Franciscans and Douai

Your issue of hebivary 8 included an interesting article by Tim Mathews on "Catholics' links with the town of Douai". In it he states that there were once four independent Englishspeaking foundations in Douai . . . the English College . . and Irish College . . . the Seots College . . . the English Benedictine College.
Were the Franciscans not worthy of mention? A public street in Douai still recalls their residence of 175 years. Their church under the title of St. Bonaventure is now the parish church of St. Jacques.
In 1952 the Mayor and municipality of Douai invited the English Franciscans to return to Douai for the Feast of St. Bonaventure, and 20 friars from England went across to represent their brethren and receive the freedon of the town. Douai had not forgotten them.
Franciscan links with Douai date back to 1616, In that year the Commissary General of the English Franciscans. William
Stanny, was dealing with Heigham the printer about his "Treatise on Penance." In 1597 Manny. and John Jones (now Saint) were together in the Marshulsea prison. Jones went to the scaffold: Stanny was released and went overseas.but before leaving England he received into the Order John Gcnnings, brother of St. Edmund Gennings. Stanny and Jones belonged to the old Marian tradition of the Greenwich Observants.
In 1618 St. Borraventure's, Douai, began as an Englishspeaking Franciscan foundation. By 1631 it had 20 friars on -the English Mission, 55 in England in 1(419, and in the ficult days before the French Revolution there were 25 on the Mission in 1790 and .26 in Douai. Bruges and Aire,
From St. Bonaventure's, Douai emerged four martyrs including St. John Wall, 33, who suffered imprisonment in the gaols of Newgate, York, Lancaster, Worcester. Leicester, and Hurst Castle: two Vicars Apostolic:, and at least 240 missionary priests. A third Vicar' Apostolic, Hendren, was received into the Order after the French Revolution and trained entirely by the men of the last Douai community. While most of the records are at the Franciscan Friary, Forest Gate, London, an easily accessible account of Franciscan Douai is to be found in Guilday's classic work "The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent" (Longmans, 1914), and in more than One volume of the Catholic Record Society much material is to be ' found.
. In passing, one might also refer inquirers to the Douai chapters in two books by Fr. Jn. Berchmans Dockery, O.F.M. "Collingrid.ge" (1954) and "Davenport" (1960).
Justin McLoughlin, Q.F.M., Archivist of the English Franciscan Province The Friary. 160 The Grove, St rat ford , London, E.15.