Ambrose Corbie

(Corby or Corbington).

Born near Durham, 7 Dec., 1604; d. at Rome, 11 April, 1649. He was the fourth son of Gerald Corbie and his wife Isabella Richardson, exiles for the Faith. Of their children, Ambrose, Ralph, and Robert, having become Jesuits (Richard died as a student at St-Omers, and the two surviving daughters, Mary and Catherine, became Benedictine nuns at Brussels), the parents by mutual agreement entered religion. The father entered the Society of Jesus as a lay brother in 1628, and having reconciled his father Ralph (aged 100) to the Church, died at Watten, 17 Sept., 1637. The mother, in 1633, was professed a Benedictine at Ghent and died a centenarian, 25 Dec., 1652. Ambrose at the age of 12 entered St-Omers, going thence (1622) to the English college, Rome. He entered the Society of Jesus at Watten in 1627, and in 1641 was professed. Having taught with some success for some years at St-Omers, and been minister at Ghent in 1645, he was appointed confessor at the English college, Rome, where he died in his forty-fifth year. His works are;

• “Certamen Triplex” etc., the history of the martyrdom of three English Jesuit priests: Thomas Holland, his own brother Ralph Corbie, and Henry Morse (Antwerp, 1645, 12mo), with three engraved portraits; reprinted, Munich, 1646, 12mo); English translation by E. T. Scargill under the title of “The Threefold Conflict” etc.; ed. W. T. Turnbull (London, 1858, 8vo).
• Account of his family; English version in Foley, “Records”, III, 64.
• “Vita et morte del Fratello Tomaso Stilintono [i.e. Stillington alias Olgethorpe] novitio Inglese della Compagnia de Gesu morto in Messina, 15 Sept., 1617″; (manuscript at Stonyhurst College; see Hist. manuscripts Comm.”,