“Still More Glorifyed in His Saints and Spouses”: the English Convents in Exile and the Formation of an English Catholic Identity, 1600-1800 ______

Home , Bridgettines, Conceptionists, George Blackwell, John Soreth, Joseph Gillow, Margaret Clement

“STILL MORE GLORIFYED IN HIS SAINTS AND SPOUSES”: THE ENGLISH CONVENTS IN EXILE AND THE FORMATION OF AN ENGLISH CATHOLIC IDENTITY, 1600-1800 ______

A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

California State University, Fullerton ______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

History ______

Michelle Meza

Thesis Committee Approval:

Professor Gayle K. Brunelle, Chair Professor Robert McLain, Department of History Professor Nancy Fitch, Department of History

Summer, 2016

ABSTRACT

The English convents in exile preserved, constructed, and maintained a solid

English Catholic identity in three ways: first, they preserved the past through writing the history of their convents and remembering the hardships of the English martyrs; that maintained the nuns’ continuity with their English past. Furthermore, producing obituaries of deceased nuns eulogized God’s faithful friends and provided an example to their predecessors. Second, the English nuns cultivated the present through the translation of key texts of English Catholic spirituality for use within their cloisters as well as for circulation among the wider recusant community to promote Franciscan and Ignatian spirituality. English versions of the Rule aided beginners in the convents to faithfully adhere to monastic discipline and continue on with their mission to bring English

Catholicism back to England. Finally, as the English nuns looked toward the future and anticipated future needs, they used letter-writing to establish and maintain patronage networks to attract novices to their convents, obtain monetary aid in times of disaster, to secure patronage for the community and family members, and finally to establish themselves back in England in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Reign of

Terror. By the mid-nineteenth century, not only did seventeen out of twenty-one convents reestablish themselves in England, but English Catholicism and female monasticism experienced a rebirth in their native land.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... ii

LIST OF FIGURES ...... v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... vi

Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Historiography ...... 4 English Nuns’ Identity in Exile ...... 6 History Writing ...... 7 Obituaries ...... 7 Translations ...... 8 Letter-Writing ...... 8 The Blue Nuns ...... 9 Catholic Perspective on English Identity ...... 9 Preserving the Past: History Writing and Obituaries ...... 10 Cultivating the Present: Translation and English Catholic Spirituality ...... 11 Looking Toward the Future: Patronage Networks and Letter-Writing ...... 12 Life Inside an Early Modern Convent ...... 14 The English Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries ...... 17 Elizabethan and Early Jacobean English Catholicism ...... 25 Recusant English Catholicism ...... 27 Early Hopes and Efforts of Return ...... 30 Primary Sources ...... 33 Methodology ...... 34

2. PRESERVING THE PAST: HISTORY WRITING AND OBITUARIES ...... 40

Introduction ...... 40 Early Modern English Women’s Writing ...... 42 Early Modern Nuns’ Writing ...... 44 Early Modern Nuns’ History Writing ...... 45 History Writing in the English Convents ...... 47 Memories of Dissolution: The Bridgettines of Syon Abbey ...... 48 Memorializing the Sacrifice of the English Martyrs ...... 54 Foundation Struggles ...... 64

iii

Obituaries in the English Convents ...... 69 Benedictines of Ghent: Honoring God’s Friends ...... 70 Beginners of the Monastery: The Blue Nuns’ Founding Mothers ...... 72 Heir of St. Teresa: Mother Anne of the Ascension ...... 75 Conclusion ...... 78

3. CULTIVATING THE PRESENT: TRANSLATION AND ENGLISH CATHOLIC SPIRITUALITY ...... 81

Introduction ...... 81 Early Modern Translation and National Identity ...... 84 Early Modern Women as Translators ...... 86 The Revival of Franciscan Spirituality and the English Convents ...... 88 Catherine Greenbury and Saint Elizabeth of Portugal ...... 90 Elizabeth Evelinge and Saint Clare of Assisi ...... 93 Mary Percy and Ignatian Spirituality ...... 96 Rules of Convent Life ...... 102 Alexia Grey, Obedience, and the Rule of Saint Benedict ...... 103 Elizabeth Evelinge, Evangelical Poverty, and the Rule of Saint Clare ...... 105 Conclusion ...... 108

4. LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE: PATRONAGE NETWORKS AND LETTER-WRITING ...... 111

Introduction ...... 111 Attracting Novices ...... 115 Clare Conyers and the Poor Clares in Aire ...... 117 Winefrid Thimelby and the Canonesses in Louvain ...... 120 Seeking Aid ...... 124 Poor Clares in Gravelines ...... 125 Bridgettines in Lisbon ...... 127 Patronage ...... 130 Mary Ward and the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary ...... 131 Anne Cary and the Court of King Charles II ...... 134 Returning Home: The Blue Nuns of Paris and the Jerningham Letters ...... 138 Conclusion ...... 141

5. CONCLUSION ...... 145

Recognition from English Protestant Travellers ...... 145 Reaction and Experience in Returning Home ...... 148 A Lasting Legacy ...... 151

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 155

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1. Map of the English convents in exile in the Spanish Netherlands and France .... 3

2. Total professions from 1601-1710 ...... 13

3. Pilgrimage ...... 56

4. Building the Convent ...... 57

5. Expelled from London ...... 58

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to take a moment and thank everyone who counseled, aided, and encouraged me in pursuing a master’s degree and writing this thesis. To my thesis committee members, Dr. Gayle Brunelle, Dr. Robert McLain, and Dr. Nancy Fitch: thank you for your never-failing enthusiasm, confidence, and assistance in my graduate studies and for making the pursuit of history a real joy. To my family: thank you for your love and support in times of poor health, discouragement, and uncertainty, as well as being a willing sound board for my ideas. Finally, and I mean this with the utmost humble sincerity, I could not have done this had it not been the will of God and the help of His

Beloved Son in undertaking this great task. This work I dedicate to the Queen of Heaven,

Mary Immaculate, under whose motherly mantle I consecrated my entire graduate studies to in the beginning. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

After a rough crossing in the English Channel, she finally arrived in Belgium. She made many difficult decisions before this moment after discovering her vocation at a country dance: leaving home perhaps forever, and being considered an outlaw and a traitor to her country for denying the legitimacy of the Church of England. Yes, all those decisions had been full of heartache, but she knew what she had to do. After all those constant years of wondering, struggling, and praying, she took the final step and said,

“Yes” to God’s plan. Even though she rejected marriage, one that would have brought her earthly glory, she accepted another proposal that would lead her to heavenly glory. She knew she had found true love, and He waited for her just behind the door that led into the convent. “Forever now, my Lord,” she reflected. “Forever a Bride of Christ.”

Ever since the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII between 1536-

1540, the expelled nuns either lived in small groups, entered religious houses on the

Continent, or gave up religious life altogether. During her brief reign, Catholic Queen

Mary I restored the monastic houses that remained open until their final dissolution by the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I. Even though monastic life in England came to an end, some of the daughters of the recusant Catholic community still felt called to the vocation of religious life as nuns. Many entered foreign houses during the Elizabethan era, but encountered conflict due to differing nationalities and language. If God still wanted

English women to choose the convent, then English monastic houses needed to open on the Continent to make this desire of so many women a reality. Founding religious houses outside of England, however, meant exile.

Lady Mary Percy founded the first monastic house specifically designed for

English women, a Benedictine convent in Brussels in 1598.1 Twenty more convents of various orders spread throughout France and the Low Countries (Figure 1), with the final foundation of Carmelites in Hoogstraten in 1678.2 From the creation of these communities, the founders had a specific objective in mind: preserve an identifiable form of English Catholicism and English monastic life for women in the event that

Catholicism became legal once more and the nuns could return home.

This thesis studies and analyzes the English convents in exile and how the English nuns constructed, preserved, and maintained an authentic English Catholic identity. From these convents, I focus on the Order of the Immaculate Conception, or “Blue Nuns,” of

Paris, the Poor Clares of Rouen, Gravelines and Aire, the Franciscan Third Order Regular of Brussels, the Augustinian Canonesses of Louvain, the Benedictines of Brussels, Ghent and Cambrai, the Discalced Carmelites of Antwerp, and the Bridgettines, of Lisbon, in addition to Mary Ward, foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The

1 While there had been only one order that had survived the dissolution, the Bridgettines of Syon Abbey, they wandered throughout the Low Countries for some years before finally settling in Lisbon in 1594. For more information on the English Convents in Exile, please refer to Claire Walker’s Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Peter Guilday’s The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent. 1558-1795, (London & New York: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1914); Caroline Bowden and James E Kelly’s edited volume of essays titled The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800: Communities, Culture and Identity, (Surrey and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Limited: 2013). For more general history of nuns and convent life, please refer to JoAnn Kay McNamara’s work Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns Through Two Millenia, (Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press, 1996); and Silvia Evangelisti’s Nuns: A History of Covent Life, 1450-1700, (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 2 Other religious orders of women included: Benedictines, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, Conceptionists, Poor Clares, and Sepulchrines. There was another order founded by Mary Ward that was an active order based on Ignatian spirituality followed by the Jesuits. Since the order was not cloistered, they were forced to disband in 1631 but continued some facets of their work in England afterwards.

3 designated time span of this thesis from 1600 to 1800, already widely used among scholars who study the English nuns, roughly corresponds to the foundation of the first convent established in 1598 by Percy and the end of the convent’s exile when many orders returned to England during the French Revolution and Reign of Terror and its aftermath. Furthermore, individual English nuns also contributed to identity formation through their personal writings, translations, and political networks to the recusant community. In addition to the collective efforts of each convent community, my research also analyzes individual nuns and their contributions to the identity formation of the

English convents during this period.

Figure 1. Map of the English convents in exile in the Spanish Netherlands and France.

Two questions arise out of my thesis: what did it mean to the English nuns in exile to be an English Catholic, and how did they intend to preserve their sense of

Englishness while remaining faithfully Catholic? The English nuns felt a keen sense of destiny and purpose in the sacrifice of their lives: to pray for the conversion of England to the Catholic faith. This destiny emerged as especially important since England had a long, Catholic history reaching as far back as the sixth century.3 Since England’s conversion to Christianity, there also existed a beautiful legacy of monastic life for men and women that produced such saints as Thomas Becket, Julian of Norwich and Simon

Stock.4

Historiography

The purpose of my thesis is to analyze how the English nuns maintained an

English identity during their exile. The historiography on the formation of an English

Protestant identity adds to the scholarly literature on the emergence of national identities and nationalism in early modern Europe.5 While researchers have given notable attention on English Catholicism,6 further analysis needs to shift towards the study of the formation of an English Catholic identity among the laity and the English nuns living in

3 The first Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Augustine, who is considered as the founder of the English Church, introduced England to the Catholic faith. 4 Thomas Becket (12th century) archbishop of Canterbury, martyred; Julian of Norwich (14th century) mystic; Simon Stock (13th century) general of Carmelite Order, popularized Brown Scapular devotion. 5 For further reading on English Protestant identity formation, please refer to Linda Colley, “Britishness and Otherness: An Argument,” Journal of British Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4 Britishness and Europeaness: Who Are the British Anyway? (Oct., 1992); Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (New Haven, Conn., and London, 1992); British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain, 1533-1707, edited by Brendan Bradshaw and Peter Roberts, (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Jim Smyth, The Making of the United Kingdom, 1660-1800: State, Religion and Identity in Britain and Ireland, (Harlow, England & New York: Longman, 2001). 6 For the scholarship on English Catholicism, please refer to Christopher Highly, Catholics Writing the Nation in Early Modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), John Bossy, The English Catholic Community, 1570-1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), Edward Norman, Roman Catholicism in England from the Elizabethan Settlement to the Second Vatican Council (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); Redrawing the Map of Early Modern English Catholicism, edited by Lowell Gallagher (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012).

5 exile.7 My research incorporates existing scholarship on identity formation while including new perspectives on identity. By identity, I mean the construction of a corporate and individual identity that is parallel to national identity. Although the nuns’ sense of English identity as Catholics is seemingly contradictory, they offered a counter discourse that reflected their self-perception as a separate but equal and legitimate facet of English national identity. The English nuns living in exile constructed and preserved their English identity in three ways: by preserving the past through history writing and life writing in the form of obituaries, cultivating the present by promoting English

Catholic spirituality through translations, and finally by looking toward the future through securing their way home through patronage networks and letter-writing.

In the last fifteen to twenty years, many dedicated historians expanded the study of the English convents in exile. However, certain characteristics of the English convents need further exploration such as convent culture, reading, writing, spirituality, and gender. This thesis contributes to the growing historiography of this topic by exploring the construction and preservation of an authentic English Catholic identity. While my research utilizes existing scholarship on the English nuns in exile, I also expand several topics such as history writing, obituaries, and the Blue Nuns, that historians have only briefly discussed. Furthermore, the methodological approaches of identity and exile are unique to the study of the English nuns in that they add to the growing discourse of exile and religious identity in the early modern period.

7 For research on identity formation in the English convents in exile, please refer to Caroline Bowden, “The English Convents in Exile and Questions of National Identity c. 1600-1688.” In British and Irish Emigrants and Exiles in Europe, 1603-1688, ed. D. Worthington. (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2010); “Identity politics and nuns’ writing.” Women’s Writing, Vol. 4, No. 2, August 2007; Liesbeth Corens, “Catholic nuns and English identities. English Protestant travellers on the English convents in the Low Countries, 1660-1730.” Recusant History, Vol. 30, No. 3, 2011.

English Nuns’ Identity in Exile

Plenty of works look at the importance of nuns’ writing, patronage, spirituality, and reading, but not enough research studies the efforts that the English nuns put into maintaining an English identity. My main prerogative combines a few of these topics to illustrate how the nuns maintained a sense of English identity while living in exile.

Caroline Bowden’s chapter entitled “The English Convents in Exile and Questions of

National Identity c. 1600-1688” inspired my research.8 She touches on several methods the English nuns employed to preserve an English identity. These methods include the employing of English chaplains and spiritual directors, reading texts in English as well as the lives of saints associated with England and Tudor martyrs, praying for the conversion of England, and adhering to the strict rule of accepting only English ladies into the convents, with very few exceptions for Irish, Welsh and Scottish women. Other articles include Marie-Louise Coolahan’s “Archipelagic Identities in Europe: Irish Nuns in

English convents” and Jenna Lay’s “The Literary Lives of Nuns: Crafting Identities

Through Exile” both of which are published in the edited volume of essays The English

Convents in Exile, 1600-1800: Communities, Culture and Identity.9 Another text is due for publication this year, edited by James E. Kelly, entitled Early Modern English

Catholicism: Identity, Memory and Counter-Reformation, c. 1570-1800.10

8 Caroline Bowden, “The English Convents in Exile and Questions of National Identity c. 1600- 1688,” in British and Irish Emigrants and Exiles in Europe, 1603-1688, ed. D. Worthington (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2010). 9 Caroline Bowden and James E. Kelly (eds), The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800: Communities, Culture, and Identity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013). 10 James E. Kelly and Susan Royal (eds), Early Modern English Catholicism: Identity, Memory and Counter-Reformation, c. 1570-1800, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2016).

History Writing

The six volume English Convents in Exile dedicates an entire volume to the history writing practices of the “Rouen Chronicles of the Poor Clare Sisters” and persists as the only research on history writing in the English convents. Nearly every convent possesses a written narrative as to the foundations and struggles of their convent. The chronicles, annals, and histories of the English convents could reveal how they shaped their past to ensure their future.

Obituaries

The only other scholarly work that provides an introduction to the importance of obituaries’ contributions to English identity is Caroline Bowden’s article “Collecting the

Lives of Early Modern Women Religious: obituary writing and the development of collective memory and corporate identity.”11 To establish high standards and encourage

“new members to aspire to devotion, discipline and fulfilling the rules and constitutions of the founders was the communal reading of texts of exemplary lives.”12 While the reading aloud of saint’s lives and English martyrs emerged as the norm, the nuns reading the obituaries of deceased sisters praised their virtues and religious qualities. These exemplary obits inspired living sisters to continue that legacy of religious piety practiced by past members. The lessons learned through obits contributed to the well being of the convent thus guaranteeing its survival.

11 Caroline Bowden, “Collecting the Lives of Early Modern Women Religious: obituary writing and the development of collective memory and corporate identity,” Women’s History Review Vol. 19, No. 1 (February 2010). 12 Bowden, “Collecting the Lives,” 7.

Translations

Jaime Goodrich, a main contributor to the study of the impact of the English nuns’ translations, offers valuable insight into the works of two nuns, Mary Percy and

Elizabeth Evelinge. However, often overlooked are the translations of Catherine

Greenbury and Alexia Grey and their achievements in offering English spiritual works to their fellow sisters in exile. Furthermore, much more study is needed on the impact of these translations in the maintenance of English Catholic spirituality preferences and practices among recusants, both the laity and professed religious.

Letter-Writing

Considering the limitations placed on nuns’ letter-writing frequency during the early modern era, the vast volume of letters that have survived is astounding and worth notice. Claire Walker’s article, “‘Doe not suppose me a well mortified Nun dead to the world’: Letter-Writing in Early Modern English Convents” introduces the effects of letter-writing among the English nuns, but not much scholarship has been done since.13

Based on the little evidence I discovered during my research, of the patronage networks established by certain nuns such as Clare Conyers and Winifred Thimelby, I hypothesize that the networks are far more extensive and vast than my initial research suggests; the connections made by these and other nuns may expand to hundreds of benefactors and supporters, bearing much similarity to the charts found in Lindsay O’Neill’s monograph,

The Opened Letter: Networking in the Early Modern British World.14

13 Claire Walker, “‘Doe not supose me a well mortifyed Nun dead to the world’: Letter-Writing in the Early Modern English Convents,” in Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, 1450-1700. Ed. James Daybell (Hampshire & New York: Palgrave, 2001). 14 Lindsay O’Neill, The Opened Letter: Networking in the Early Modern British World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015).

The Blue Nuns

I discovered the Blue Nuns when I contacted Dr. Caroline Bowden, an AHRC

Senior Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London for the “Who Were the

Nuns?” project.15 When I first contacted Dr. Bowden and told her about my thesis topic on the English nuns, she pointed out to me that the Blue Nuns hardly appeared in the historiography so far. While initially I only wished to focus on Carmelite and Benedictine communities, the Blue Nuns of Paris have been a fascinating group of women to study.

So far only one primary source associated with them exists: The Diary of the “Blue

Nuns” or Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady of Paris, 1658-1810.16 This thesis explores their small order and shows how they engaged in preserving their English identity.

Catholic Perspective on English Identity

When English identity is discussed, it is associated with Protestantism and the state religion, Anglicanism. Traditionally, Catholicism is not included. Being Catholic has been associated with foreignness and therefore un-English. However, the English nuns strived to maintain a recognizable English identity for their eventual return to

England. Liesbeth Corens’ article interestingly evaluates Protestant English subjects’ visits to English convents and that the Protestant travellers recognized the English nuns as authentically English.17 In their accounts, the English travellers recognized these women as English compatriots with no negative comments on their religion. This

15 A prosopographical study of the English convents in exile, the key purpose of the database is to identify those women who entered the English convents from the foundation of the first new house in Brussels in 1598 until 1800. 16 Joseph Gillow and Richard Trappes-Lomax, eds., The Diary of the “Blue Nuns” or Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady at Paris, 1658-1810 (London: Catholic Record Society, 1910). 17 Liesbeth Corens, “Catholic nuns and English identities. English Protestant Travellers on the English convents in the Low Countries, 1660-1730,” Recusant History Vol. 30, No. 3 (2011).

10 understanding illustrates Englishness went deeper and beyond religious preference, that, despite the fact that the nuns lived in foreign countries, they still clung to their English roots by speaking English, receiving the English travellers, and remaining connected to their English heritage.

