Richard Crashaw

Richard Crashaw was an English poet, teacher, High Church Anglican cleric and Roman Catholic convert, who was one of the major metaphysical poets in 17th-century English literature.
Crashaw was the son of a famous Anglican divine with Puritan beliefs, William Crashaw, who earned a reputation as a hard-hitting pamphleteer and polemicist against Catholicism. After his father's death, Crashaw was educated at Charterhouse School and Pembroke College, Cambridge. After taking a degree, Crashaw taught as a fellow at Peterhouse, Cambridge and began to publish religious poetry that expressed a distinct mystical nature and an ardent Christian faith.
Crashaw was ordained as a clergyman in the Church of England and in his theology and practice embraced the High Church reforms of Archbishop Laud. Crashaw became infamous among English Puritans for his use of Christian art to decorate his church, for his devotion to the Virgin Mary, for his use of Catholic vestments, and
for many other reasons. During these years, however, the University of Cambridge was a hotbed for High Church Anglicanism and for Royalist sympathies.