Serenus de Cressy

Dom Serenus Cressy, O.S.B. (originally born Hugh Paulinus de Cressy; – 10 August 1674) was an English convert to Catholicism and Benedictine monk, who became a noted scholar in Church history.

Life

Anglican chaplain Hugh Paulinus de Cressy was born at Thorpe Salvin, Yorkshire, about 1605, the son of Hugh de Cressy, barrister of Lincoln's Inn, and later a justice of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland), and Margery d'Oylie of London, daughter of Thomas D'Oylie, a highly regarded doctor and scholar of Spanish (and a close connection by marriage of Francis Bacon), and his wife Anne Perrott of North Leigh. Educated first at Wakefield Grammar school, when fourteen years old he went to Oxford, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1623 and that of M.A. in 1627. He attended, and became a fellow of Merton College, earning his Master's degree in theology the following year.

Having taken Anglican orders, after leaving Oxford he served as chaplain to Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, and then to Lucius Cary, 3rd Viscount Falkland, whom Cressy accompanied to Ireland in 1638. His father had gone to Ireland five years earlier to serve as a High Court judge, and was on good terms with Strafford. During his stay in Ireland, Cressy was appointed as Dean of Leighlin, but returned to England in 1639. Through the noble connections he had made while chaplain to Viscount Falkland he received the post of canon in the collegiate chapter of Windsor, Berkshire, in 1642, but was not able to occupy the position due to the troubled times England was experiencing then. Returning to his own monastery in Douai, he undertook an extensive study of the history of monasticism in England. He also translated several works by various English mystical writers across a span of centuries.

Cressy was assigned to return to England in 1660 to serve as one of the chaplains to Queen Catherine of Braganza, wife of King Charles II of England and a Roman Catholic. For four years he resided at Somerset House, which served as her official residence. Cressy also spent time at Ditchley park owing to his friendship with Anne, countess of Rochester He then went to provide spiritual care to the Catholic Caryll family and died at East Grinstead, Sussex on 10 August 1674. and Julian of Norwich's Sixteen Revelations on the Love of God (1670). These books might have been lost but for Cressy's zeal.

For a complete list of Cressy's works see Joseph Gillow's Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, vol. I.

There is a lengthy speech attributed to Cressy in Joseph Henry Shorthouse's novel, John Inglesant.