Preserving the Past: History Writing and Obituaries

The process of recording a convent’s history formed an important characteristic of maintaining an English identity because it displayed a sense of continuity with England’s historical past. Through this connection, the nuns’ developed a heightened purpose in their lives to continue England’s Catholic history through their works and prayers. Many of the convent histories begin with the founding of their particular order and house. For example, the Order of the Immaculate Conception, often referred to as the “Blue Nuns” or Conceptionists, started out as a completely different order: Third Order Franciscans.

When the community of Third Order Franciscans in Nieuport became too large, they sent out a small group to found another house of the same order in Paris. After settling in

Paris, the nuns decided that they wanted to adopt the Rule and habit of the Order of the

Immaculate Conception founded by Beatrice de Silva in Castile in 1489.

While the practice of writing obituaries or “obits” for deceased members of a religious community had been a long established practice by this time, the English nuns utilized the obits by reading them aloud on the anniversaries of each nun’s death. The practice of reading obituaries out loud to the community contributed to the nuns’ sense of corporate identity in an integral and deeply personal way. Obituaries recorded the religious name and alias of the deceased with the date they passed into eternal life, and how many years they had been professed. The obituaries the Carmelite nuns wrote in

Antwerp detail the touching examples of the importance of the lives of their sisters.

While most entries are short, many provide vocation stories recounting how a particular sister decided to join the convent.18 Furthermore, the obits also include spiritual reflections and exercises the deceased sister penned that either served for her own personal use or circulated around the community.19

Cultivating the Present: Translation and English Catholic Spirituality

With the exception of celebrating the Liturgy and Divine Office in Latin, the nuns’ spiritual texts remained mainly in English. For practical purposes the English nuns translated texts into the vernacular because many nuns did not possess any knowledge of a second, foreign language. For the purposes of maintaining an English identity, translation of texts into English served a dual purpose: first, the use of English within the

English convents attracted girls of the recusant community. Second, translation of spiritual texts into English “is the focus for the articulation of identity.”20 Seeking to maintain their connection with the wider recusant Catholic community, the nuns’ used their anonymity and authority to translate texts to take a stance on key issues, such as the establishment of the Second Franciscan Province and the controversy between the

Appellants and regular clergy. Far from being exempt from these issues, they manifested within the convents themselves and thus the nuns sought resolutions that affected both the convent and recusant communities.

In addition to translating texts that circulated among the laity, nuns in leadership positions also translated copies of the Rule for the edification of their sisters who just

18 Katrien Daemen- de Gelder, ed., Life Writing II. Vol 4, The English Convents in Exile, 1600- 1800 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013), 99. 19Ibid. 20 Marie-Louise Coolahan, “Identity politics and nuns’ writing,” Women’s Writing Vol. 4, No. 2 (August 2007): 306.

12 entered, as well as for on-going formation purposes. The holy rules in question, of St.

Clare and St. Benedict, each emphasized issues vital to the English nuns’ preservation and maintenance of an English Catholic identity, evangelical poverty and obedience, respectively. Only when each nun followed every precept and ordinance of the rule could the community work as a cohesive unit towards their future goal of bringing female monasticism and Catholicism back to England.

Looking Toward the Future: Patronage Networks and Letter-Writing

Writing letters home also evolved into an important strategy of supporting an

English identity abroad because it linked the exiled nuns back to their home country

England and to their families. Letters home “keenly sought information” concerning family members in England amidst “the turbulent political climate of the late seventeenth century,” while also exchanging news concerning relatives abroad both in the convents and the seminaries.21 Staying connected with loved ones in England provided the nuns with a strong sense of their identity as English Catholics.

A key component of writing letters included attracting novices to the convents

(Figure 2). Correspondence to England exhorting family members to encourage their daughters to consider a religious vocation abroad proved a keen strategy especially since young women could not simply visit a convent for inquiries, but usually obtained information about the convent, such as the spirituality practiced by the nuns, the schedule of the day, the responsibilities of each individual sister, and so on through a missionary priest. Only by attracting a steady flow of novices could the convents in exile push through the tides of change into the future because, of course, no nuns meant no

21 Claire Walker, “‘Doe not suppose me a well mortified Nun dead to the world’: Letter-Writing in Early Modern English Convents,” in Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, 1450-1700, ed. James Daybell (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 159.

Total&Professions&from&160121710&

180" 160" 140" 120" 100" 80" 60" Total"Professions" 40" from"1601(1710*" 20" 0"

1601(1610"1611(1620"1621(1630"1631(1640"1641(1650"1651(1660"1661(1670"1671(1680"1681(1690"1691(1700"1701(1710"

Figure 2. Total professions from 1601-1710. As cited in Claire Walker’s Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe, 20 (see note 1).

triumphant return to England. Furthermore, the patronage networks established through letter-writing meant that in times of crisis, the English nuns tapped into these sources of revenue to rebuild their convents and lives. The disasters that befell the Poor Clares of

Gravelines and the Bridgettines of Lisbon and the destruction of their respective convents meant that they needed funds from their English compatriots since they could not fully rely on the foreign community in which they lived. Funds from generous benefactors stood between the nuns’ desolation and mission to pray for the return of Catholicism to

England. Finally, when the French Revolution forced many English communities to return to England, many convents relied on their family and friends to provide shelter, donations, and other necessities for their survival. The Blue Nuns of Paris depended upon the generosity of their long-time benefactor, the Jerningham family, from 1800 to 1805, when the community dissolved. Due to patronage networks and letter-writing, the

English nuns living in exile through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries continued

14 with their mission to preserve and maintain an English Catholic identity until they could reestablish their convents legally in England during the nineteenth century.

Life Inside an Early Modern Convent

Hidden behind the walls and grille, few lay people knew the inner workings of convent life and the daily schedule, tasks, and expectations of nuns. Structure and discipline constituted and held together the inner workings of cloistered life, especially after the Council of Trent. One particular change that post-Tridentine convents differed in from their medieval predecessors was the issue of enclosure. Pope Boniface VIII published the papal bull Periculoso (1298) that made enclosure a compulsory requirement for all nuns, and claimed that separating nuns from the intrusive looks of the outside world allowed the women, “to serve God more freely, wholly separated from the public and worldly gaze, and, occasions for lasciviousness having been removed, may most diligently safeguard their hearts and bodies in complete chastity.”22 Jo Ann

McNamara also asserts in her work Sisters in Arms, a monograph that focuses on the history of nuns and women religious and their on-going struggles against the male patriarchy, that the clergy could not effectively carry out their priestly duties with nuns walking freely through the towns due to “women’s natural inability to refrain from tempting men.”23 Though Periculoso remained on the books as canon law, women religious paid no heed to its regulations and continued to come and go from the convent as they pleased for the rest of the medieval period. However, in the reforms of the

Council of Trent, clerics concluded that, to avoid laxity and to promote devotion, enclosure became an absolute rule of life for nuns after the publishing of Pope Pius V’s

22 Elizabeth Makowski, Canon Law and Cloistered Women: Periculoso and its Commentators, 1298-1545 (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1997), 135. 23 McNamara, Sisters in Arms, 317.

Circa Pastoralis (1566) and Decori et honestati (1570), as well as Pope Gregory’s papal bull Deo Sacris (1572). This applied to all women’s orders and even forced teaching and nursing nuns, such as Mary Ward’s Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Angela

Merici’s Ursulines, to either disband, carry on their work as laywomen, or move their apostolate behind the convent walls. In the end, many women who founded new religious orders embraced the rule of enclosure and even required professed nuns to take a fourth vow of enclosure, as in the case of St. Teresa of Avila’s reformed branch of the Carmelite order. The cloistering of nuns indicated that no nun could leave the convent without specific permission and for a pressing reason, such as illness or founding a new house.

Also, no unqualified persons could enter within the enclosure unless they were a cleric, physician or had permission from the superiors of the convent. All visitors visited the nuns in a room called the parlor, and a grille, a set of bars, separated the two. This extreme case of separation ensured that the nuns’ prayer would not be disturbed and that they could remain safe behind the walls and locks of the convent.

Each religious order of both men and women followed a specific Rule that governed each aspect of religious life from how to receive new members, the requirements for formation, the duties of each senior office, the daily schedule according to liturgical season, in addition to indicating the overall charism and spirit of the house, just to name a few. For example, rules required that the sisters voted to elect each senior position within the convent. Depending upon the individual rule, an abbess or prioress governed the convent in which they lived and acted as a spiritual mother through whom

God revealed His will for each sister. She held the office for her whole life or as health permitted, and oversaw the finances of the community, had dealings with the outside

16 world, and guided the spiritual progress of her daughters in religion. Depending upon the order, the abbess or prioress had help from a handful of assistants known as discreets, deans, vicaresses, or convictrices.24 Other roles that required a vote included the procuratrix, who took responsibility over the food and drink storage, the novice mistress that oversaw the education and spiritual welfare of postulants and novices, the chantress entoned the plain chant psalms recited during the Divine Office, the infirmarian cared for the sick of the community, the sacristan prepared the necessary vestments, linens, and vessels for the celebration of Mass, and the portress remained by the main door to the convent enclosure to monitor persons who visited the house.

The process for a woman entering the convent remains much the same today as it did during the early modern period. First, two types of nuns existed within the convent: the choir nun and lay sister. The choir nun is so named after the “choir” where nuns chanted the Divine Office in Latin. They professed solemn or perpetual vows, could vote in elections, and adhered to the following regulations for entrance. After inquiring about entrance, the community voted as to whether or not the aspirant met the basic necessary requirements for becoming a nun, such as good physical health,25 means of paying the dowry, a sort of entrance fee, adequate spiritual maturity, and the ability of living in a community. Once the woman entered she became a postulant. In this first step of the formation process, the postulant learned the basic elements of convent life and the spirituality practiced by the order. After a period of no more than a year, the postulant became a novice, received the habit, a specific uniform unique to each religious order, a

24 All information regarding the definitions of positions and roles within convents are taken from a glossary I have compiled for the Who Were the Nuns? website, expected for publication in Fall 2016. 25 The Augustinian Canonesses actually accepted disabled women into their community, called “white sisters”, though their numbers remained few.

17 new religious name, and wore a white veil to distinguish her from the perpetually professed sisters. The novice takes on a more active role within the community, as well as under going a more intensive study of the spirituality and rule practiced by the community. The novice remained as such for a couple years, no longer than three, during which she annually professed temporary vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. After receiving permission from the abbess or prioress, the novice professed solemn vows for life, to never leave her community for another, and to remain faithful to Jesus Christ, her mystical spouse. Lay sisters, on the other hand, acted as the convent servants, since they could not afford the dowry or chant the Divine Office in Latin, and in some orders were allowed to leave the confines of the convent to conduct business. They prayed simplified prayers of either reciting 150 Hail Marys or the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, since their main task was physical labor around the convent. Furthermore, lay sisters had neither active nor passive voice in the affairs of the community, in other words, they had no vote in chapter and could not be elected to any office in the community.

The English Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries

The English Reformation began in the first two decades of the sixteenth century essentially not with Henry VIII when he broke with Rome, but with a German

Augustinian monk named Martin Luther. As a Biblical scholar at the University of

Wittenburg, Luther translated a line of scripture from Romans 1 that would change the face of Christendom forever. His interpretation of verse seventeen of “righteousness” from the Vulgate’s Latin for “justification” set on course the doctrines of sola fides or

“faith alone” and sola scriptura or “Scripture alone.” From this discovery Martin Luther

“had found the ultimate revealed truth in the Bible, and saw the Bible through new eyes:

‘at this I felt myself straightway born afresh and to have entered through the open gates into paradise itself.’”26 From his “justification through faith alone” derived from St.

Paul’s epistle, Luther went on to battle head on the sale of indulgences, whose funds the

Vatican utilized to reconstruct St. Peter’s Basilica, which set him on an embattled course with the papacy and Roman Catholicism for the rest of his life.27 In essence, Luther never intended to form a new religion or to rent asunder the Christian faith, “Luther's purpose was to reinforce Christendom, not to destroy or replace it. But, by radically transposing the sources for authority and legitimation within Christendom, he opened the door to the decay of the united belief-community at its heart."28 Before the middle of the century, the unity of Europe under the Catholic Church became a distant memory.29

Due to the Protestant Reformation, the belief that the Catholic Church and the papacy no longer held sway over the souls in Europe from the lowest peasant to the highest monarch, theologians and kings alike, from Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin, to the German princes and Henri of Navarre, began to redefine what it meant to be a true

Christian. By the 1530s, Henry VIII dragged England into the ranks of countries that challenged papal authority and the fires of dissension did not settle until the end of the sixteenth century. Henry VIII did not start his career as king of England as a reformer, but as actually a candidate for church leadership as the second son of Henry VII. When

26 Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History (New York: Viking, 2003), 116. 27 "The treasury of merit and then be granted the fateful to shorten the time spent doing penance in purgatory, and that grant is an indulgence." MacCulloch, The Reformation, 118. 28 Mark Greengrass, Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648 (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), 6. 29 For more on the Protestant Reformation, please refer to Madeleine Gray, The Protestant Reformation: Belief, Practice, and Tradition (Brighton, U.K.: Sussex Academic, 2003); Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: The Reformation to the Present Day (New York: Harper One, 2010); R. Po-chia Hsia, ed., A Companion to the Reformation World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490- 1700 (London: Allen Lane, 2003); Andrew Pettegree, ed., The Early Reformation in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

Arthur, Prince of Wales died at the age of fifteen, young Henry stepped in as heir apparent to the English throne. Upon his accession he married Katharine of Aragon who, since Arthur’s death in 1502, had been waiting in the shadows as a pawn in English politics, moved by two powerful players: her father Ferdinand, king of Spain and her father-in-law, Henry VII.30 Although canon law declared that the laws of consanguinity prevented Henry VIII from marrying Katharine due to her previous marriage to his brother, Pope Julius II issued a papal dispensation declaring that her previous marriage had never been consummated and did not violate Biblical law as stipulated in Leviticus.31

Despite these circumstances surrounding their marriage, it promised to be a happy one but, as Katharine’s string of pregnancies resulted in still births and miscarriages resulting in the live birth of a girl, the future Mary I, the matters concerning succession grew heavy on Henry’s mind.

In the late 1520s Anne Boleyn entered the court scene as lady-in-waiting to

Katharine of Aragon.32 She caught the king’s eye, which initiated a love affair that would turn England on its head for the rest of the century. By 1529, Henry began proceedings to end his marriage referred to as “The Great Matter.” Because Pope Clement VII could not decide upon the case due to his imprisonment in the Castel San Angelo in the aftermath of the Sack of Rome, he sent papal nuncio Cardinal Campeggio to hear the arguments in the case and reach a decision. Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England, and

30 For more about Katharine of Aragon, please refer to John E. Paul, Catherine of Aragon and Her Friends (New York: Fordham University Press, 1966); Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII (New York: Walker & Company, 2010); Catherine Fletcher, The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 31 Leviticus 20:21b 32 For more information on Anne Boleyn, please refer to Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005); G.W. Bernard, Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011); Retha Warnicke, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

Campeggio opened the legatine court at Blackfriars and issued a summons to Queen

Katharine to appear before the court on June 18, 1529.33 She declared to the court that she had not had sexual relations with her first husband, thus rendering her marriage to the king legitimate. She further added, “And whether this be true or no, I put it to your conscience” and appealed to the pope.34 With that she left the legatine court and did not return, though the proceedings carried on without her for the rest of June 1529. In July, after Campeggio and Wolsey received word that the pope approved the Queen’s appeal to

Rome, the legatine court adjourned for a recess, but never reconvened again. The spirit of the Protestant Reformation began to stir up in Henry VIII as he questioned the authority of the pope to dictate matters concerning the royal succession within the realm of

England.

In January 1531, Henry VIII convened the Convocation of Canterbury to discuss matters of reform within the clergy and how to deal with and punish heretics. From this the king petitioned the clergy of England “to be styled ‘sole protector and supreme head of the English Church and clergy’” which met with opposition from the bishops, most notably John Fisher, and Henry’s new Lord Chancellor, Thomas More.35 The bishops amended the bill to reflect that Henry remained supreme head “as far as the law of God allows,” which he agreed to only so he could collect on the £100,000 suit he filed against the clergy for their failure to attain his divorce at the Blackfriars proceedings. Still unable to obtain a divorce, the king continued to intimidate the pope and the English clergy by introducing bills to Parliament that impeded bishops paying their annates, or first

33 Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1941), 283. 34 Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 286. 35 Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society under the Tudors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 107.

21 financial fruits of a benefice, to the pope and the reform of canon law and procedure. By

May 1532, faced with the choice of “being deflowered by the king or devoured by the

Commons,” and unable to come to a compromise, the clergy delivered their

“Submission” to the king at Westminster.36 With that, the king cleared his path toward a divorce from Katharine and his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Henry appointed Thomas

Cranmer as the new archbishop of Canterbury who proceeded to declare his marriage to

Katharine of Aragon as null and void in May 1533. At the same time, Cranmer announced that the king’s had marriage to a pregnant Anne Boleyn in January as lawful and legitimate. With the king’s supremacy firmly in place, Henry, with the help of his new chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, set his sights on the previously untapped wealth in the monasteries of England, now his for the taking as head of the Church in England.37

Diverse in character, size, class, intellect, and devotion, the English nunneries in

England thrived in the three centuries preceding the Dissolution. Over 130 convents sprawled over the country, representing a variety of religious orders, such as Benedictine,

Dominican, Praemonstrian, whose inhabitants also exhibited a wide range in their ardor of devotion.38 In Kathleen Cooke’s essay “The English Nuns and the Dissolution,” she analyzes “the state of monasticism in the 16th century, a brief glance at the process of the dissolution itself, and finally a glimpse of the difference in the fortunes and treatment

36 Haigh, English Reformations, 115. 37 For more information on the English Reformation, please refer to Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England, 1547-1603 (New York: Palgrave, 2001); Doreen Rosman, From Catholic to Protestant: Religion and the People in Tudor England (London: Routledge, 1996); Muriel McClendon, et. al., eds., Protestant Identities: Religion, Society, and Self-Fashioning in Post-Reformation England (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); Norman Jones, The English Reformation: Religion and Cultural Adaptation (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002); Thomas Betteridge, Tudor Histories of the Reformations, 1530-83 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999). 38 Eileen Powers, Medieval English Nunneries, c. 1275-1535 (New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1964), 685.

22 meted out to the heads of houses and their charges.”39 When looking at the state of monasticism among women religious in Tudor England, it must be noted that a majority of nunneries were very poor. According to the Suppression Act in 1536, the first houses dissolved would be those that made less than £200 per annum; a total of 112 nunneries made well below this requirement,40 while only twenty-one nunneries made above £200 per annum. These convents are also recorded as having very few nuns in residence, usually no more than twelve. The wealthiest monastic houses for women, Syon Abbey and Shaftesbury Abbey, brought in annual incomes between £1,000-£2,000 and boasted memberships of over fifty.41 A majority of the other nineteen nunneries made only between £200-£400 per annum with the remainder making between £500-£900 p.a. with varying memberships.42

Another characteristic to consider when analyzing the state of monasticism in sixteenth century England is to look at just how many women entered religious life.

While there had always been more men than women in religious orders in England, by the time the dissolution was complete, 1,900 nuns were dispossessed compared to a staggering 8,780 men.43 Even though the larger houses, like Syon Abbey, gained reputations as centers of spiritual life, the quality of that same spiritual life spectators seriously questioned the smaller houses laxity in performing liturgical practices and upholding monastic vows. While the true fervor, or lack thereof, of Tudor era nunneries may never be known, Cooke suggests to focus on the positive aspects of women’s

39 Kathleen Cooke, “The English Nuns and the Dissolution,” in The Cloister and the World, ed. John Blair and Brian Golding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 288. 40 Cooke, “The English Nuns and the Dissolution,” 290. 41 Cooke, 289. 42 Ibid. Per annum. 43 Ibid, 291.

