Douay (Roman Duacum), a town in the French department of Nord, on the river Scarpe, 20 miles S. of Lille by rail. It is one of the chief military towns in the north of France, is strongly fortified, contains an important arsenal, a cannon foundry, and a school of artillery. The principal buildings are the churches, the hôtel-de-ville, the public library, containing 100,000 printed volumes and 3000 MSS., the museum, hospital, and artillery barracks. The manufactures include lace, cotton, oil, soap, and iron machinery; and there is an active trade in corn, seed, and linen. Pop. (1881) 21,703; (1891) 23,472. During the middle ages Douay was a constant bone of contention between the Flemish counts and the French rulers. It passed with the rest of Flanders under the dominion of Spain, but was taken by Louis XIV. in 1667. It was captured by the Duke of Marlborough in June 1710, but on the withdrawal of the allies was re-occupied by the French, who were confirmed in their possession of it at the Peace of Utrecht.
For more than two centuries Douay was the rallying-point of Roman Catholic exiles from Great Britain. There were several educational and religious houses established in the town in connection with the English and Scottish mission. The English College, the parent and model of similar institutions at Rome, Lisbon, and elsewhere on the Continent, was founded in 1568, the tenth year of Elizabeth's reign, by William, afterwards Cardinal Allen (q.v.), as a house of studies for the English clergy abroad, and as a seminary or nursery for ecclesiastics destined for the English mission. The college was affiliated to the Douay University, which had been founded in 1562 by King Philip II., in whose dominion the town then was. Allen's foundation was supported by pensions from the Spanish king and from the pope. The first batch of four missionaries was sent into England in 1574. Political disturbances led to the migration of the college, in 1578, from Douay to Rheims, where it was under the protection of the king of France and the Guises. A colony of students from Rheims in 1578 formed the nucleus of a second college at Rome, under the government of the Jesuits; and the two establishments together sent into England, before 1586, about 250 priests, of whom no less than 60 suffered death at the hands of the executioner. The most flourishing period of Allen's college was that of its sojourn at Rheims (1578-93), though before the return to Douay it had begun notably to decline. On Allen's appointment as cardinal in 1587, and his consequent removal to Rome, the college was torn with internal dissensions, studies were neglected, and scandals ensued. It was at Rheims that the English Roman Catholic version of the Bible was begun by Dr Gregory Martin, with the assistance of Allen, Dr Bristow, and others. The New Testament was printed at Rheims in 1582. The Old Testament, also translated by Martin, with notes by Dr Worthington, was not completed and published until 1610 at Douay, and hence the version as a whole is commonly known as the Douay Bible (see BIBLE). Notwithstanding its many troubles the college was able to boast that before its dissolution at the French Revolution it had produced more than 30 bishops and 169 writers, while 160 of its alumni had given their lives on the gallows for the papal cause. An interesting list of the English Catholic books printed at Douay will be found in Duthilien's Bibliographie Douaisienne. It is said that valuable documents from the college archives were made into cartridges by the French revolutionary soldiers. Some few of the manuscripts, however, have found their way into the public library of the town, and others are preserved in the archives of the Roman Catholic archbishopric of Westminster. Among the latter is the greater portion of the college Registers or Diaries, the first two parts of which were edited by the Fathers of the London Oratory in 1878.
The members were expelled from the college, and the property confiscated by the French government, 12th October 1793. A small portion of the property which remained unsold was restored to Mr Daniel, the last president, by an ordinance of the French king, dated January 25, 1816. But further claims for compensation under the terms of the treaty of peace were resisted by the British commissioners on the ground that the college was established for objects directly opposed to British law, and was to be regarded as a French rather than an English corporation. This decision on appeal was confirmed by a judgment of Lord Gifford in the Privy-council, 25th November 1825. There is no ground for the common story that the sum claimed was expended by the government in paying off the debts incurred by the Prince of
Wales in adorning the Brighton Pavilion. The college buildings are now converted into the artillery barracks known as Les Grands Anglais.
On their return to England, the masters and students of the college, among whom was Lingard, the historian, laid the foundations of a similar college at Crook Hall, in 1808 transferred to Ushaw, near Durham. Another college at Old Hall, Essex, was established by refugees partly from Douay, and partly from St Omers.
There was also established at Douay a Scotch College. This seminary, originally founded at Pont-à-Mousson, in Lorraine, by Dr James Cheyney of Aboyne, in 1576, was assisted by a pension from Queen Mary. After her death it was reduced to great straits, and could count only seven members. In 1594 it moved to Douay, thence to Louvain, and finally was once more transferred to Douay in 1608. Clement VIII. placed it under the administration of the Jesuits. Hippolyte Curle, the son of Mary's secretary, made over to the college by deed of gift a large sum of money, providing, however, that in case of his country's return to the Roman religion, the foundation should be transferred to St Andrews University. Curle became the second rector of the college, and died in 1638. The college was closed in 1793 by the French government, and turned into a prison. It eventually became the mother house of a congregation of nuns devoted to education, called Les Dames de la Sainte Union. The register of the Scotch College, then in the hands of Sir Maxwell Witham of Kirkconnell, was in 1889 being edited by the Rev. W. Forbes-Leith, S.J., for the New Spalding Club.
The English Franciscan friars established at Douay a house of their own, which produced some men of reputation for learning and piety. The English Benedictines did the same. There was also a college of Irish ecclesiastics in the town. The Benedictines alone retain a footing at Douay at the present time. They returned after the Revolution to their old buildings, or to a portion of them, where they still possess a college for the training of English members of the order.
A curious tract on the history of Allen's foundation was written by the Rev. Hugh Tootle, alias Charles Dodd, under the title of The History of the English College at Douay, by R. C., Chaplain to an English Regiment that marched in upon its surrendering to the Allies (Lond. 1713). The First and Second Douay Diaries of the English College, Douay, with an historical introduction by T. F. Knox (1878), has been already referred to. Full accounts of the later history will be found in Gillow's Haydock Papers (1888). Compare the Abbé Danoisne's Histoire des Établissements religieux britanniques fondés à Douai avant la Révolution Française, et le Collège Anglais pendant la Révolution, by the same author.