Parsons, Robert (1546-1610), was an English missionary who led a Jesuit mission to England in 1580 with Edmund Campion, another English Jesuit. Parsons, whose name is sometimes spelled Persons, achieved some success but soon had to flee England. At the time, England had recently split from the Roman Catholic Church, forming the Church of England. Parsons and others wished to restore Roman Catholicism to England. Parsons later devised a plan to invade England that led to the sailing of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Parsons was born on June 24, 1546, in Nether Stowey, Somerset. He first left England in 1574 and joined the Jesuit order in 1575. He died in Rome on April 15, 1610.