23 religious life and what they contributed to the community, no matter how small that contribution may have been. When an aristocratic family had a “surplus or otherwise unmarriageable daughters,” it was considered “less expensive to endow a daughters with an ‘entry gift’ to a nunnery than to provide for her at marriage.”44 Furthermore, religious houses for women gave them the chance to “develop their spiritual, intellectual or leadership” skills and perhaps serve out the community through “education, hospitality, and charity, and as sources of inspiration and prayer.”45 So while monastic life did not appeal to a majority of the population, the fact that it still attracted even to a small number of women does not make monasticism insignificant.

Though Cromwell often serves as the villain in the story of the dissolution, he in fact served the crown and followed orders as the king’s chancellor after his appointment in 1534. In fact, “two other ministers whose part in the planning and carrying out of the

Dissolution should not be ignored, namely Thomas Howard, third duke of Norfolk, and

Sir Thomas, later Lord, Audley.”46 The main reason Cromwell dissolved the monasteries due to the reportedly dissolute lives of the monks and nuns in not keeping with their vows. A small percentage of religious did not observe the devout life such as some minor offenses that included nuns that chanted the divine offices “too quickly” or failing to rise in the middle of the night for matins due to staying up too late in the evening. Much more serious infractions included nuns who broke their vow of chastity that resulted in pregnancy and due punishment as in the case of Elizabeth Lutton. Several years after being professed a nun at the age of fourteen, Lutton conceived a child and was “cut off

44 Ibid, 292. 45 Ibid. 46 Joyce Youings, The Dissolution of the Monasteries (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1971), 21.

24 from all association with the other nuns and placed in a house outside the cloister, but within the precinct of the nunnery.”47 Sexual irregularities were often cited as the driving force behind Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries among other offenses. However, the evidence gathered by the commissioners would suggest otherwise: out of 120 houses, only four reported sexual misconduct of nuns.48

Though infractions against religious life did occur, certain inconsistencies emerge from Cromwell’s motives. First, the Dissolution Act divided great abbeys from small ones on the basis of religious houses having twelve or more members as large. However, when the suppression occurred, annual income and not membership defined smaller houses; initially, those houses that made less than £200 per annum were dissolved.49 A second inconsistency concerns two agents of the king Richard Layton and Thomas Legh: they claimed to have finished their visitations of 120 religious houses that were spread across the north in just two months.50 Considering that this estimate would put their number of visitations at two convents each day when travel was considered quite difficult, this is highly unlikely. While this may put to rest the absurdity of the allegations brought against religious houses, Layton and Legh could have recorded 120 visitations on two grounds: one, that monks and nuns came to them to account for their respective religious house and two, that not all monasteries listed in the Compendium Compertorum were in fact visited. Furthermore, the information found in the Compendium

47 G.W.O. Woodward, The Dissolution of the Monasteries, (London: Blandford Press, 1966). 43. 48 Woodward, The Dissolution, 33. 49 Woodward, 31. 50 Ibid, 32.

Compertorum need not have taken up too much time and would have allowed the agents to finish in the time recorded.51

The final topic concerning nuns once they were turned out of their convents was how they were to make a living in the world. During the final phase of suppression

(1538-40), nearly all monks and nuns received pensions. These pensions depended upon the annual income of the religious house and what position the men and women held in the establishment. The abbesses and prioresses received a significantly larger pension than their nuns. Out of 116 abbesses and prioresses, twenty received less than £5, half a pension of £5-£10. On the other end of the scale, fourteen were granted £40-£50 while six received over £50.52 Pensions to nuns were on a meager scale with two percent of nuns receiving more than £7 per annum and thirty-nine percent allotted no more than

£2.53 It cannot be interpreted any more clearly that former nuns were in desperate financial straits after the dissolution of the monasteries.

Elizabethan and Early Jacobean English Catholicism

The English nuns living in exile strove to preserve and maintain an English

Catholic identity, but what sort of English Catholicism did the nuns practice? Long before the English nuns’ mission in exile began, English Catholics struggled among themselves to define the exact tenets of their faith and how they would be governed. The

English Catholic community tried to determine whether they should return to pre-

Dissolution Catholicism, or to move forward in light of the reforms of the Council of

Trent. Needless to say, the nuns had no intention of conforming in the slightest to the

51 Cooke, 33. 52 Ibid, 298. 53 Ibid.

Church of England, as in the precarious case of the church papists.54 So named from a popular piece of propaganda written in 1582 by an Essex vicar, George Gifford, he assigns the name “church papist” in this exchange between a “Professor of the Gospel” to a “Papist,”

Pa[pist]: Wherefore should yee call me Papist, I am obedient to the laws, and do not refuse to go to the Churche. Pro[fessor of the Gospel]: Then it seemeth you are a Church Papist. Pa[pist]: A Church Papist, what meane ye by that? Pro[fessor of the Gospel]: Doe not you know? I will tell ye, there are Papists which will not come at the Churche: and there are Papistes which can keepe their conscience to themselves, and yet goe to Church: of this latter sorte it seemeth you are: because yee goe to the Church.55

A church papist, unlike his Catholic counterpart, the recusant, attended Church of

England services as required by the law and kept his personal beliefs to himself. Since the

English nuns did not remain in England and attend Anglican services, they practiced recusant English Catholicism and established themselves within the recusant community in the Spanish Low Countries and France. The year 1568 marks the traditional starting point of the English Catholic community with the establishment of the English Seminary

College at Douai.56 Restoration in England seemed possible during the reign of Queen

Elizabeth I due to a “lack of uniform, united and univocal front against Catholicism.”57

However, according to Professor Bossy, this proved unrealistic in two ways: failure on behalf of the English Catholic episcopacy to recognize the reality of the English

54 See Alexandra Walsham’s Church Papists: Catholilcism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1999). 55 George Gifford, A Dialogue between a Papist and a Protestant, applied to the capacitie of the unlearned as cited in Walsham’s Church Papists: Catholilcism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England, 1. 56 John Bossy, The English Catholic Community, 1570-1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 12. 57 Michael Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c. 1550-1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 50.

Reformation “as an ecclesiastical structure and as a way of life,” and failure to admit overall the change in the “passage of authority from the clergy to the lay aristocracy.”58

Recusant English Catholicism

Which faction of recusant English Catholicism did the English nuns practice? The recusants divided themselves into two distinct groups around the clergy that wished to govern the community: the secular clergy that remained in England, who wished to embody pre-Reformation ideals, later known as the Appellants,59 and the missionary

Jesuits and Benedictines, who treated England as a blank slate to enforce the statutes set forth by the recent Council of Trent (1563-1568). The Appellants envisioned an ecclesiastical ideal with “clearly defined orders of clergy, laity and religious” further indicating the “proper place for religious was the cloister,” referring to the Jesuits and

Benedictines, thus leaving “the whole worldly business of the Church the sphere of the secular priesthood.”60 When Pope Clement VIII tried to settle the controversy in 1598 by appointing an archpriest, George Blackwell, the Appellants refused to recognize his authority, since such an appointment held no precedent in the history of the English

Church. Therefore, in 1602, the pope stipulated that the archpriest could not consult any matters concerning the English Catholic community with the Jesuit missionaries. With segregation finally achieved, the Appellants could pursue their ideal.

During the reigns of James I and Charles I, the Appellants gained the newly created position of Bishop of Chalcedon, held successively by William Bishop and

Richard Smith from 1623-1631. Although Bishop and Smith actively exercised episcopal

58 Bossy, English Catholic Community, 31. 59 Some notable Appellants include William Allen, Thomas Harding, Thomas Stapleton, and Nicholas Sanders. Bossy, 13. 60 Ibid, 43.

28 rule, this caused a split between them and the gentry. While the gentry had usually chosen their own priests as spiritual directors, the Bishop of Chalcedon appointed secular clergy to them with no consultation. Seeking to maintain some control of the way things were managed, the gentry chose priests from the Jesuit and Benedictine missions that had joined forces and organized “to join the gentry on their own sectarian ground.”61 With tensions mounting, “an impressively long list of nobility and gentry, presented to the

Privy council a statement refusing to admit [Bishop] Smith’s exterior jurisdiction as contrary to their allegiance” leading to a charge of high treason. Smith retreated to France in 1629 and, when Rome decided against him in 1631, “the gentry supremacy was ensured for an indefinite time; the regular [Jesuit and Benedictine] missions were entrenched; the Catholic community began to settle down [ . . .] without any hierarchy of pastors.”62

As evidenced by the clear stance nuns such as Mary Percy, Elizabeth Evelinge,

Anne Worsley, and others took as to how they governed their respective convents, the

English nuns in exile practiced the recusant English Catholicism as laid out by the methods and manners of the regular clergy, the Jesuits, Benedictines, and so on, who upheld the reform ideals of the Council of Trent. Following Tridentine reforms meant that the nuns upheld the seven sacraments as indicated through scripture and the interpretation of the Church, papal enclosure for all women religious as described in

Circa pastoralis published by Pius V in 1566, the Latin liturgy, the overall reforms concerning the laxity in religious orders, upholding the Vulgate Bible as well as the

61 Bossy, 49. 62 Ibid, 60.

Church tradition that interpreted scripture.63 A vast majority of the English convents discussed in this thesis were established as reformed houses and as such placed greater emphasis on enhancing and advancing in prayer life as written by eminent masters of the spiritual life in early modern Europe such as St. Teresa’s The Interior Castle, St.

Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, in addition to the mystical regiment of Augustine Baker.

While the English nuns followed Tridentine Catholicism, they also remembered the vast history of Catholicism in England by commemorating medieval English saints and sixteenth century martyrs within the prayers of the Divine Office and the Mass.

Though the English nuns did not side with the Appellants, this does not indicate a complete break from Medieval English Catholicism. In fact,

there was much more continuity in England than those who have distinguished between ‘medieval Catholicism’ and ‘Counter-Reformation Catholicism’ have allowed, and that emerging English recusancy owed much to what had gone before: the English Reformation was not a precise and dramatic event, it was a long and complex process.64

In solidarity with the English missionary efforts, support of the laity remained a crucial component of vocations. The severe scarcity of priests forced the laity to create rituals and semi-religious liturgies of their own to make up for the loss. Instead of “seeking to suppress traditional rituals and practices” associated with pre-Reformation Catholicism, missionaries “mobilized and subtly remoulded them as instruments of confessionalization,” such as devotion to the saints, relics, pilgrimages, sacramentals like holy water, crucifixes, and rosaries, and other stream lined forms of worship.65 Though

63 R. Po-Chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540-1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 64 Christopher Haigh, “The Continuity of Catholicism in the English Reformation,” Past and Present, No. 93 (Nov., 1981), 39. 65 Alexandra Walsham, “Translating Trent? English Catholicism and the Counter Reformation,” Institute of Historical Research, Vol. 78, no. 201 (August 2005): 303.

30 the edicts of Trent suggested that the key to reform was a strong parochial presence in problem areas, the English Catholic community possessed no such advantage. So, although the various methods of encouraging piety among the recusant community seems contradictory to Tridentine ideals, as Alexandra Walsham stated, the missionary priests did their best to embody the reform zeal and spirit of Trent to edify the souls of their flock and encourage many religious vocations to the English convents.66

Early Hopes and Efforts of Return

Under the new Stuart King James I, the English nuns felt hopeful about returning to England. The second Viscount Montague led the members of the secular clergy and

Catholic nobility to prove their loyalty to the new monarch. Unfortunately, in February

1604, James I turned a “hostile face towards papists” with an anti-recusant legislation titled “An Acte for the due Execution of the Statutes against Jesuits, Seminary Priestes,

Recusants, etc.”67 Things further unraveled with the unfolding of the Gunpowder Plot in

1605 compounded by Lord Montague’s association with the conspirator Robert Catesby and the revelation that Guy Fawkes formerly worked in the Viscount’s household.

Hostility towards Catholics stirred up yet again in 1624 after the collapse of the Spanish match for Prince Charles. Yet, with the negotiations made for a French alliance, Viscount

Montague sought support from Cardinal Richlieu to intervene “effectively on behalf of

English Catholic recusants.”68

66 For other discussions on the formation of the early modern English Catholic community, refer to Alexandra Walsham’s Catholic Reformation in Protestant Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014); Caroline M. Hibbard’s “Early Stuart Catholicism: Revisions and Re-Revisions,” Journal of Modern History, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Mar., 1980); and Christopher Haigh’s “From Monopoly to Minority: Catholicism in Early Modern England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 31, (1981). 67 Questier, Catholicism and Community, 272. 68 Questier, 409.

Hope sprang anew with the accession of King Charles I and, “in contemplation of his marriage” to the French Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria, “pardons started to go out to specific recusants and priests.”69 While the English nuns received patronage from

Henrietta Maria, she remained quite unpopular in English royal politics because of her

Catholic faith. Tensions between the queen’s French entourage and the king further exacerbated the situation for Catholics, manifesting itself with the repatriation of her household and the removal of recusants from local government offices in 1626. All hope of return faded during the political unrest of the English Civil War, following the

Interregnum period of the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell (1649-1660).

When the Interregnum period ended with the accession of Charles II, the English nuns expected to return home. Besides the fact that Charles II married the Catholic

Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, and rumors hinted at Charles’ Catholic sympathies, he owed a debt of gratitude and money to a Benedictine nun who helped secure his return to the throne. Through the extensive use of her networks, Benedictine

Abbess Mary Knatchbull worked for the loyalist cause by “dispatching and receiving the mail of Charles’ closest advisers, passing on news of potential supporters and unfolding political events in England, and organizing credit for the penurious prince.”70 Although

Abbess Knatchbull did not play a key role in the restoration of Charles II, she still worked for him to secure her own agenda: aid for her convent, and toleration of Catholics in England, with the possibility of the return of the English nuns. However, as time moved forward, King Charles II did not pay the full amount of money promised to the

69 Ibid, 423. 70 Claire Walker, “Prayer, Patronage, and Political Conspiracy: English Nuns and the Restoration,” The Historical Journal Vol. 43, No.1 (March 2000): 1-2.

Benedictine Abbess and, responding under increasing pressure from his Protestant councilors, denied the toleration of Catholicism in England.

As the last Catholic monarch, James II offered the best chance of the English nuns’ homecoming. However, after a short reign of two years, his Protestant daughter,

Mary II and her husband, William of Orange, deposed the king. After this change in monarch, the English nuns no longer possessed a Catholic foothold in the crown. After the death of the last Stuart, Queen Anne, and the eager search to find legitimate

Protestant heirs to the British throne in the Hanoverian dynasty, the nuns made no attempts to return over the course of the eighteenth century. As an unorthodox effect, the tenets of modernity played a significant role in the nuns’ reestablishment in England.

First, the French Revolution and Reign of Terror abolished religion altogether in France, with its main focus on the closing of religious houses of both English and French nuns.71

Second, with Parliament seeking a resolution to the question of Ireland, the Act of Union in 1801 opened the door ever so slightly for tolerating Catholicism in England, which made the nuns’ reentry smoother. Finally, with the modern sensibilities of religious tolerance taking a firmer stance, the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829 officially paved the way for a verifiable renaissance of female religious vocations in

Great Britain as documented in Murphy’s inventory of all the newly established convents

Terra Incognitae or the convents of the United Kingdom.72

71 Fortunately the English nuns were merely turned out of their convents and held prisoner and eventually released as in the case of the Benedictine nuns of Ghent who were imprisoned with the French Carmelites of Compiegne. Unfortunately all sixteen of the French Carmelites were guillotined on July 16, 1794, less than a week before the Reign of Terror officially ended. The successors of the English Benedictines at Downside Abbey hold relics of the martyred French Carmelites in their archives. For more information, refer to William Bush’s To Quell the Terror: The Mystery of the Vocation of the Sixteen Carmelites of Compiegne Guillotined July 17, 1794, (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1999). 72 John Murphy. Terra Incognita or the Convents of the United Kingdom (London: Longman Greens, 1873). For more information on modern English nuns and sisters, refer to, Carmen Mangion,

As the English nuns navigated through the shifting sands of time and the employment of these methods of maintaining a recognizable English Catholic identity leads to one more question: were the English convents in exile successful in their endeavor of preserving English Catholic monasticism and reestablish the convents in

England? Out of the twenty-one convents that were founded, seventeen convents returned to England due to conflicts concerning the French Revolution and the subsequent suppression of convents. Unfortunately, the Blue Nuns did not successfully return to

England. Because of financial constraints and dwindling numbers, only six returned to

England in 1804 and lived in separate establishments until the death of the last nun in

1810.

Primary Sources

Although extensive study of the English convents in exile has only taken place within the last twenty years or so, there exists an abundance of primary sources available that does not involve traveling overseas to obtain them. I speak in particular of the exhaustive efforts of the men and women who have worked on volumes of primary sources, such as The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800, The Early Modern

Englishwoman: a facsimile library of essential works series, and the early twentieth century efforts of the Catholic Record Society to preserve early modern English Catholic primary sources. The six-volume set of The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800, edited by Caroline Bowden and James E. Kelly, provided transcriptions the history of the Poor

Clares of Rouen, the obituary notice of Mother Anne of the Ascension, and the letters of

Contested Identities: Catholic Women Religious in Nineteenth Century England and Wales (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008); Barbara Walsh, Roman Catholic Nuns in England and Wales 1800- 1937: A Social History. (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2002); and Susan O’Brien, “Terra Incognita: The Nun in Nineteenth Century England.” Past and Present, No. 121 (Nov., 1988).

34 several English nuns. The series of facsimile sources found in the multi-volume The

Early Modern Englishwoman supplied all the texts translated by Elizabeth Evelinge,

Mary Percy, Catherine Greenbury, and Alexia Grey. The introductory notes provided indispensable background information on the nuns themselves, the history of the texts, as well as brief analysis as to the texts’ historical importance and impact. Finally, the

Catholic Record Society has been dedicated to preserving England’s religious past from the early modern period to modern times and contributes to English Catholicism studies by publishing their bi-annual journal. I also owe a great deal to the independently published primary sources, such as the Burns and Oates, Sands and Company publishing house, in addition to the private collections of the Jerningham and Tixall families also made available to the public.

Methodology

I am approaching this thesis and analyzing the evidence through the lenses of

“identity” and “exile.” When I speak of “identity,” I am describing “the growing tendency to see the self as a construction.”73 Although the English nuns’ identity as

English and Catholic is seemingly contradictory, their identification is a counter discourse that reflects a separate but equal and legitimate facet of national identity.

Identity is not an inherent part of self. It is something that is molded over time, whether unknowingly or by specific design, as the English nuns practiced. Essentially, identity formation is an on-going, lifetime construction of customs, rituals, and culture held as important to the group or individual. Since the English nuns chose not to assimilate into

73 Linda Marie Brooks, “Alternative Identities: Stating the Problem,” in Alternative Identities: The Self in Literature, History, Theory ed. Linda Marie Brooks (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995), 27.

35 the local cultures of the Spanish Low Countries and France, they had to construct an

English Catholic identity for themselves.

Linda Marie Brooks asserts in her article, “Alternative Identities: Stating the

Problem” that alternative identities requires “replacing the static, unified self of traditional views with a notion of personal identity as evolving and multifaceted.”74 The

English nuns sought to redefine what it meant to be English. In England during the early modern period, “Englishness” was defined as Anglican, and certainly had no room in its definition to include the Catholic “Other.” In essence, the English nuns offered a counter discourse to what it meant to be English, thus introducing an “evolving and multifaceted”

Englishness: authentically English, but loyal to both the monarchy and to the papacy.

