Background
At the time, under Queen Elizabeth I's Protestant religious settlement, the Roman Catholic faith suffered legal disabilities. Foreign powers, most notably Spain and France, supported the training of English Catholic clergy on the European mainland. These priests came principally from two backgrounds: Jesuits and seminary priests. The seminary priests were trained at the English College, Douai in Northern France, an establishment set up by Cardinal Allen and associated to the University of Douai.
The root of the controversy stemmed from two different views of the state of the Roman Catholic Church in post-Reformation England. The Jesuits saw England as a missionary field, almost a clean slate, while many of the secular clergy saw their church's survival as a continuation of the institutions of the past. There were also suspicions in England that Jesuit missionaries supported Spanish foreign-policy aims, endangering English Catholics through their political entanglements
Read more about this topic: Archpriest Controversy
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