need for a school for juvenile laymen. Saint-Omer was chosen as a site conveniently close to England, just  24 miles from Calais, and ruled by Catholic Spain as part of Flanders. It was also near the University of Douai, where Catholic scholars had edited and published the Douay–Rheims Bible. The college was founded in 1593 as the English Jesuit College at St Omer in Flanders (although an alternative tradition dates the founding to 1592). In 1599, it gained the direct patronage of King Philip of Spain. After an initial period of growth and prosperity, the unrest caused by the English Civil War resulted in a decline in students being sent from England, and the number dropped to  as low as 24 in 1645. When stability returned to the English government, the school regained students and revived its programs. French rule. In 1658 Spain formally ceded St. Omer and much of the province of Artois back to France. The Catholic French monarchy was as friendly to the school as the Spanish crown had been before. As the eighteenth century began, two fires ravaged the town and the university, but each time it was rebuilt, and even expanded. Buildings from the second reconstruction in the 1720s remained in use into the twentieth century. They were used during World War  I as a military hospital. The college enjoyed its greatest period of prosperity from around 1720 to 1762. During the period when formal sworn affiliation with the Church of England was required for students to attend Oxford and Cambridge, St. Omer provided higher education for several generations of English Catholics. Since the colleges founded in the American colonies were also affiliated with the Anglican and other Protestant churches, the wealthier Catholic families (initially primarily from Maryland) sent their young men to St. Omer to be educated. Bruges, Liège, Stonyhurst. In 1762, during a time of rising social tensions, France formally  expelled the Jesuits from the country. This resulted in the college's decline and eventual end. The expulsion split the college. The Jesuit faculty and many of the students fled to the Austrian Netherlands, now part of modern Belgium, moving first to Bruges, and then to Liège, where the college operated under the protection of the Bishop of Liège from 1773. King Louis XV continued the college at St. Omer, under the direction of secular clergy. When the Jesuit order was suppressed everywhere in 1773, the dual system ended, but the college never regained its prominence. In 1793, the French  Revolution and the United Kingdom's declaration of war on France ended Saint Omer college. The English faculty and students were imprisoned until February 1795. English penal laws and resulting discrimination had changed and it allowed Catholic education in England. Once released in France, some of the staff and most of the 100 remaining students went to England, to avoid the war on the European continent. An alumnus, Thomas Weld, donated a mansion and grounds at Stonyhurst, in Lancashire. The modern Stonyhurst College continues to this day as a direct lineal descendant of the College of Saint-Omer. In France , the Lycée Alexandre Ribot was developed on the site of the former Jesuit college in Saint Omer. Heythrop College, University of London, the now-defunct specialist Philosophy and Theology constituent College of the University of London, shared its (1614) foundation in Liège with Stonyhurst College. Notable alumni. Alumni include: three Saints, twelve "Beati", and twenty-two martyrs. Rectors and Superiors. Below is a list of College rectors from its foundation until the move to England. Marmaduke Stone, the last President of Liège, was also the first President of Stonyhurst College. In 1803 he helped to re-establish the Society of  Jesus in Britain, beginning at Stonyhurst. St Omer (1593–1762) Bruges (1762–1773) Liège (1773–1794)