Brooks also argues that “the capacity of the concept of personal identity to function as an ethical guide lies precisely in our understanding, and our continual awareness, of the self’s constructed and evolving nature.”75 The nuns’ personal identity as English and

Catholic functioned as their guide to leave their lives in England and live in convents abroad to preserve English Catholicism and monasticism for women. The English nuns’ keen sense of destiny and purpose in the sacrifice of their lives to whole-heartedly follow

God’s plan kept them motivated throughout their exile. The nuns demonstrated their continual awareness of this duty through the strategies they employed during their exile to construct and maintain an English Catholic identity.

Another influential article that formed my methodology on identity, Robert

Maier’s “Negotiation and identity,” contends that “identity should not be conceived as static, but as dynamic” and is “integrated [within a] symbolic structure with a time

74 Brooks, “Alternative Identities,” 4. 75 Brooks, 9. My emphasis added.

36 dimension (past, present, and future).”76 The idea that an English identity was not solely

Protestant, but could be Catholic supports the theory that identity is not static but dynamic. The English nuns in exile reinvented Englishness to include Catholicism.

Likewise, an English Catholic identity that the nuns fostered could not remain static, but had to evolve as time moved forward and new situations presented themselves. Finally, the time structure of past, present, and future assures “a certain continuity and consistency” to the ultimate goal of preserving an English Catholic identity and returning home to England. The nuns demonstrated continuity with the past concerning their origins and purpose towards the future, and they remained consistent with the present by promoting English culture, while also sustaining ties back home with family through writing letters.

As for my methodological approach concerning “exile,” Randolph Starn describes exile as those who are “extra solum” or “outside of soil” with exiles as “witnesses to and victims of the profound contrasts . . . between the places from which they were expelled.”77 While the English nuns were certainly “outside of soil,” they were consciously aware that, even though they were victims, they needed to preserve English female monasticism for future generations upon their return to England. By keeping alive the memory of English martyrs and their exile onto the continent, they secured the motivation to maintain their Englishness.

The French Huguenots provide an example of a European group that struggled and failed to maintain their national identity. Owen Stanwood argues that, “their chief

76 Robert Maier, “Negotiation and identity,” in Negotiation and Power in Dialogic Interaction, eds. Edda Weigand & Marcelo Dascal (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001), 227. 77 Randolph Starn, Contrary Commonwealth: The Theme of Exile in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982), 1.

37 goal was the preservation of the French Protestant church in exile, to keep it functional in preparation for a future return to the homeland.”78 Another method the Huguenots used to maintain their Frenchness was to “retain their own language and liturgy,” the exact same strategy as the English nuns. However, in the end, the French Protestants failed in their cause while the English nuns succeeded. Why is that? My reasoning is that English nuns were able to shut out external influences, whether foreign or political, while French

Huguenots had no such luxury. The cloister wall enabled the English nuns to run their convents independent and separate from outside influences, while French Huguenots had to contend with French, English, and American authorities. Furthermore, the French

Huguenots may not have had a wide network of support to aid them in their endeavors overseas, away from France. The English convents, on the other hand, had the aid of the local Catholic communities, the recusant communities in England, as well as foreign political and religious allies such as the Archduchess Isabella, as well as local bishops and priests.

A final source that has been influential in shaping my methodology is Stephan

Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning, which looks at how leading Renaissance men such as Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Wyatt, and others formed their identities through literature.79 Greenblatt observes that “in the sixteenth century there appears to be an increased self-consciousness about the fashioning of human identity as a manipulable, artful process.”80 This self-consciousness was certainly present in the minds and hearts of the English nuns; it had to be if they wished to maintain their national

78 Owen Stanwood, “Between Eden and Empire: Huguenot Refugees and the Promise of New Worlds,” American Historical Review Vol. 118, No. 5 (November 2013), 1323. 79 Stephan Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1980. 80 Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 2.

38 identity in a foreign country. Interestingly enough are the various and unique ways the

English nuns chose to maintain their Englishness including employing English priests and confessors, opening schools for young English girls, and housing traveling recusants.

A second aspect of Self-Fashioning is the specific list Greenblatt lays out as to how identity was formed in the sixteenth century. Two characteristics in particular are parallel to the methods the English nuns employed. The first, “9. Self-fashioning is always, though not exclusively, in language,” represents the method of translating texts into English the nuns employed to maintain their identity. By prominently including

English into their daily lives and not adopting the local language, the nuns were able to successfully attract future members and return to England as recognizably English. The second, “10. [ . . . ] Hence, self-fashioning always involves some experience of threat, some effacement or undermining some loss of self,”81 points exactly to the nuns’ fear that their way of life, their vocation, would die out as well as the history of Catholicism in

England. This powerful anticipation of “some loss of self” motivated them to strive toward their goal and never give up.

By analyzing and placing the English nuns within the historical contexts of

“identity” and “exile” while also comparing them to other Europeans who strove after the same goal, the primary source material on the English convents in exile be read and applied to the overall topic of how the nuns were able to maintain their national and religious identity.

Since she came from the illustrious Howard family tree, a family that remained staunchly Catholic since the time of the Reformation, she had the benefit of receiving a well-rounded education from a variety of tutors, as well as an intimate knowledge of

81 Greenblatt, 9.

39 sacred liturgy and Latin. The prioress made special note of her talents when she first entered the community and now, more than twenty years after her final profession, put these gifts at the service of the community and God. As Sister Mary Joseph of St. Teresa looked over the first paragraph she wrote of the “Short Colections of the Beginings of

Our English Monastery of Teresians in Antwerp,” she read aloud to herself the final sentence of the first page, “to raise our Confidence in his goodness and make us with a

New gratitude and love fervourously persue our thrice happy Course praised be to God for all. and may he be Still more Glorifyed in his Saints and Spouses.”82

82 Mary Joseph of St. Teresa, Short Colections of the Beginings of Our English Monastery of Teresians in Antwerp with some few perticulars of our Dear Deceased Religious in Life Writing II. Vol 4, The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800, ed. Katrien Daemen- de Gelder (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013), 3.

CHAPTER 2

PRESERVING THE PAST: HISTORY WRITING AND OBITUARIES

Introduction

The following quote, taken from the second chapter of the Diary of the Blue Nuns of Paris represents how the majority of English nuns commenced the accounts their foundations:

The occasion and manner of the Beginning of this monestary of Bethlem, the first Hous of our Nation of the holy order of the Immaculate Conception of our Blessed Lady in the Suburbs of St. Anthony at Paris Anno Domini one thousand six hundred fifty-eight83

Beginning the history of their convent with such an exhortation reveals several characteristics of the identity the nuns wished to portray. First, they wished to express themselves as female religious of a specific order. Once they donned the habit, whether the brown scapular of the Discalced Carmelite, the knotted white cord of the Poor Clare, or the blue garb of the Conceptionist,84 the nun assumed the order’s religious rule, discipline, and character. Secondly, the English nuns declared another identity, that of a

Roman Catholic. Many women left England to live a life of exile on the European continent because they believed their faith to be that important.

83 Technically speaking, there exists two types of women religious: nuns and sisters. In today’s vernacular, “nun” is used to describe both types. Nuns are women religious who remain cloistered and partake in a prayerful, contemplative apostolate, while sisters work in the world in an active apostolate. The term “sister” is used by both as a salutation, much like “Miss” or “Mister.” Every nun is a sister, but not every sister is a nun. 84 The terms “Blue Nuns” and “Conceptionist” will be used interchangeably to introduce some variety.

The third and final aspect of identity which the beginning quotation declares is of vital significance: “the first hous of our Nation,” the country of their birth, England.

English women seemingly abandoned their homeland to establish religious houses in

France and the Spanish Low Countries and relinquished any ties that remained. However, with explicit declarations like this linking their convent back to England, the women living in exile still identified themselves as English Catholic nuns.

Constructing and maintaining an English Catholic identity did not occur on its own. The English nuns in exile formed their character by recording the history of their convents and by memorializing past members through obituaries. The process of recording a religious house’s history formed an important characteristic of maintaining an

English identity because it displayed a sense of continuity with England’s historical past.

Through this connection, the nuns developed a heightened sense of purpose in their lives to continue England’s Catholic history through their works and prayers. Many of the convent histories begin with the founding of their particular order and house. For example, the Order of the Immaculate Conception, often referred to as the “Blue Nuns” or Conceptionists, started out as a completely different order: Third Order Franciscans.

When the community of Third Order Franciscans in Nieuport became too large, they sent out a small group to found another house of the same order in Paris. After settling in

Paris, where a number of English recusants resided, the nuns decided that they wanted to adopt the Rule and habit of the Order of the Immaculate Conception that Beatrice de

Silva founded in Castile in 1489.85

85 The dogma of the Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin in preparation for her to become the Mother God. Pope Pius IX officially recognized the dogma in 1854.

Through writing obituaries or “obits” for deceased members of a religious community, the English nuns read the entry aloud on the anniversaries of each nun’s death as a way of not only remembering the sister, but also recalling her virtues for the living nuns’ edification. The method of reading obituaries out loud to the community contributed to the nuns’ sense of corporate identity in an integral and deeply personal way. Obits recorded the religious name and alias of the deceased with the date they passed into eternal life, and how many years they had been professed. The obituaries the

Carmelite nuns wrote in Antwerp detail the examples of such virtues as obedience, adherence to the rule, and the contribution each sister made to her community.

Furthermore, the entries also include spiritual reflections and exercises the deceased sister penned that either served for her own personal use or circulated around the community.86

Early Modern English Women’s Writing

Since the English nuns lived from 1600-1800, it is proper to place them within the larger context of early modern English women who wrote. Women are not credited with writing during this era only because most of their writings remained unpublished and private during their lifetimes. Women’s writing spanned across several topics “in religious, scientific, medical, political, legal and literary discourses and practices.”87

Women wrote for religious reasons, whether to express their spirituality or to connect to

God; they wrote manuals on midwifery and how to cure illnesses with household remedies; they wrote to form political alliances within royal court circles; they wrote as witnesses to crimes and to ensure their representation in courts of law; finally they wrote on a variety of literary genres such as prose fiction, poetry, and drama. Although women

86Ibid. 87 Laura Lunger Knoppers, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 9.

43 composed across a variety of topics and genres, did this mean that they challenged the established patriarchal system of a woman’s proper place in society? Early modern

English women in no way “question[ed] dominant masculinist literary modes of production.”88 However, they strategically situated themselves within established discourses by adhering to genres deemed appropriate for women at the time while navigating “between a multitude of positions, some selected, others imposed, some conscious, others involuntary.”89

A question that emerges from this research proves necessary to answer: if women did not write to publish, why did early modern English women write at all? First, as so many countries experienced during the early modern era, England transitioned into the construction of a national identity. After the upheavals of the sixteenth century English reformations and the ensuing religious battles against Catholic countries, England processed a new national discourse to compete with continental Europe. English women situated themselves within this colloquy. They questioned their identities in relation to others: as mothers, as seen in mother’s legacies; as royalty, evidenced by the writings of

Elizabeth I and Henrietta Maria, consort of Charles I; in relation to their faith, whether as an Anglican, Catholic, or Puritan. Identities during this era constantly transformed.

A second answer as to why women wrote questions the intended audience. Many women wrote for a divine audience, under the assertion “that they are commanded by

God to write: that they are proving their obedience (and hence their modesty) by doing as

88 Megan Matchinske, Writing, gender and state in early modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 7. 89 Matchinske, Writing, gender and state, 12.

44 they are told.”90 Women also composed on behalf of family members such as imprisoned husbands, children who sought maternal counsel, or friends who needed support. Most importantly, women wrote for themselves. Compelled to write in the face of shifting religious, political, and social identities, women scribbled in the margins, recorded medicinal cures and methods in midwifery, shaped court politics, or composed for the stage.

Early Modern Nuns’ Writing

In the historiography of early modern women’s writing, the inclusion of female monastics provides a complete picture as to what and why women wrote. Nuns’ writing increased particularly in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation and the Council of

Trent.91 After the council, “seeking to counter the theological arguments of the Protestant

Reformation and staunch the flow of dissenters in the church, allowed for the use of vernacular languages for the first time."92 While Latin remained the language of liturgy and prayer, the incorporation of the vernacular in religious writings explains the verifiable explosion of nuns’ writing. Surprisingly enough, early modern women religious wrote on similar genres as those of the laity: poetry, theatrical dramas, and histories of their communities within the wider context of European events. Not only did nuns write for themselves but also they “wrote for and about their sisters.”93

90 Elaine Hobby, Virtue of Necessity: English Women’s Writing 1649-88 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988), 9. 91 To counteract the effects of the Protestant Reformation and to reform the many abuses of the Church, the Council of Trent (1563-1566) introduced the Catholic Reformation and with it a renewal of religious zeal that produced many notable saints, such as Teresa of Avila, Francis Xavier, Charles Borromeo, Ignatius of Loyola. 92 Marie Louise Coolahan, Women, Writing and Language in Early Modern Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 63. 93 Silvia Evangelisti, Nuns: A History of Convent Life, 1450-1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 9.

The most widely published nun of early modern Europe, St. Teresa of Jesus

(Avila), travelled throughout Spain establishing reformed convents of the Discalced

Carmelite order from 1568 until her death in 1582.94 Because she could not reside in one convent to train the sisters in holiness, she wrote several works, in obedience to her confessors that initially circulated only the Carmelite communities. The seminal work, her autobiography, reflects a commonplace practice among early modern nuns. In order for her spiritual daughters to lead an exemplary spiritual life, Teresa set herself up as the example to follow. The autobiography traces her early life as a vainglorious young woman, to her entrance into the Incarnation convent and her relaxed attitude toward spiritual things, and finally to her conversion and the establishment of the first reformed convent. Although denounced to the Inquisition, the religious tribunal eventually cleared her writing as spiritually sound and allowed for the wide circulation of her works across

Spain and Europe.

Early Modern Nuns’ History Writing

Among the many genres which women religious composed, history writing remains overlooked, due to the fact that many of the histories written in manuscript form hardly ever got published. According to Charlotte Woodford’s study of German convents’ history writing practices, a “wide selection of pre-Tridentine religious orders is represented in this study—Augustinian, Benedictine, Bridgettine, Cistercian, Dominican,

94 The Carmelite Order traces its roots back to the slopes of Mount Carmel after soldiers returning from the Crusades sought refuge there and took up ascetic forms of prayer and penance. John Soreth established the second branch of the order for women in the 15th century. By the time Teresa of Avila entered, the nuns had retreated into a lax and spiritually devoid regime. Teresa eventually left her convent of the Incarnation, founded a more strict Carmelite rule at the convent of St. Joseph, and started the reform movement of the Discalced (barefoot) Carmelite Order (O.C.D.).

46 and Franciscan nun—suggesting that writing history was a common convent practice."95

Since the vast majority of English convents derived from these pre-Tridentine religious orders, we can presuppose that English nuns composed histories of their convents before the English reformation and subsequent Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-1540).96

Although the Discalced Carmelite order is not counted among the ranks of orders that existed before the Council of Trent, St. Teresa firmly established history-writing practices for her convents by the examples she left in her autobiography and Her

Foundations, which recounts the remainder of convents founded between 1569-1580.

The Blue Nuns did not exist in England before the Reformation, so the English branch of the order had no history writing precedent. However, since the English Blue Nun foundresses branched off from the Third Order Franciscans, clearly a pre-Tridentine religious order, history writing, therefore, had a model in the Conceptionist order. Nuns wrote histories,

biographies of their founders, collections of lives of their past and present sisters, and chronicles of their orders. They hoped to disseminate their spirituality, social influence, and success, in order to attract protectors and affluent sponsors. Furthermore, by praising the founders of the convents these narratives enhance their legitimacy while encouraging future sisters to perpetuate the spirit of their origins.97

Evidently, they wrote for significant reasons: histories attracted new patrons and therefore ensured the financial stability of the convent. Likewise, chronicles also provided examples to future sisters of the accomplishments, struggles, and challenges

95 Charlotte Woodford, Nuns as Historians Historians in Early Modern Germany (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), ix. 96 Enacted by Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell after the break with Rome, at first only the poorer monasteries with revenue less than £200 per annum were dissolved and their assets absorbed into the crown. However, under the act of praemunire, religious houses of men and women that did not take the oath swearing to the king’s supremacy over the Church of England were forced to disband. Syon Abbey possessed the second highest income per annum between £1,000-£2,000, which made it a valuable target. 97 Evangelisti, Nuns, 86-87.

47 their foremothers endured to ensure the establishment of their order. Obituaries proved a necessary ritual not only to provide an example for future generations of nuns, but also to secure prayers for the deceased members for a speedy exit out of purgatory into paradise.98

History Writing in the English Convents

Much like the German nuns in Woodford’s study, the English nuns’ history writing practices did not remain private; they “wrote history in the service of their convent. A monastic institution—whether a convent or monastery—was interested, just as royal court was, in recording, and hence controlling, its own past."99 Such a control ensured the continuing identification of the women as specifically English Catholic. Such testimony preserved the future of the convent by attracting new members to their order, as well as benefactors and patrons.

By looking closely at the contents of convent narratives and obituary notices, historians can clearly see how the English nuns constructed and maintained an English

Catholic identity. First, convent narratives forged an unbreakable link to the beginning of the end of monasticism in England: the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII.

The Bridgettines of Syon Abbey survived as the only religious order of nuns and monks after the English reformation. The Bridgettines never forgot the trials and challenges they experienced in trying to reestablish themselves on the European continent. Explicitly seen in the paintings commissioned when they petitioned the King of Spain for entrance into his dominions, such a unique legacy of history must be acknowledged. The Augustinian

Canonesses also maintained a link to the dissolution through one of their members, Sister

98 Ibid, 85. 99 Woodford, Nuns as Historians, 32.

Elizabeth Woodard and their superior, Mother Margaret Clement. Their legacies kept the painful past alive. Second, St. Monica’s chronicles also reveal connections to England’s martyrs, most notably Margaret Clitherow, and Thomas More, whose stepdaughter, Mrs.

Clement, mother to Margaret Clement, aided the imprisoned Carthusians before their execution for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy.

As the first two examples connected the English nuns to their exodus from

England, so the following examples record the events of their respective convents. Very rarely did new communities establish a foundation without difficulty. The Blue Nuns of

Paris struggled from its origins since the convent constantly needed money, benefactors, and confessors. Although the foundresses of religious orders experienced disheartening circumstances, such as plans for housing that fell through, dwindling funds and few friends to provide for them, they believed in their destiny to preserve female monasticism for English women. These stories passed down to their successors. When benefactors did present themselves and proved reliable, the nuns always remembered them in the convent chronicles. This ensured the continuing support of the patron and the nuns, in return, prayed for the wellbeing of their souls, both living and deceased.

As explained above, the English nuns living in exile utilized every opportunity to construct an English Catholic identity through numerous avenues of history writing. By preserving the past through paintings, the memory of English martyrs, and various details included in their convent chronicles, the nuns understood the importance of the past.

Memories of Dissolution: The Bridgettines of Syon Abbey

A life consecrated to the service of God, women meant to spend their lives in pursuit of union with God through prayer, fasting, penance, reception of the sacraments

49 and attendance at Mass. Many entered of their own free will in response to God’s will.

