John Betham

John Betham (1642?–1709) was an English Catholic priest and tutor to James Francis Edward Stuart (son of James II of England and later called the Old Pretender). Life He was a native of Warwickshire, where his elder brother owned an estate. He completed his studies at Douai, and was ordained priest there. He went to Paris in 1667, resuming his studies, and after ten years was created a doctor of the Sorbonne. Then he came to England on the English Mission, but the excitement caused by Titus Oates's narrative of the Popish Plot meant he returned to France. Betham then revived an old project for erecting a seminary for the benefit of such of the English clergy taking degrees in the university of Paris. Arras College at Paris had been founded as early as 1611 for the maintenance of learned writers in defence of Catholicism. In 1667, this institution was expanded by Thomas Carre ( Miles Pinkney); but the scheme was not completed until many years later, when Betham was appointed to preside over the seminary. He was appointed one of the chaplains and preachers in ordinary to King James II. A sermon he preached before the king and queen in the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace on the Feast of the Annunciation, 1686, was printed by royal order.