Others entered as small children, taking vows at a very young age. Some parents placed their unwilling daughters in a convent simply because it justified paying an inexpensive fee to the religious house rather than a dowry for marriage. Things changed when Henry

VIII broke ties with the Catholic Church and established the Church of England naming himself as Supreme Head and set his sights on the wealthy monasteries. In 1535, “county commissions produced new assessments for the taxes, which showed the potential profit from confiscation,”100 and all these “returns made by these Commissioners are known as the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus.’”101 In fact, Cardinal Wolsey dissolved monastic properties due to low income in smaller monasteries, in addition to allowing the crown access to the land and its potential to make money, though on a much smaller scale. Later through

1535-36 did Lord Chancellor Cromwell discover evidence of laxity and monastic vice within the monasteries and Parliament passed a bill to suppress all monasteries that earned less than £200 a year, but later expanded to include every monastic house. This included the second wealthiest monastery in the country, Syon Abbey, with a gross general income of £1,943 per year, according to the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus’.102 By 1540

Henry VIII possessed all the monastic houses in England, while the nuns lived on small annual pensions and either survived in groups a fraction of the size of their original communities.103 The Bridgettines of Syon Abbey, however, defied all the odds and remained intact as a community for over four hundred years as the only living remnant of pre-Reformation monasticism in England.

100 Haigh, English Reformations, 130. 101 Alexander Savine, “English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution,” in Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History Vol. 1, ed. Paul Vinogradoff (New York: Octagon Books, 1974), 5. 102 Savine, “English Monasteries,” 278. 103 For exact pension amounts, please refer to note 53.

Historians discovered what happened to some of the English nuns after the dissolution. Although many lived out their lives in small communities or abandoned religious life, the Bridgettines of Syon Abbey remained partially intact throughout the reign of Henry VIII and eventually re-founded their order on continental Europe. St.

Bridget of Sweden (1304-1373) founded the Order of the Most Holy Saviour (O.Ss.S.)104 in the fourteenth century after she received the Rule of the order from Christ himself.105

While nuns and monks usually lived in separate establishments, the Bridgettine monks and nuns lived in a double monastery with the Abbess as the Superior for both communities and an elected Confessor General in charge of spiritual direction.106

Henry V invited the Bridgettines to England in the year 1415.107 During the hundred years of the foundation before the dissolution, the community prospered with a steady flow of applicants from the noblest families in England. Ranked as one of the wealthiest monasteries during the dissolution (1536-1540) it became a priority in the minds of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. In 1539, under praemunire, the community of fifty-six women and seventeen men “dispersed, but not disband, many of them spending the next years in a number of smaller, household groupings.”108 During the reign of Edward VI, the Bridgettines established themselves in Antwerp and returned to

England in 1557 at the request of Mary I and Phillip II of Spain, her husband. However, once Elizabeth I ascended the throne, the Bridgettines returned to exile. The religious and

104 Latin abbreviation. 105 John Rory Fletcher, The Story of the English Bridgettines of Syon Abbey (Bristol: Burleigh Press, 1933), 11. While the Bridgettine Order still exists today, the Bridgettines of Syon Abbey closed their doors in 2011 due to dwindling numbers. 106 Fletcher, English Bridgettines, 12. 107 Ibid, 26. As benefactor of the community, the Requiem Offices are sung on the anniversary of his death (August 31). 108 E.A. Jones and Alexandra Walsh, eds., Syon Abbey and Its Books: Reading, Writing and Religion, c. 1400-1700 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010), 7.

51 political conflicts that occurred in Europe during the later half of the sixteenth century made the nuns’ settlement in any one place difficult. They returned to the Spanish Low

Countries but, due to the wars between Catholic and Protestants, fled to Rouen where there existed a large, English Catholic population. The Bridgettines’ stay there was short lived after the defeat of the Catholic League by Henry IV of Navarre since they lived on confiscated Huguenot property given to them by the Duc de Mayenne, the military leader of the Catholic League.109 Finally, the nuns of Syon Abbey settled in Lisbon, Portugal under the protection of the Spanish crown.110

The paintings, entitled The mirror of the peregrinations of the English nuns of the

Order of Saint Bridget offer a unique chance to analyze the Bridgettines record of the history of their order and how this contributed to their sense of English identity. The paintings, first commissioned by Mother Barbara Wiseman in 1619, commemorated the impending betrothal of the Infanta Maria Anna to the Prince of Wales, Charles. Phillip III of Spain intended on visiting the nuns and, as customary of the time, a gift was expected.

According to Elizabeth Parry, “The decision to create an illuminated manuscript of their exile as their gift to be presented to the King was a stroke of brilliant originality. [ . . . ] It was both a history of the convent’s exile and a kind of sermon on the proper response— of kings and nuns—to the will of God.”111 Since the reign of Phillip II, the Bridgettines received a regular and generous stipend to support their community. With the proposal of the Prince of Wales well on its way, the nuns wished to remind the king of Spain of their connection to their home country and the unbreakable bond that would be forged through

109 Fletcher, The Story of the English Bridgettines of Syon Abbey, 84. 110 Elizabeth Parry, “Petitioning for Patronage: An Illuminated Tale of Exile from Syon Abbey, Lisbon,” in The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800: Communities, Culture and Identity, eds. Caroline Bowden and James E. Kelly (Surrey & Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Limited: 2013), 160-161. 111 Parry, “Petitioning for Patronage,” 162.

52 this marriage. Furthermore, they wanted to further ensure the continued patronage of

Phillip III as his responsibility, as a king, to carry out the will of God and support religious life.

In total, the nuns bound ten illuminated manuscripts into book form to present to

Phillip III. For the purposes of analyzing English Catholic identity formation, only three images are featured. The first image (Figure 3) depicts the order’s foundress, St. Bridget, receiving orders from an angel of God, to go on a pilgrimage. Behind her are the other foundresses of the order and the nuns of Syon Abbey. The quote beneath the image reads

“This glorious Saint, like St. Joseph the spouse of our Lady and like the patriarch

Abraham was instructed by God to become a pilgrim.” The next quote is a Biblical reference in Latin, which held significant meaning to the nuns: “Our days upon earth are as a shadow, and there is no stay.”112 Like their founding saint, who traveled from

Sweden to Rome for the approval of her order, and a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the English nuns emulated her in their travels and accepted them as the will of God. If the great figures of the Bible like Mary and Joseph of Nazareth, and Abraham, wandered the Earth according to God’s plan, then the nuns humbly followed suit. The Bible passage also reveals their divine mission: to not worry about the sorrows of their present life because the earthly principalities, whether England or Spain, are not their true home. This offered great comfort and solace to the nuns, knowing that if they followed in the footsteps of great saints, then God would surely take care of them.

The second image (Figure 4) depicts Henry V inviting the Bridgettines to found their order in England and shows the building of their monastery in the background. The quote below reads “Henry the fifth King of England because of the great fame and

112 Ibid, 166.

53 holiness of this order founded this monastery of Syon in the year 1413.” The Latin inscription, a line from Psalm 47, reads, “With the joy of the whole earth is Mount Sion founded.”113 By citing Henry V as the reason for their foundation in England, the English nuns firmly assert their legitimacy as authentically English, as well as Catholic. God had brought them to England through the intercession of his representative on Earth, the King of England himself, thereby following the will of God. Naturally a joyous occasion, the quote of Scripture alludes to the Biblical Mount Sion, the site of the heavenly Jerusalem.

The response of Henry V to build Syon Abbey just as Solomon built the Temple on

Mount Sion further proves that God willed that monasticism in England should expand and flourish.

The third image (Figure 5), titled “Expelled from London,” memorializes the sad event of the dissolution of their monastery and the beginnings of their peregrinations. The manuscript depicts am emotional image of the Bridgettines caught on a strip of land between the Thames River and the sea with boats awaiting their departure. The caption below simply reads “Henry the eighth king of England expelled these nuns from their monastery of Syon in the year 1539.” The remembrance of this painful time in Syon

Abbey’s history is vital to understanding the history writing of the English nuns. They possessed a God given duty to preserve female monasticism for years to come. It was

God’s will to bring the Bridgettines to England and though Henry VIII and his subsequent successors made their return impossible, the English nuns believed enough in

God’s plan that they would return someday to England’s shores.

Through this special legacy, manuscript illuminations depicting the wanderings of the Bridgettine nuns of Syon Abbey exemplify important characteristics of the English

113 Ibid, 167.

54 nuns’ attempts at connecting with the past to construct an English Catholic identity. First, by following the example of their founding saint, the Bridgettine nuns gained strength to endure their trials. Second, through Henry V’s patronage in establishing the Bridgettine

Order in England, he followed the example of Solomon and fulfilled God’s will for the continuation of monasticism in England. Finally, the painful departure of the nuns from

England, taking with them the memory of monasticism in England with them, the nuns held with them their sacred duty to maintain monasticism for future English women.

Memorializing the Sacrifice of the English Martyrs

After the dissolution of the monasteries, English women who discovered a vocation to religious life seemed drawn to a Flemish convent: the Augustinian and took under her wing a young Margaret Clement, who would also later be elected as prioress.

Mother Margaret Clement would later found the English Augustinian Canonesses at St.

Monica’s also in Louvain. In the Chronicle of St. Monica’s a key attribute of English

Catholic identity surfaces: direct links to the English martyrs of the sixteenth century.

Through Margaret Clement’s mother, the memory of the sacrifices of Thomas More and the Carthusian monks remained alive. Later the entrance of Anne Clitherow, daughter of the esteemed and pious “proto-martyr of her sex,”114 Margaret Clitherow reminded the nuns of the sacrifices made by women for the faith. As a result, the memories of the

English martyrs urged the nuns to carry out the mission undertaken before them and not let the blood of the martyrs be wasted in vain. The origins of the English Canonesses begin with Elizabeth Woodford. She became a nun at Burnham Abbey in 1519. When the

114 Adam Hamilton, ed., The Chronicle of the English Augustinian Canonesses Regular of the Lateran, at St. Monica’s in Louvain (Now at St. Augustine’s Priory, Newton Abbot, Devon) 1548-1625 (Edinburgh & London: Sands & Co., 1904), 33.

55 community dissolved in 1539, she sought refuge in the house of her brother Thomas.115

Soon after, Elizabeth entered the house of Dr. John Clement, husband to the adopted daughter of Thomas More, Margaret Giggs. As the Chronicle recounts, Margaret,

“excellently well learned both in the Greek and Latin tongue” naturally grew up in humanistic learning under the tutelage of Thomas More.116 She clearly adopted the seriousness and piety of her new family, which continued until the day of her death.

During the reign of Henry VIII Margaret attended to the Carthusian monks who suffered martyrdom: "She, disguising herself like a poor woman, got means to bring them meat, and to cleanse them in that filthy dungeon by bringing them clean linen to comfort them."117

115 Hamilton, The Chronicle of the English Augustinian Canonesses, 3. 116 Ibid, 25. 117 Ibid, 26.

Figure 3. Pilgrimage. Pilgrimage portrays St. Bridget and other nuns as they receive orders from Heaven to wander the world. Seventeenth century Portuguese school: His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle/The Bridgeman Art Library.

Figure 4. Building the Convent. Building the Convent illustrates Henry V inviting the Bridgettines to establish their order in England. Seventeenth century Portuguese school: His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle/The Bridgeman Art Library.

Figure 5. Expelled from London. Expelled from London recounts the painful departure of the remaining Bridgettines as they look toward an uncertain future. Seventeenth century Portuguese school: His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle/The Bridgeman Art Library.

The London Charterhouse, home to the Carthusian monks, “was to give to

English monastic history one of its brightest pages,”118 not only for the learning and piety that emerged from the religious house, but also the legacy of the eighteen martyrs. The story passed down through history was recorded by one of the monks that escaped execution, Dom Maurice Chauncy. The prior of the community, John Houghton, “was abstemious beyond the demands of the Rule, and he had an exceptionally deep love of the

Office.”119 The piety of this religious house disproves the erroneous claims that all

English monks and nuns acted impiously and immorally. A committee first approached the Carthusians in 1534 to take the oath of the Act of Succession, but declined. When pressed further the following year, Prior Houghton feared for the younger members of the community when inevitable martyrdom approached. In fact, the prior constantly prayed

“Holy Father, keep them whom thou hast given me in thy name.”120 On May 4, 1535,

Prior Houghton and a small group of Carthusians mounted the scaffold and “died rather than deny the teaching of God’s Church.”121 A pious observer noted that the monks approached their death with joy, like a husband upon his marriage day.122 That observer was Thomas More.

The London lawyer had an intimate association with the London Charterhouse, since in his youth he stayed there for a number of years, discerning whether he had a religious vocation. Although he would eventually marry, More carried on some of their

118 David Knowles, Bare Ruined Choirs: The Dissolution of the English Monasteries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 104. 119 Knowles, Bare Ruined Choirs, 106. 120 Ibid, 112. 121 Ibid, 113. 122 Ibid, 114.

60 austere practices for the rest of his life, including the wearing of a hair shirt.123 Perhaps the most notable of the English martyrs, with many thanks to Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons (1960), Thomas More epitomized the individual’s right to follow their conscience against secular forces seeking to uproot the religiosity of a nation. When the

King’s ‘Great Matter’ gained widespread attention, More tried to stay out of it, but he could sense the impending sacrifice of his life. His earliest biographer William Roper, husband to More’s daughter Margaret, writes that in “the time before his trouble, he would talk with his wife and children of the joy of heaven and the pains of hell, the lives of holy martyrs, of their grievous martyrdoms, of their marvelous patience, and of the passions and deaths that they suffered rather than they would offend God.”124 In essence,

Thomas More prepared his family for his eventual martyrdom, and counseled them that his sacrifice furthered the greater glory of God.

On July 1, 1535, Thomas More stood trial to answer four counts of treason, “with no copy of the indictment, no witnesses and no legal counsel,” though the latter “lack of no counsel was no impediment, since he could equal or outshine the best legal minds.”125

Though More did not speak positively or negatively about the King’s divorce, construed as one of Cromwell’s ministers, Sir Richard Rich, provided false testimony in the case.

When the saint heard of this falsity, he still pleaded not guilty and proceeded by stating,

“In good faith, Master Rich, I am sorrier for your perjury than for my own peril.”126

More’s family pleaded with him time and again to take the oath as they had done but he

123 Hair shirts, corded scourges, among others are forms of penance to atone for one’s sins and to suffer as Christ suffered. 124 William Roper, “Life of Sir Thomas More (1557),” in Saint Thomas More: Selected Writings, eds. John F. Thornton and Susan B Varenne (New York: Random House, 2003), 213. 125 John Guy, Thomas More (New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 2000), 189. 126 Roper, “Life of Sir Thomas More,” 233.

61 could not violate his conscience. Though restricted in his speech before death, Thomas

More begged the onlookers “to pray for the King, that it might please God to give him good counsel, protesting that he died the King’s good servant but God’s first.”127 Thus, in the example of the Carthusian monks and the countless Christian martyrs of the past,

Thomas More died for his faith.

The blood and sacrifice of martyrs played a tremendous role in the history of the

Catholic Church, from the proto-martyr, Stephan, to the Christian martyrs during the reign of the Roman Empire, and throughout the European age. The deaths of the English martyrs offered an especially keen lesson to the English nuns and other recusants: the

Catholic faith was worth fighting and dying for. Those martyrs suffered for the sake of

Jesus Christ and for the restoration and toleration of Catholicism in England. If the

English nuns abandoned that legacy, the martyrs’ sacrifice would have been in vain. Thus the English nuns emulated the English martyrs by also giving up their lives, albeit in a different light. The nuns sacrificed families, friends, and familiar surroundings to rejuvenate monasticism for English women. The blood of the illustrious martyrs like

Thomas More and the Carthusian monks propelled the nuns to continue on their mission, with the full knowledge that their efforts would be rewarded either in this world or the next.

During the reign of Edward VI the Clements and Elizabeth Woodford moved to

Louvain where, in 1548, Elizabeth Woodford entered the monastery at St. Ursula's. Dr. and Mrs. Clement placed their daughter Margaret in the convent of St. Ursula's in 1551

"to be brought up in piety and godliness."128 Upon the accession of Queen Mary I, the

127 Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More (New York: Random House, 1998), 405. 128 Hamilton, The Chronicle, 25.

Clements moved back to England, leaving their daughter in the cloister. She professed her vows on October 11, 1557. Sister Elizabeth took the young novice under her wing

"for the zeal of religious perfection which she desired might be renewed again in this young plant; being herself a very strict observer of regular discipline, did well exercise our Margaret therein, and giving many mortifications, insomuch that she accounted of the other religious in the house hard or cruel onto her."129 In the year 1569 the community elected Margaret Clement as prioress of St. Ursula's community but encountered some controversy of her election due to her young age. The following year Sister Elizabeth

Woodford passed away. The Chronicle records her as "a substantial woman, and a strict observer of religion, although somewhat severe, as they used an old time to be towards youth in England."130 After Mother Margaret’s election, several English women entered the convent at St. Ursula’s numbering twenty-two English nuns by 1609 with six already passed away.

Under Sister Elizabeth’s tutelage, Mother Margaret succeeded as a religious leader within the convent, as evidenced by the sheer volume of English vocations.

Among the multitude of English women who entered during Mother Margaret’s term of office was Anne Clitherow, daughter of Margaret Clitherow. The Chronicle records her entrance in short terms that speak volumes: Anne, “who followed well her holy mother's virtuous debts, for she was a very good religious, who set herself seriously to the ways of perfection, and our sisters that came hither used to praise her much, saying that she labored well in the overcoming of her nature in the practice of solid virtue."131 Just by

129 Hamilton, 28. 130 Ibid, 31-32. 131 Ibid, 33.

63 accepting the daughter of a well beloved female martyr, the English nuns maintained a direct connection with England’s past.

In an unauthorized biography written after her death by John Mush, A True

Report of the Life and Martyrdom of Mrs. Margaret Clitherow (1619) recounts the heroic measures endured in her death. According to Peter Lake and Michael Questier, “Mush’s narrative derives its compulsive and affective force from it report of the conflict between the stubborn but homely sanctity of a saint-already-in-the-making and the almost incomprehensible brutality of the authorities in her home city of York.”132 Such brutality penetrated deeply in the hearts of the English Canonesses, particularly with Margaret’s daughter in the convent to tell them the undoubtedly heart wrenching story of her mother’s death. As her “ghostly father,” Mush’s knowledge of the innermost workings of her spiritual life made his account reliable and inspiring in the minds of the English nuns.

Though Elizabeth I showed clemency towards Catholics since the beginning of her reign (1558), the influx of Jesuits and seminarians during the 1580s prompted

Parliament to pass legislation to ensure that recusants remained loyal. The “Act to retain the Queen’s Majesty’s subjects in their due obedience” placed fines and penalties on priests who said Mass (£133), those who did not attend Anglican services (£20), and charged any priest with treason “who withdrew subjects from their obedience to the queen or to the Church of England.”133 The laws against Catholics grew progressively worse since the hangings of Jesuit priest, Edmund Campion and two companions in

December 1581, so that, by 1585, “any priest found in England could automatically be

132 Peter Lake and Michael Questier, The Trials of Margaret Clitherow: Persecution, Martyrdom and the Politics of Sanctity in Elizabethan England (London & New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011), 3. 133John Guy, Tudor England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 299.

64 tried for treason, and the aiding of priests by laymen was likewise declared to be a capital crime.”134 In light of the new legislation, in 1586, Margaret Clitherow was arrested and charged for harboring Jesuit and seminary priests in her house and duly sentenced to be crushed to death. Before stripped of her clothing, as in the example of Jesus Christ similarly deprived of his garments before crucifixion, the executioner prompted Mrs.

Clitherow to “confess that you die for treason.” In a loud voice, the martyr responded,

“No, no, Mr. Sheriff, I die for the love of my Lord Jesu.”135 In about fifteen minutes, after seven or eight hundred pounds of weight had been laid on her, Margaret Clitherow died.

Such a stirring account undoubtedly meant a great deal to not only the English

Canonesses, but to all English nuns living in exile, for certain this account would have circulated. In total, Elizabeth’s government condemned one hundred forty six priests to death, with Margaret Clitherow’s martyrdom as one out of three women executed.136 The terrible manner of her death and those of the other English martyrs secured the survival of English Catholicism for future generations. The English nuns took up this heavy cross and continued the legacy generously passed down to them.

Foundation Struggles

The founders of a brand new religious community had to consider many details concerning the foundation: procuring temporary housing for the founding sisters until a permanent establishment could be located or built; securing funding by way of patrons proved vital; having a well-grounded community with which to communicate and

134 Anne Somerset, Elizabeth I (New York: Random House, 2003), 392. 135 John Mush, “True Report of the Life and Martyrdom of Mrs. Margaret Clitherow (1619),” in The Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers: Related by Themselves ed. John Morris (London: Burns and Oates, 1877), 431. 136 Guy, Tudor England, 301. On October 25, the Roman Catholic Church commemorates 40 of the English Martyrs. Margaret Clitherow’s feast day is celebrated August 30.

65 provide support also helped a new community of nuns. Since things in life rarely go smoothly, the English nuns likewise faced hardships and difficulties in establishing new convents on the European continent. In order for future sisters to remember the struggles that took place during their communities’ early years, a sister, usually the superior, transcribed the history. History writing in the English convents proved an important layer of constructing an English Catholic identity. As Megan Matchinske considers that,

"History—Chronicle history at least—offered its readers life lessons by positing the past as an exemplary model for future human behavior and action."137 In the case of the

English nuns, the past showed that the struggles undertaken to maintain female monasticism for English women were not only a sacred duty but also the will of God in their eyes.

According to Caroline Bowden, “there is considerable overlap between the historical and biographical writing in the English chronicles” that move “between the collective and the individual.”138 Since nuns wrote the chronicles after the initial years of the convent, collaboration might have been in order between the founding sisters and the new ones, to create an accurate account of the past initiatives of the foundresses. This working together of the sisters provides an example of the strong ties the nuns created in joining together to remember their joint past and to gain strength and encouragement from seeing God’s providence in their community. This also makes pinpointing exact authors and dates difficult, since the history was compiled over the course of many years, and the virtue of humility would prevent the recognition of a single sister as author in

137 Megan Matchinske, Women Writing History in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 4. 138 Caroline Bowden, ed., introduction to History Writing. Vol.1, The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012), xxxv.

66 most cases. The history of the Blue Nuns’ foundation in Paris illustrates an intriguing tale. This founding community overcame hardships early, with even a few recurring obstacles in succeeding years. What is remarkable is their determination to forge forward with the full knowledge that they worked for a greater purpose in mind. As Matchinske further states, "The scores of early modern women writers who are history's keepers, who saw their work as deeply involved with the past, and who often announced those connections both explicitly and with confidence."139

In the year 1658, a small group of Franciscan tertiaries, soon to be Conceptionists

(Blue Nuns), embarked from their convent in Nieuport to begin a new foundation in

Paris. The town, besieged by “the continuall wars that for divers years did oprese & afflict those parts,” made providing for the 48 Franciscan nuns increasingly difficult.140

Initially the group of nuns stayed at the English Augustinian house in Bruges due to the increased fighting in the area. After these “troubles weare asswaged,” Sister Angela

Alexious alias Jerningham, the elected superior, took “7 Religious putting on secular cloathes because they weare to passé through Holland,” spent three weeks in Gaunt before finally arriving at St. Valleries in France “upon St. Bartholomewes eve.”141 Due to the delicate nature of the religious wars between Catholic and Protestant, the sisters travelled in secular clothes to disguise their identities as Catholic religious. Future Blue

Nuns would see clearly that the hand of God was upon their community, since it was clearly the will of God that the foundresses survived the religious turmoil in the Low

Countries. They arrived safely in Orleans and stayed there for about three weeks thinking

139 Matchinske, Women Writing History, 6. 140 Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the “Blue Nuns, 7. The farm of the monastery was also destroyed by soldiers. 141 Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, 8.

67 they had settled there. However, the Bishop of Orleans did not accept their residence in his town, driving them to Paris where they stayed in another secular house with rapidly decreasing funds.142 With the money nearly gone, “It pleased Almighty God to Raise us such frinds as that helped us very much” especially a Benedictine monk and Lord

Aubigny.143 Ludovick Stuart, 10th Lord d’Aubigny accompanied Charles II back to

England at the Restoration, so the Blue Nuns could be sure of his influence in the English court, as he provided continual support to the community until his death in 1665. The nuns finally settled into their permanent residence three days before the feast of All

Saints, and aid “of soe many devout and charitable Ladis to assist us with there charits,” providing the nuns with wood, bread, money, and blankets.144

The trials and poverty the Blue Nuns endured in establishing the new convent in

Paris provided an example in poverty and humility, for they recognized in their trials that they resembled their Divine spouse. Although the community continued to encounter money troubles for the remainder of their stay in Paris, this offered the valuable lesson that not only was God constantly with them and lauded their efforts, but also that He always provided for them as the Scriptures indicate.145 This undoubtedly gave the English

Blue Nuns a strong sense of their Catholic identity and purpose in their endeavors. A question may arise in this analysis: how can we know what the Blue Nuns, or any of the

142 The Diary of the Blue Nuns does not explain why the bishop refused their settlement in Orleans. Often times a new convent placed a financial burden on the local community if a number of other convents and monasteries already existed in the town. If the Blue Nuns had not secured funding from an outside source, such as a patron, then they would have resorted to begging for alms and enter themselves into a sort of competition with the other local religious houses. 143 Ibid, 9. Son of the 3rd Duke of Lennox Esme Stuart, Aubigny boasted familial connections to the English royal family, through their common ancestor, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots and her husband/cousin Henry Lord Darnley, grandson of Margaret Douglas, sister to Henry VIII of England. 144 Ibid. 145 See Matthew 6:25-34.

English nuns, thought when they read or heard these historical account of their respective communities? To this question, Matchinske answers,

I am not insisting that I know what these women wanted from the past that they inscribed or whether they managed to secure specific results by dint of individual effort. What I'm suggesting is that will—historical will with this momentum in effect—does matter in both the writing of these texts and their reception within changing historical settings.146

As with any case of looking to the past, it is nearly impossible to ascertain what historical subjects pondered when they read certain accounts and how it affected them. The same principle applies to the English nuns. As Matchinske suggests, the “historical will” and

“their reception within changing historical settings” matter a great deal in connection to the nuns. When the English nuns experienced hardships or doubted their current situations and purposes, looking to the past profoundly affected them by seeing and reliving what their founding members experienced. They could clearly see that their community faced hardships in the past and came through them intact, whether through the grace of God or good fortune. Either way, the English nuns concluded that since their community experienced misfortunes in the past, with God’s help they could do it again in the future.

The Blue Nuns also narrowly eluded setbacks regarding their change of religious order. In 1658, the nuns that arrived in Paris were Franciscan tertiaries. By April 1661, they petitioned the Vatican to become nuns of the Order of the Immaculate Conception of

Our Blessed Lady. The reasons for the switch remain unclear to this present day, since nothing is mentioned in the Diary. One can only surmise that perhaps the group felt a special devotion to the Immaculate Conception and wished to honor the Virgin Mary by switching to this rule. Although the nuns obtained various items of blue clothing from

146 Matchinske, 13.

69 benefactors in England to make their new blue habits, “we being in dispaire of ever obtaining of it, it having ben now 8 months since we had sent up our petition” and still no word from the pope. 147 Apparently, the petition “had laid hiden & unknown for some time” and only gained attention by mere accident. So again, “from the holy hand of

Almighty God,” the nuns received notice of the approval of their rule and professed as

Blue Nuns on the very feast of the Immaculate Conception. The Blue Nuns never sent out foundations of daughter houses, nor did they return to England intact as a community.

Obituaries in the English Convents

The common practice of writing obituaries (obits) for deceased nuns emerged as a meaningful tool in English Catholic identity formation in the English convents. Just as history writing looked to the past and gave strength to the English nuns, so too did the pious examples of deceased members provide a divine purpose for carrying on the mission. The practice of reading obituaries out loud to the community contributed to the nuns’ sense of corporate identity in an integral and deeply personal way. Obituaries recorded the religious name and alias of the deceased with the date they passed into eternal life, and how many years they had been professed.

While the historiography lacks abundant analysis on any type of historical obituary writing practices, Caroline Bowden’s article, “Collecting the Lives of Early

Modern Women Religious: obituary writing and the development of collective memory and corporate identity” provides a stepping-stone to filling that gap. To ensure the convent’s survival, the foundresses knew they had to create and foster strong

147 Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, 13.

“institutional or corporate identities.”148 Bowden’s definition of “corporate identity” is understood as the “way the convent appeared to the outside world, including potential benefactors and future members.”149 Keeping an account of the hard work and virtues of deceased members would inform potential benefactors that investing their money in that particular convent would be a fruitful spiritual investment. Furthermore, mothers and fathers were more willing to send their daughter, along with some money, to a convent of good reputation, knowing that she would grow in holiness and add to the prestige of the family. Obits also contributed to the convent’s sense of “collective memory,” which is defined as how the nuns thought of their convent community. The English nuns regarded their fellow sisters as a family, with the superiors and confessors as their parents, and the cloister as their home. As a family unit, they shared a common past and contributed to that collective memory by recalling the deeds of deceased nuns. If the nuns had no respect for their religious family, dissension and impiety would follow and the convent led to ruin. If the English nuns developed a sense of continuity with past members, then they “aspire[d] to devotion, discipline and fulfilling the rules of the constitutions of the founders.”150 Loyalty to their particular order, whether Benedictine, Carmelite or

Conceptionist, and to their individual convent proved a key component of maintaining an

English Catholic identity in the English convents.

Benedictines of Ghent: Honoring God’s Friends

The opening paragraph of the “Commemoration of the Deceas’d Religious who were profest In the Monastry of the Immaculate Conception of the Glorious Virgin

148 Caroline Bowden, “Collecting the Lives of Early Modern Women Religious: obituary writing and the development of collective memory and corporate identity,” Women’s History Review Vol. 19, No. 1 (February, 2010), 8. 149 Bowden, “Collecting the Lives,” 19. 150 Bowden, 7.

Mother of God of the holy Order of St. Benedict. In Ghent” provides a telling view of how the English nuns viewed their deceased members. The beginning line is found in

Psalm 138: Nimis Honorificati Sunt Amici tui Deus.151 This roughly translates to “Oh

God, your friends have been greatly honored.” Not only did the nuns identify themselves as Brides of Christ, but also as something just as intimate: friends. They followed their

Divine Bridegroom in that friendship by laying down their lives for those they loved and the Church they followed.152

The paragraph continues with the story of Mary Magdalene and how she anointed

Jesus’ feet with precious ointment and how the onlookers scoffed at her gesture. Jesus replied, “Why do Ye molest this woman for she hath wrought a Good Work upon me.

&c. Amen I say to you wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which she hath done shall be reported, for a memory of her.” Mary Magdalene serves as an important figure in religious life for several reasons. Firstly because she is believed to have founded the first community of contemplative women, long before

Antony of Egypt and Benedict of Nursia introduced monasticism.153 Secondly, Mary

Magdalene represents the contemplative part of religious life, the better portion, as Jesus said when he rebuked her sister, Martha, who portrays the active apostolate of convent life. The last line has Jesus saying that such acts of undeniable love and devotion “shall be reported, for a memory of her.” Just as the English nuns never forgot the affection

Mary Magdalene showed Jesus, so the nuns likewise wished to commemorate the years of devotion of their deceased sisters. The nuns continue,

151 Obituary Notices of the Nuns of the English Benedictine Abbey of Ghent in Flanders 1627- 1811, contributed by Lady Abbess and Community, (Catholic Record Society, Misc. XI, Vol. 19, 1917), 1. 152 See Gospel of John 15:13. 153 St. Antony of Egypt helped spread the idea of monasticism, while St. Benedict of Nursia is recognized as the father of Western monasticism.

“these, with many Other Warrants in holy Scripture, as also the continual practice of our holy Mother the Catholick Church doth authorise, the exhibiting of all due respect, to the true servants of God Almighty by Recording their Good works. ‘Tis then both Just and reasonable we honour the consecrated spouses of our Saviour who lived and Dy’d so happily amongst us”154

It was right and just and interpreted as their duty to record “a Collection of some of their virtues and religious practices” for the edification of present and future nuns of the order as inspired by “the Divine Spirit of Truth.”

Beginners of the Monastery: The Blue Nuns’ Founding Mothers

As recounted above, the Blue Nuns encountered difficulties during the first years of their foundation. As the beginners of the monastery, the founding sisters provided an undeniable base for future members to follow. This is most evidently seen in the obits written for the foundresses. The first of the initial group out of Nieuport to die, Sister

Francis Anthony alias Tymperley, passed away in the seventh month of her noviceship.

Though only a novice, she would have professed vows and died as a perpetually professed nun in articulo mortis. Reciting final vows on her deathbed made her a definitive and perpetual member of the community. Her short obituary reads that, “she was very patient in sicknesse and vehemently Thirsted to see God.”155 Future members of the community would take from Sister Francis’ example that, though she expired in the midst of her formation, she already possessed great virtue in bearing her final illness in imitation of Jesus’ final agony. Another sister that died young was Sister Maria Alexia alias Penne on 9 November 1664, just six years as a sister. Her obit recounts that “our beginners of Nieuport passed all hardships with great currage” thus providing the example that all difficulties could be surpassed. Furthermore, in respect to religious life,

154 Obituary Notices of Benedictine Nuns at Ghent, 1. 155 Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, 253.

73 though only 21 years old, Sister Maria Alexia “was very exemplar in the vertues of humility & obedience exactly following quire & all Religious Dutis though but week & infirme.”156 In order to promote and support “collective memory,” this obituary showed

English nuns that following the Rule required the utmost effort and devotion, even in sickness, as Sister Maria dauntlessly observed. In other words, no excuses existed for breaking the Rule.

The final foundresses of the Blue Nuns ended up as de facto leaders of the community. Sister Margaret Bruno alias Floyd, later Reverend Mother Vicaress, offered an impressive resume of her duties at the time of her death in September 1674. She “bore offices of Infirmarian and Mistres of the quire for five years with great sweetness and

Discretion” and also held the positions of “our first vicars and procuratrisse which offices she Discharged with wonderfull satisfaction.”157 Since these offices required elections, the community held Sister Margaret in high esteem and trusted in her execution of the important tasks each position involved. Firstly, as vicaress, Sister Margaret ranked directly below the abbess of the convent, so she would have been involved in the vital tasks and business required. According to the “Constitutions of the English Nuns of the

Immaculate Conception of Our Lady,” the vicaress “in every place, the Abbess when she is absent” and “ if she shall observe any Disorders she both may, and ought to reprehend those that are guilty thereof [ . . . ].”158 Secondly, the infirmarian ran the infirmary and cared for the sick sisters of the community, meaning sister also had to ensure the proper medical supplies were in order and that the ill sisters were properly looked after. Finally, as procuratrix, she took charge of the Provisory. This means that she was responsible for

156 Ibid, 253. 157 Ibid. 158 Ibid, 291-292.

74 ordering various foods and drinks needed by the sister in the monastery. Certainly handling all of these positions required the greatest attention and skill, something that the community knew when they elected Sister Margaret to all these posts. The last founding member to die, Sister Catherine Lewis alias Knevet, also held an important position in the convent: Mistress of Novices, which she carried out for eighteen years.159 As Mistress of

Novices, she oversaw the education and spiritual welfare of the postulants and novices.

As such, she commanded much influence in the community since it was under her discretion whether the postulants would move on as novices and whether novices proceeded to take first vows. The obit reflects that Mother Catherine enjoyed the affection of her community since she entered her final agony “amongst the Teares and prayers” of her sisters. The obit ends with recording that she uttered the phrase at the time of her death, “Into thy hands my Deare Spouse Jesus I comment my spirit.”160 The author of the obituary provided the future nuns who read and heard these words with an example of the reason why they lived in exile, to maintain their collective identity as English Blue

Nuns determined to preserve English Catholic monastic life for future generations.

The reader may care to take notice that only four obituaries are written of the foundresses even though seven women established the convent in Paris. Interestingly enough, three left, including the founding Abbess, Angela Jerningham, and her sister,

Mary Ignatius on 22 January 1661. Both sisters strongly objected to abandoning the

Franciscan rule to the Conceptionist one, revealing dissension in the convent. This further raises questions as to why the small community chose to adopt the Rule and habit of the

Conceptionist order. Although the Jerningham sisters departed the convent in Paris, the

159 Ibid, 254. 160 Ibid.

75 family continued to support the Blue Nuns financially until the final member passed away in 1810. This is due to the fact that “the convent of the Blue Nuns had been for

English Catholics very much what the Abbaye-aux-Bois was for the French nobility—the most fashionable as well as the best organized pace of education for girls.”161

Heir of St. Teresa: Mother Anne of the Ascension

The obituaries of founding mothers contributed to the English nuns construction an English Catholic identity since the foundresses represented the community and strove to provide suitable examples of how to live out the religious life. Continuing with that topic, we have the account of Anne Worsley, foundress and first prioress of the Discalced

Carmelite community, as found in the “Short Colections of the Beginings of Our English

Monastery of Teresians in Antwerp with some few perticulars of our Dear Deceased

Religious.” Mother Anne’s story is of particular importance also in the sense of maintaining a Carmelite religious identity. Upon entering religious life in the Spanish

Low Countries, she came under the tutelage of several Spanish Carmelites, most especially Ana de san Bartolome (Anne of St. Bartholomew). Closest companion and caretaker of St. Teresa of Avila in her final years, Ana de san Bartolome dedicated her life to spreading the Discalced Carmelite order throughout France and the Spanish Low

Countries. An account written of Mother Anne in the Antwerp Carmel’s “Short colections” recounts that "very desirous to know and learn the true observance and practices of our Holy Mother St. Teresa, for she knew none could informe her better then

Mother Anne [of St. Bartholomew] who had the comfort of being so long her Companion and the happiness of that Blessd Saints of dying in her Armes, our Dear Mother says that

161 Mr. Egerton Castle’s remark in the Jerningham Letters cited in Joseph Gillow’s, ed., The Diary of the “Blue Nuns,” xii.

76 she found great joy and consolation that Ven[erable] M[other] Anna St. Bar[tholomew] was so kind and free with her."162

Due to this connection with St. Teresa, the English Carmelite nuns viewed Mother

Anne of the Ascension as a direct descendant of their Holy Mother Foundress and thus possessed “a direct line of authority” through the Spanish mothers.163 After an incident with the Spanish Carmelite Friars over the question of jurisdictional authority concerning the English Carmelite nuns and altering the original Constitutions of St. Teresa, this heritage passed down to Mother Anne proved meaningful. Not only did she protect and maintain English Catholicism, this English foundress also safeguarded her religious order’s identity as a Discalced Carmelite in the Teresian tradition.

After she initially professed in the Spanish Carmel in Mons, then founded another

Carmel in Antwerp, in 1619 Mother Anne established a convent “for English young

Ladys, which she performed by the meanes and Almes of the Honorable Lady Mary

Lovel Widdow of S[ir] Thomas Lovel both English.”164 This house knew from the beginning the importance of distinguishing itself as an English house as evidenced by their observance of St. Thomas Becket as patron of England every year on his feast

(December 29).165 Especially since the convent had Spanish roots, this particular tradition showed that the English Carmelite nuns dedicated themselves to maintaining their national identity through strict observance of an English saint’s feast day. During her tenure as prioress, Mother Anne portrayed a model example of how the nuns should behave as consecrated religious. This is not to say that she was absolutely perfect in the

162 Mary Joseph of St. Teresa, Short Colections, (see note 82), 23. 163 Nicky Hallett, Lives of Spirit: English Carmelite Self Writing in the Early Modern Period (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), 39. 164Mary Joseph of St. Teresa, Short Colections, 25. 165 Mary Joseph of St. Teresa, 62.

77 secular sense of the word since she earned the nickname “Moses” because of her “hott temper, yet had overcome herself so much that she seemd all meekness.”166

Furthermore, she forged a deep bond to her spiritual daughters so much so that they did not hesitate to ask her for extra time at recreation. She acquiesced to their request and always desired “to turn all such occasions to the Spirituall profit of her self and Community, [ . . . ] she would grant it them upon condition they would speak of

Allmighty God, as our Holy Mother St. Teresa says, the more to inflame themselves in his love.”167 As a spiritual descendant of Teresa of Avila, Mother Anne knew of the importance to avoid glum faced saints. If her sisters wanted more time to recreate with each other, it served as further opportunity for them to support the collective identity of the community and maintain their sense of English Catholic identity. Preserving English

Catholicism for future generations meant that the nuns had to do more than pray.

Recreation in convents provided the English nuns to enjoy each other’s company after several hours of silence. While the austerity of the Carmelite order took priority, the nuns followed the Rule and took part in recreation for an hour twice a day. As much as Mother

Anne knew the importance of following the daily schedule, this time of relaxation and enjoyment in fellowship only contributed to the collective identity of the community and strengthened their bond, not only as Carmelites, but as English Catholics who shared a common purpose: to return to England and reestablish Catholicism and female monasticism. After a lengthy illness, Anne of the Ascension died on 23 December 1644 after governing the Antwerp Carmel for twenty-five years.

166 Ibid, 28. 167 Ibid, 29.

Mother Anne of the Ascension’s constant example confirmed to her sisters, present and future, of the holiness of their endeavors. Through all the difficulties, struggles, joys, and triumphs God had presented Himself to them and showed His favor.

The English Carmel at Antwerp would progress on to establish two more convents in

Liege, Hoogstraten, and the first religious house in America at Port Tobacco, Maryland in

1793. Mother Anne ensured the legacy of St. Teresa would live on for many more generations, especially as the first Carmel of the English nation.

Conclusion

During their two hundred years in exile, a time when women’s contributions to writing remained hidden, the English nuns constructed and maintained an English

Catholic identity through history writing and life writing through obituaries. The

Bridgettines of Syon Abbey remembered the Dissolution of the Monasteries through a series of illuminated manuscripts that recorded their beginnings and later peregrinations through Europe. Memorializing the loss of their monastery, way of life, faith, and homeland contributed to identity formation by reminding the nuns that they pursued a greater purpose, to preserve monasticism for English women. The nuns also recalled the

English martyrs who sacrificed their lives for their Catholic faith. Most notably seen in the English Augustinian Canonesses of St. Monica’s, two members were related to the most famous martyrs of English history: saints Thomas More and Margaret Clitherow.

Undoubtedly the presence of these two nuns, an adopted daughter and an actual daughter, respectively, prompted the community to follow the example of these heroes of the faith.

The foundation struggles of the Blue Nuns of Paris proved to future members that God’s hand protected and guided them throughout their journey. Furthermore, when the nuns

79 wished to adopt a new rule, their request became lost and prolonged the approval by several months until someone at the Vatican found their misplaced petition and handed it over promptly to the pope. Little coincidences like that proved to the English nuns that

God was indeed on their side.

The practice of writing and reading aloud obits also established a concrete method of forming an English Catholic identity. The Benedictines of Ghent saw their departed religious as God’s friends, indeed an intimate facet of being a Bride of Christ. Through this special relationship they imitated Mary Magdalene and Christ’s words when He said that her loving action would be remembered by future generations of believers. Certainly, all members of the community remembered the recorded virtues and triumphs of the deceased sisters on their respective anniversaries. The contributions of founding mothers also ensured the nuns’ remembrance that God is good to those who love Him. The beginners of the Blue Nuns of Paris offered courageous examples to all future sisters of their order: two would die extremely young, and were portrayed as providing the perfect standard for a holy death. The other two foundresses held numerous offices within the convent thus guiding, nurturing, and caring for each sister that lived and died in the community. Each passed into the next life among the tears and prayers of their sisters, eagerly awaiting the vision of their Divine Spouse. Finally, Mother Anne of the

Ascension not only strictly adhered to maintaining an English Catholic identity, but also steadfastly protected the legacy of her spiritual mother, St. Teresa of Avila. God called these particular English women to enter the Discalced Carmelite order and Mother Anne vehemently safeguarded that religious tradition and ushered in a new generation of

Teresians that stretched all the way into the New World.

Constructing and maintaining an English Catholic identity through these means was not any easy feat to accomplish. Through these methods of history writing and obituaries the English convents in exile expanded across the Low Countries and France, attracting new members on a steady basis and preserved English monasticism for women.

CHAPTER 3

CULTIVATING THE PRESENT: TRANSLATION AND ENGLISH CATHOLIC SPIRITUALITY

Introduction

The obituary account of Sister Catherine Magdalene alias Elizabeth Evelinge, reads as follows,

[T]he Venerable Mother, Sister Catherine Magdalin Evelinge, for 25 years a most deserving Abbess; who haveing with great praise Discharged the office of Portress, Mrs. Of Novices, for the admirable guifts of her Soul, also a more polish’d way of writing above her Sex, [ . . . ]

It recounts some of the more prominent virtues of the deceased Abbess, including her more “polish’d way of writing above her Sex,” which refers to her accomplishments and achievements in the area of translation. The act of translating spiritual texts within the

English convents in exile became an important aspect of preserving and maintaining an

English Catholic identity by identifying and cultivating those spiritualities that came to be most popular among the recusants.168 Furthermore, the translation of certain texts embroiled the convent's in the controversy between secular and regular religious priests, which dealt with the question of what religious group would govern each order and

168 The only critical assessment of translated works by the English nuns living in exile is found in volumes in the series Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimile Library of Essential Works—Printed Writings, 1500-1640 (referred to EME hereafter). See Elizabeth Evelinge I, EME, Series 1, pt. 3, vol.3, selected and introduced by Frans Korsten (Aldershot:Ashgate, 2002); Elizabeth Evelinge II, EME, Series 1, pt.3, vol. 4, selected and introduced by Jos Blom and Frans Blom (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002); Elizabeth Evelinge III, EME, Series 1, pt. 3, vol. 5, selected and introduced by Claire Walker (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006); Catherine Greenbury and Mary Percy, EME, Series I, pt. 4, vol. 2, selected and introduced by Jos Blom and Frans Blom (Aldershot:Ashgate, 2006); and Recusant Translators: Elizabeth Cary, Alexia Grey, EME, Series I, pt.2, vol. 13, selected and introduced by Frances Dolan (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).

82 individual convent living in the Low Countries and France: the local bishop or the ordinary of the province. By translating contemporary books on spirituality, some of which were published and circulated among the English Catholic community, the nuns took their stance on key issues and even established leadership positions within the community. Also many of the nuns within the convents could only speak and read

English save for the select few who knew other languages such as French, Dutch, and

Latin. Translating texts into the English language also strengthened the nuns resolve to reinforce their otherness to not assimilate into the local culture, but to retain their

Englishness by reading in their native tongue. The main issue at hand concerning spirituality within the English convents was which spirituality would better enhance the

English nuns’ prayer and how that prayer would influence their mission of preserving and maintaining an English Catholic identity for their hopeful and eventual return to England.

Some prominent themes that emerged among the texts English nuns translated revolve around the rebirth of English Franciscan spirituality with the establishment of the

Second Franciscan Province in 1629, the struggle between the secular clergy and the regulars, particularly the Jesuits, that manifested itself in the conflict within the convents of Benedictine nuns first founded by Mary Percy, and the specific governance of the

Clarissan and Benedictine houses that resulted in the translation of the Holy Rules of St.

Clare and St. Benedict, respectively. First, the Franciscan order existed in England since the thirteenth century when a group of nine, consisting of both Italians and Englishmen, founded the First English Province.169 However, after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in the 1530s, the Franciscan order was dissolved in the first province came

169 Clifford Hugh Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of religious life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, 4th ed. (London & New York: Routledge, 2015), 231.

83 to an end. Henry VIII treated especially harsh the Franciscans because they so firmly and publicly supported Henry's first wife, Catherine of Aragon. To garner support for the establishment of the second Franciscan province, John Gennings enlisted the help of

“some of the English college students at Douay to help in the restoration of the Order in

England. These same students had witnessed the foundation of the second order of Poor

Clares at Gravelines a few years before, and the enthusiasm shown for the order by these young English women had a salutary effect upon the young men as well."170 To aid in the campaign to reestablish the English branch of the Franciscan order, Elizabeth Evelinge translated prominent Clarissan texts such as a biography of St. Clare, the lives of Poor

Clare saints, the holy rule of St. Clare and regulations and ordinances St. Colette, a fifteenth century reformer, instituted. Using the influence that the Poor Clare convent at

Gravelines had with in the Franciscan movement, Evelinge’s efforts one over the support needed to reaffirm English Franciscan spirituality among the recusant exiles living on the continent.

Second, the conflict between the regular and secular clergy can be traced back to the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth I when the Appellants struggled with the

Benedictine and Jesuit missionaries for governance. In fact, the Jesuit text Mary Percy translated coincided with the creation and successive appointments of William Bishop and Richard Smith as Bishop of Chalcedon (1623-1631). At the same time, the

Benedictine convents at Brussels and Ghent struggled with what spirituality the nuns preferred: the mystical regime set forth by Augustine Baker, or the meditative practices the Jesuits established. Percy’s translation "had an ideological component, advancing a

170 Peter Guilday, The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent, 1558-1795: The English Colleges and Convents in the Catholic Low countries, (London & New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1914), 286.

84 shared goal of supplying English Catholics with texts that supported Ignatian piety and politics."171 By taking part in the issues that concerned the wider English Catholic community, the English nuns asserted their authority to speak on matters of spirituality and to influence the outcome that further preserved a solid example of English Catholic identity. Lastly, to cultivate a collective identity within the convents, each woman had to swear fidelity to the holy rule. The rule governed the daily schedule, dictated the tasks and responsibilities assigned to each community position, stipulated how profession ceremonies took place, and dealt with how problems should be solved when it came to individual sisters, just to name a few. Without such organization and focus the convents could not possibly exist and, without the convents, there laid no hope in preserving female monasticism for the future. At the heart of each rule there was a key component that kept the nuns motivated toward their goal, namely the strict poverty that St. Clare established within her rule and the vow of obedience that St. Benedict emphasized among his monks, later adapted to govern female houses. Each set of translated texts the English nuns promulgated not only helped to preserve and maintain an English Catholic identity within the convents themselves, but also helped perpetuate that same identity among recusant English Catholics both in England and living on the continent.

Early Modern Translation and National Identity

The English nuns living in exile had one objective on their mind: to preserve and maintain an English Catholic identity that would be recognizable in England after their return. This lies at the very heart of why the English nuns established their own convents rather then join foreign convents, because “rather than integrating, they prefer to be

171 Jaime Goodrich, “Translating Mary Percy: Authorship and Authority among the Brussels Benedictines,” in The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800: Communities, Culture and Identity, ed. Caroline Bowden and James E. Kelly (Burlington: Ashgate, 2013), 113.

85 stigmatized as foreign, because they thought this was necessary to reach their mission" of returning to England and bringing with them the reestablishment of Catholicism and female monasticism.172 The English nuns living in exile expected and prayed for their return home during their lifetime, especially since the Stuarts seemed open to the toleration of Catholicism within their realm, all while prominent Catholic noblemen, such as the Lords Montague, Arundel, and the Howards lobbied the crown and government for acceptance of recusants in the country. However, in the mean time, the nuns strove for recognition and authority amongst the exiled recusants through their English translations.

Instead of being considered foreign to fellow Englishmen, they chose not to assimilate into their local surroundings but remained strangers and sojourners in foreign lands. In addition to their desire to be relatable to future Catholic Englishwomen, they had to be recognizable to their contemporaries since, "the nation fulfills a need for a sense of community, partly fulfilling the emotional needs satisfied earlier and in other places by much more tangible kinship communities, their often arises a demand that its citizens should show some demonstrable kinship."173 If the English nuns worked with English priests and the laity, they would move more surely toward their shared goal in unison rather than separately. As seen in the case of the establishment of the second Franciscan province, the English nuns asserted a certain authority among the English Catholic community. According to Jaime Goodrich, "these faithful translators took advantage of the authorial complicity inherent in translation to pursue a number of agendas that made their work central to the cultural landscape of early modern England" with those specific

172 Pascal Majerus, “What Language Does God Speak? Exiled English Nuns and the Question of Languages,” in Female Religious across the North Sea: Monastic Interactions between the British Isles and the Low Countries, ed. Jan De Maeyer, Carmen Mangion & Kristien Suenens (Trajecta: Feb., 2012), 140. 173 Stephen Barbour, “Nationalism, Language, Europe,” in Language and Nationalism in Europe, ed. Stephen Barbour and Cathie Carmichael (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 14.

86 agendas concerning not only the cultivation of an English Catholic identity, but also the politics that ensued among the laity and within the convents themselves.174

It was especially important to maintain a uniform way of achieving their ultimate goal and translations helped to form "particular cultural identities [ . . . ] with the relative degree of coherence and homogeneity,” in addition to “how it creates possibilities for cultural resistance, innovation, and change at any historical moment."175 Since the reign of Elizabeth I the English Catholic resistance endeavored to create a coherent mode of how to practice and preserve their faith. The ever-shifting situations within England,

Europe, and the Catholic Reformation constantly required the above-mentioned innovations and changes that insured that the English convents remained malleable with the times so that they could continue their mission to keep English Catholicism alive as authentically English.

Early Modern Women as Translators

Until modern scholarship determined otherwise, the translation of texts was considered a menial, noncreative, disregarded activity. The translator merely took the genius and creativity created by an original author and made it accessible to another language group. For women especially, translation, "particularly if exercised within a devout sphere, could be the only activity permitted to women, for in their case it could be seen as a mechanical exercise, one that would occupy the mind and body as much as embroidery did."176 Women were afforded no voice within literary circles since "silence was connected to that primary feminine virtue, chastity, as in the proverb ‘an eloquent

174 Jaime Goodrich, Faithful Translators: Authorship, Gender, and Religion in Early Modern England (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2014), 5. 175 Lawrence Venuti, Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference (London & New York: Routledge 1998), 68. 176 Goodrich, Faithful Translators, 6.

87 woman is never chaste.’”177 Such restraints gave women little opportunity to create their own literary masterpieces so they turn to the only “appropriate” literary avenue available to them. Yet, "recent scholarship on Renaissance translation has demonstrated that far from representing a secondary or marginal writing practice, translating was mainly considered at the time a skilled, high profile activity,"178 that not only provided "a rich seam of evidence of women's active participation, not only in the literary culture of the

Renaissance, but in all aspects of culture."179 Translating required a set of highly developed skills such as the knowledge of multiple languages, the ability to read and write in English, as well as this skill to adapt and interpret literature for a projected audience, talents generally not associated with early modern women. English nuns who embodied all of these skills put their specific talents to good use within their respective communities as well as the English Catholic community at large. Rather against the early modern intention of keeping lay women quiet and out of the male-dominated literary culture, the English nuns defied this expectation utilized there untapped potential "to resurrect through their sufferings,” that is, the time and painstaking effort required to produce a meaningful translation, "a Catholic England."180

177 Margaret Hannay, “Introduction,” in Silent but for the Word: Tudor Women as Patrons, Translators, and Writers of Religious Works, ed. Margaret Patterson Hannay (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1985), 4. 178 Marie-Alice Belle, “Locating Early Modern Women’s Translations: Critical and Historiographical Issues.” Renaissance and Reformation/ Renaissance et Reforme, Vol. 35, No. 4, Special Issue/ Numero special: Women’s Translations in Early Modern England and France/ La traduction au feminine en France et en Angleterre (XVIe et XVIIe siècles) (Fall/Automne 2012), 8. 179 Danielle Clark, “Translation,” in The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing, ed. Laura Lunger Knoppers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 177. 180 Nancy Bradley Warren, The Embodied Word: Female Spiritualities, Contested Orthodoxies, and English Religious Cultures, 1350-1700 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 2010), 98.

The Revival of Franciscan Spirituality and the English Convents

The rebirth of English Franciscanism within the English convents in exile began with the foundation of the Poor Clare convent at Gravelines in 1609 by Mary Ward. From there, the second order would expand to five more convents in Aire, Dunkirk, Rouen, and a branch of the Third Order in Brussels. With the rapid expansion of the second order, in addition to the establishment of the monastery of St. Bonaventure at Douai for the Friars, the need for an English Province to govern the order became imperative. Two nuns,

Catherine Greenbury and Elizabeth Evelinge, "participated in contemporary attempts to restore and define English Franciscanism” by means of translating biographies of prominent Franciscan saints, Elizabeth of Portugal and Clare of Assisi.181

Catherine Greenbury entered the Franciscan Third Order convent as a widow with a four-year-old daughter when she donned the habit in 1620, a year after its establishment at age twenty-six.182 Generally speaking, the third order allows for the laity, men and women, to partake and practice the spirituality of a particular order. Though the layman did not take the same vows as the religious order’s priests or nuns, men and women could associate themselves through charitable works on behalf of the order, take quasi-religious vows according to their state in life, whether single, married, or widowed. Third orders also established small communities of other like-minded tertiaries for the sake of fellowship, working and praying together. Two species of communities developed amongst the Franciscan tertiaries: the third order secular and the third order religious. The latter order like the one in Brussels took the formal vows of poverty, chastity, and

181 Jaime Goodrich, “‘Ensigne-Bearers of Saint Clare’: Elizabeth Evelinge’s Early Translations and the Restoration of English Franciscanism,” in English Women, Religion, and Textual Production, 1500- 1625 ed. Micheline White (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), 84. 182 Richard Trappes-Lomax, ed., The English Franciscan Nuns, 1619-1821: And the Friars Minor of the Same Province, 1618-1761 (London: Catholic Record Society, Vol. 24, 1910), 7.

89 obedience. In 1621 the convent was dedicated to and named after St. Elizabeth, queen of

Portugal, who was also a Franciscan tertiary. Greenbury most certainly identified with St.

Elizabeth who herself was previously married and had children before she joined the

Franciscans. The English biography, translated from Dutch written by Franciscus

Paludanus, appeared in 1628, a year before the establishment of the second English

Franciscan Province. Eager to prove the important role the Franciscan order played within the church, "the book itself is traditional hagiography, cramming as many virtuous acts, wonderful qualities and miracles into its pages as possible."183 Catherine

Greenbury’s contribution of translating A Short Relation of the Life, Virtues, and miracles, of S. Elizabeth played its role in affirming the prominent place of Franciscan spirituality among English recusants.

Elizabeth Evelinge entered the Gravelines Poor Clares in 1620 and received the habit that same year with the religious name Catherine Magdalene.184 Evelinge by far made the most tremendous contributions to the revival of English Franciscanism with her numerous translations, most notably The history of the angelicall virgin glorious S. Clare and The Rule of the Holy Virgin S. Clare. However, until twentieth century scholarship determined otherwise, history praised another nun for the translations, Catherine Bentley.

According to Claire Walker, while Evelinge displayed skill in translating, she was too young and barely professed to take credit for the work, as well as violating the virtue of humility. So, in the end, the superiors of the Gravelines convent decided to attribute the work to a more senior nun, Bentley. Apart from the cherished virtue of humility,

183 Jos Blom and Frans Blom, introduction to Catherine Greenbury and Mary Percy (see n. 168), xii. 184 William Hunnybun, ed., Registers of the English Poor Clares at Gravelines, including those who founded filiations at Aire, Dunkirk and Rouen, 1608-1837 (London: Catholic Record Society, Misc. IX, Vol. 14, 1914), 52.

"anonymity is commonplace in post-Reformation recusant scholarship, particularly in books destined for clandestine smuggling back into England."185 The hagiography of St.

Clare naturally takes account of her early life in Assisi, the encounter with St. Francis, her reception into the order at San Damiano, and her efforts to maintain the vow of evangelical poverty. There is, however, an additional chapter added to the original that recounts the history of the Franciscan order outside of Italy including most importantly

England. This inclusion of English Franciscan history infused with the history of St.

Clare, “offer[ed] English readers evidence of the Franciscans and vitality as agents of conversion."186 By linking the renewal of Franciscan spirituality to the past efforts of

English Franciscan predecessors, Evelinge linked the movement to establish the Second

Province with England's past to show that the Franciscan order had always been part of

English Catholic identity. Both hagiographies of Elizabeth of Hungary and Clare of

Assisi attributed to the perseveration and maintenance of that identity for the English

Catholic community at length, as well as for the English nuns that worked to ensure that their branch of female monasticism would be re-established in England at a later date.

Catherine Greenbury and Saint Elizabeth of Portugal

The life of St. Elizabeth of Portugal provided the nuns with a pious example of their order to follow, especially since she could relate to both previously married women like Catherine Greenbury, and single women who wished to faithfully practice the way of

St. Francis. Now, as it is important to remember in regard to hagiographies, the miracles and acts portrayed as performed by the saint and/or by God on behalf of the saint are to be taken in context regarding time, place, circumstances, in addition to how the author or

185 Claire Walker, introduction to Elizabeth Evelinge III (see n.168), xii. 186 Goodrich, Faithful Translators, 25.

91 translator shaped the stories to elicit a certain response to the reader. In the end, it does not matter whether the extraordinary acts actually occurred but whether the account of said acts inspired the reader, in this case the English nuns, to contemplate how to achieve their ultimate goal. Since the community elected Greenbury as prioress in 1628, they expected her to stir and inspire their religious sensibilities. Born to the king of Aragon in

1272, St. Elizabeth displayed an inclination to religious life from an early age since she shee kepte the same maner of Rule in all her actions.” Including “she daily read the 7 howwres of the divine office: with great devotion and diligence” in addition to be “loving and charitable to the poore”187 Greenbury may have had her daughter specifically in mind with this particular translation since the seed of a religious vocation could have a major impact on a young girl who may enter an English convent at a later time and further the mission of maintaining an English Catholic identity. However, as the daughter of a king,

Elizabeth did not have the opportunity to follow through with a religious vocation, but instead entered into marriage to the King of Portugal in the year 1282. Although she

“sought after the heavenly Bridegroome”, she balanced faithfully her "service of God and holy contemplation; yet she did never neglect her service in due respectes unto the king her husband".188

As part of her devotions, St. Elizabeth adhered to the usual days of fasting and abstinence as the English tertiaries followed as required by the Catholic Church. As a form of edification to Greenbury’s spiritual daughters, the translation recounts that God looked favorably on the saint’s faithful devotion by performing a miracle. During a bout of illness, the doctor prescribed Elizabeth to drink wine for the recovery of her strength.

187 Catherine Greenbury, trans., A Short Relation of the Life, Virtues, and miracles, of S. Elizabeth, by Franciscus Paludanus (St. Omer, 1628) in Catherine Greenbury and Mary Percy (see n. 168), 3. 188 Greenbury, A Short Relation, 9.

When she refused and drank only water, the water miraculously turned into good wine.189

Although the English nuns allowed exceptions to the holy rule concerning fasting during times of illness, this miracle account ensured the nuns that God always looked after their best interests especially when they rejected earthly pleasure for the sake of spiritual delights. This indicates that while many English women gave up the comforts of home and family to pursue their religious vocation in exile, they believed that God would honor their sacrifices in exchange for the reestablishment of the Catholic religion in England.

At the heart of the Franciscan vocation lays the extraordinary devotion of taking care of the most poor and destitute in society. As Queen of Portugal, St. Elizabeth performed extreme acts of kindness toward the poor, especially on Good Friday when she

" washed the feete of 13 poore men and having done she humbly kissed theyr feete and gave them Cloathes. The like she did on holy thursday to 13 poore women.”190 This reminded the nuns of no matter how menial our lowly a task was assigned to them, such as caring for an elderly or sick sister, they needed to remember that even a queen stooped so low as to humbly attend to the needs of others. Such devotion to each other further cemented their collective identity as Franciscan tertiaries and English Catholics. St.

Elizabeth's further exploits included establishing a cloister of Poor Clares in Conimbria that was begun “by a Gentilwoman that could not finish it for want of meanes: and this holy Elizabeth bought houses and grownd joyning to the Cloister, to inlarge it.”191 Just as

St. Elizabeth contributed to the spread of the Franciscan order and spirituality during the thirteenth century, so did the English men and women who sought its renewal during the seventeenth century, a mission that Catherine Greenbury played a significant role in

189 Greenbury, 13. 190 Ibid, 15. 191 Ibid, 33.

93 accomplishing with her translation of this hagiography. After the death of her husband, she first entered the Poor Clare order but later took “upon her the third Rule of S. Francis which she did, and kept it always after, to the end of her life” so that she could continue in her desire to serve the poor and sick.192 This may have had an edifying influence on

Greenbury herself who, instead of re-marrying, entered the Franciscan order as a tertiary to further the cause of preserving an English Catholic identity, a cause which she dedicated herself to until her death in February 1642 at the age of forty-six.

The example of St. Elizabeth played a dual role within the English Catholic community and convents: first, as she helped spread and propagate the Franciscan message during the thirteenth century just as Greenbury did by way of her translation for the cause of establishing the Second English Franciscan Province during the seventeenth century. Furthermore, the devotion and piety of St. Elizabeth provided a firm example to the English nuns of the possibilities and accomplishments that were possible when they adhered faithfully to their religious vocation and mission to ensure the survival of English

Catholicism and monasticism.

Elizabeth Evelinge and Saint Clare of Assisi

In collaboration with her confessor, Father Francis Henriques, Elizabeth Evelinge translated the biography of St. Clare and included an additional chapter compiled from fifteen or more different sources, Of Many and Admirable Acts wrought by the holy

Order of S. Francis in the Church of God. But more especially in these latter ages, in the

Indies. This firmly placed the history of English Franciscans within the grander scheme of the order in general and within the minds of English recusants living in England and abroad. Since the Poor Clare convent at Gravelines proved itself a beacon and leader for

192 Ibid, 38.

Franciscan spirituality, "both Evelinge and the Franciscan Friars therefore printed works that framed the Gravelines house as a symbol of English Franciscanism in order to aid the restoration of the English Province."193 The extra chapter in the biography of St. Clare further supported the resurgence of Franciscan spirituality by reminding the faithful of the history, exploits, and sacrifices undertaken by Franciscans in the past to uphold the

Catholic faith in England amidst controversy and danger.

As looking into the past aided the English nuns in remembering their Catholic past, this translated chapter reminded the reader of the early foundation of the Franciscan order in England by referring to Thomas Buchier’s “Ecclesiastical history of the Freers

Martyred in England, Scotland & Irelad”:

[ . . . ] the Freer Minors converted those terrtoryes, Cityes, Townes and Villages and therefore peppery hands some that would enter into their harvest, to reape glory where they never had sowne, for this is particular to this Order that always addicted it selfe rather to acte and doe , then to deprecate their own actions in writing, no ways placing there glory in the mouths of men yea hiding often times that which is necessary [ . . . ]194

The first efforts the Franciscan Friars made to establish themselves in England provided an example to the exiled English Catholics that the friars would follow the same example as their predecessors to act as missionaries to the Catholics living in England even, as it proved during the reign of Elizabeth I, dangerous to do so. Furthermore, Evelinge displayed that Franciscan spirituality provided a sure way for accomplishing their goal, not just by praying and offering sacrifices, but through the action of returning to England secretly as missionaries to offer the sacraments to the recusants. Not only did Evelinge bring to life England's distant history, but through her translation resurrected much more

193 Goodrich, “Ensigne Bearers,” 90. 194 Elizabeth Evelinge, trans., The history of the angelicall virgin glorious S. Clare (Douai, 1635), in Elizabeth Evelinge I (see n. 168), 46-47.

95 recent trials the Franciscan order underwent during the sixteenth century. When Henry

VIII separated from Rome and established the Anglican Church, the Franciscan Friars voiced their opposition the loudest and systematically “put out of their Monasteries before the least persecution was raised against any other orders: and at one time about

200 where in London prisons when as by all humble supplications, efficacious and convincent arguments they could not peaceably maintaine the unio of England with the

Church of Rome, and regaine the King whom they so honored”.195 Despite this violent past, English Catholics continued to remain faithful to the monarchy, but could not adhere to the state-sponsored religion and the constraints placed upon their consciences.

So, in order to practice their faith and remain loyal to the crown, English Catholics including Evelinge and other English nuns living in exile, they formed their own discourse of Englishness: “in certain regions certain coincidences of identities of these various kinds combined to create national identities that stand in opposition to a state- sponsored British national identity,” that is, Protestant Englishness as determined by

Elizabeth I and the Stuart dynasty.196

Finally, in solidarity with the other English convents that practiced various spiritualities in accordance with their respective rule and the preferences of their community, Evelinge includes this final thought:

I have endeavored to put the brightsome light of the F. Minors from under the bushel of the malignant tongues and pennes who labours two obscure them, and I have desired to place it on the candlestick that all may in a manner see their good works, and glorifie the Father in heaven all which I have performed out of approved good authors without disparaging any other order.197

195 Evelinge, The history of the angelicall virgin glorious S. Clare, 51. 196 Stephen Barbour, “Britain and Ireland,” 20. 197 Evelinge, 52.

Although she and numerous others undertook cumbersome efforts to bring about the foundation of the Second English Franciscan Province, under no means or circumstances did their efforts indicate that any other religious order founded for English men and women was somehow inferior to the Franciscan tradition. On the contrary, the foundation of the Second Province ensured that English friars and nuns would remain under the governance and supervision of the local English ordinary and not by the local, foreign bishop or provincial of the order. The English Franciscans, in fact, provided a shining example to all other English religious houses that did not wish to come under foreign influence, such as the case with the Carmelite nun, Mother Anne of the Ascension, who wrestled tirelessly with the Spanish Carmelite Province for governance over her convent to follow the rule of St. Teresa of Avila without revision. It is to Evelinge’s credit that she was able to advance the Franciscan cause without disparaging any other religious order because, far from competing with each other, only as a single unit could the English convents in exile hope to preserve and maintain an English Catholic identity and female monasticism, though she did so unknowingly.

Mary Percy and Ignatian Spirituality

Spiritual direction was an important avenue for the cloistered English nuns to progress in the spiritual life. However, with several outside influences that moved

Englishwomen toward their religious vocation, most of the time a convent was faced with several of the nuns preferring one type of spirituality over the method the superior already established. During the initial years of a convent, the abbess or prioress would generally be lenient and allow the nuns to either confess and be directed by the chaplain of the convent, or allow the nuns to choose their own father confessor. This lack of

97 uniformity caused problems down the road because it interfered with the collective identity of the convent and led to conflicts within that sometimes resulted in nuns leaving and establishing their own convent. Such was the case with the translator Mary Percy who was embroiled in the dispute to practice Ignatian spirituality and confess to Jesuit priests. Although Mary Percy eventually moved away from the pro-Jesuit cause, she summed up the conflict "as a matter of monastic obedience, rather than as a question of spiritual guidance."198 In fact, although she translated the Breve Compendio into English for the sake of the pro-Jesuit camp, the spiritual text does not represent a pure Ignatian approach to prayer and meditation, but rather a mix of practical steps and mystical union as advocated by the anti-Jesuit supporters who preferred to follow Augustine Baker and his mystical spirituality. Perhaps in an attempt to find some common ground between the two camps that raged against each other in the Brussels convent, did Mary Percy translate

An Abridgment to Christian Perfection in the hopes of preserving the collective identity of the community and afford the dissenting nuns the opportunity to remain faithful to their vow of obedience.

Although these conflicts took place within the confines of the cloistered convents, the dispute over freedom to choose confessors and spirituality represented the English

Catholic community at large, notably the struggle of the regular and secular priests for power. At stake here was the uniformity of an identifiable English Catholic identity returning to England once the religion became tolerated once again. Percy had the good fortune to publish their works anonymously with their confessors’ names instead printed with a general indication that a nun had actually translated the work under supervision.

This did more than fend off criticism from the outside world and anti-Jesuit supporters,

198 Walker, Gender and Politics, 142.

“it also allowed their publications to represent their convents at large and to influence public views about English monasticism."199 Since many nuns chose Ignatian spirituality as a means of achieving union with God, so did the laity as a means of spiritual direction and providing them with the sacraments to continue practicing the Catholic religion. In fact, Ignatian methods remained effective and accessible to not only cloistered nuns but also to the laity, who could not afford to spend hours in prayer or attain the lofty aspirations of mystical experiences. This type of prayer “aimed to stir the penitent to action, whether internal or external, through frequent confession, analysis of the conscience, discursive (meditative) prayer, and methodical set prayers that used all the senses to re-create pivotal biblical moments."200 Just as Elizabeth Evelinge sought to maintain uniformity with the laity who practiced Franciscan spirituality through her translations, so did Percy strive to represent their convents and the English Catholics who chose Ignatian spirituality to address their spiritual needs.

Ignatian spirituality provided a methodical, accessible way for both the religious and laity to experience spiritual consolations and in fact achieve mystical experiences, though not the ultimate goal of meditation. The main source for the practice of Ignatian spirituality was in St. Ignatius’ treatise, The Spiritual Exercises. Published in 1548,

Ignatius set forth this "practical manual aiming to guide others to a somewhat similar yet fully personalized spiritual experience."201 Organized for completion over the course of four weeks more suited to cloistered life, the Exercises can be adapted by any means over any extended period of time, which suited an active lifestyle. The first week informs the

199 Goodrich, Faithful Translators, 147. 200 Goodrich, “Ensigne Bearers,” 90. 201 George E. Ganss, The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: A Translation and Commentary (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992), 2.

99 retreatant to “Principle and Foundation” bringing to light the end of all creatures which is

"to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord," and holy indifference that consisted of not preferring health over sickness, wealth over poverty, and a long life against a short life.202 During the remainder of the week, the retreatant focused on the gravity of sin and made a general confession of all sins committed over the course of their lifetime. The second week followed meditations on the early life and childhood of Christ, as well as his ministry. The Last Supper, Trial, Passion, and Death of Christ form the meditations for the third week, followed by the Resurrection appearances during the fourth and final week. The translations completed by Percy and Deacon brought together all these aspects of Ignatian discourse of contemplation and meditation.

In the prologue to Percy's translation of An Abridgment of Christian Perfection, she dedicates the text to “the religious of our nation [ . . . ] to purify the intention, in so high a degree, & to reduce man to so great conformitie and union with the will of

God.”203 The preface to early modern translated texts played an important role and performed such functions such as providing “historical background, explanation, justification” and the overall intent of the text.204 The exhortation to conformity would not have been lost on either the English nuns or laity that struggled with the anti-Jesuits over which spirituality afforded the best opportunity toward union with God and each other. Section 1 of An Abridgment introduces two principles that fall in-line with

Ignatius’ “Principle and Foundation”: “to have a meane & a base esteeme of things created, & above all of himselfe,” and “to have a most high esteeme of God [ . . . ] by the

202 Ganss, The Spiritual Exercises, 32. 203 Mary Percy, trans., An Abridgment of Christian Perfection (Omer, 1612) in Catherine Greenbury and Mary Percy (see n. 168), 3-4. 204 Julie Candler Hayes, Translation, subjectivity, and Culture in France and England, 1600-1800, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 8.

100 meane of a great promptitude, & entire submission of the will, & of the whole man, to the majesty of God.”205 The second principle is particularly interesting since submission to

God meant obedience to the convent superior, in this case, Percy herself. In the midst of the spiritual director controversy in the Benedictine convent, submission to the will of

God through the authority of the abbess was crucial to the survival of the convent and by extension the survival of the English convents in exile and their mission. This theme of self-abnegation and sacrifice of individual will remains consistent throughout the entire text. Complete adherence to the will of the abbess extended even into matters of labor around the convent: “by worke, leaving actually that which is superfluous, & retaining only that which is needful to her, according to her state, with the counsaile, & consent of her Superiour”206 Percy, in accordance with the Benedictine rule, maintained this right to dictate the actions, whether internal or external, over all the sisters under her charge.

The second section of An Abridgment incorporated a concept known as

“deiformity” to the cloister, which may have been Percy’s way of trying to include the spiritual desires of the other nuns who wished to perform a mystical regime. The issue at stake here was the preservation of the Benedictine community and, by extension, the maintenance of an English Catholic identity by the nuns. If enough Benedictine nuns left the convent, then the community faced financial ruin, since the religious house depended upon the dowries and incomes of all the sisters in residence. So Mary Percy had quite a responsibility on her hands of appeasing every nun in the convent for their spirituality preference. After climbing “The Ladder of Perfection” through the five exercises of annihilation, dis-appropriation, indifferency, conformity, and uniformity, did the reader

205 Percy, An Abridgment, 12-13. 206 Percy, 21.

101 finally reach the summit of deiformity, that is, to have the will “united by such efficacy of love with the divine, that she feele no more from henceforward herself.”207 The highest and ultimate goal of contemplative mystics, union with God, suggests a literal and spiritual oneness with God, not just with the divine will, but also a transformation into the same substance. The soul finds that all its action are as if God did them, that it does not do anything which is not of God, and that she “returns and reposes in him.”208 Although not technically in line with Ignatian spirituality, this type of achievement in the spiritual life undoubtedly attracted many adherents who wished to follow the Jesuits method of meditation but also follow the mystical way. Since the goal of the English convents in exile was to cultivate an English Catholic identity, and the recusants associated piety with the Jesuits, the nuns practiced modes of spirituality popular among the recusants for two reasons: first, to attract novices to their religious houses and benefactors to support the convents financially and second, to have an identifiable spirituality that the English could relate to so that the convent did not appear foreign. In a sense, Percy went with the trend that appealed to most of her sisters and, by extension, the recusant Catholic community involved in the politics concerning the regular and secular clergy. By using her authorial authority as an anonymous translator, her choice of text allowed Percy to be “engaged in intellectual debate and literally determined the terms of the argument.”209 Even though

Percy later abandoned the pro-Jesuit camp in favor of a more lenient path, the regular clergy eventually won out against the seculars when the hierarchy of pastors under the

Bishop of Chalcedon collapsed in 1631. What the situations occurring within the

Benedictine convent in Brussels and the Appellants in England shows is that the desires

207 Ibid, 115. 208 Ibid, 118-120. 209 Hayes, Translation, subjectivity, and Culture, 139.

102 of the gentry prevailed and with the freedom to practice their preferred spirituality could

English Catholicism move forward toward the future.

Rules of Convent Life

The holy rule of a convent existed as the backbone of any religious community; adherence to it was not optional. The rule dictated every aspect of convent life including procedure for admitting new postulants, the roles and responsibilities of leadership, what to do in the case of an unruly sister, the exact specifications of the habit, and how to order the day, just to name a few. While following the specifications remained a must in any convent, the English nuns had to follow their respective rules with the utmost strictness if they hoped to preserve female monasticism and bring it back to England in the future.

Disobedience could mean the dissolution of the community, as seen in Mary Percy’s

Benedictine convent community, and the possible end of one branch of religious life for future English women. Though each holy rule more or less resembled another, each possessed its own unique spirituality as laid out by their founders. Thus the translation of these texts into English formed a crucial tool in the maintenance of an English Catholic identity.

Two English nuns most noted for the translations of their order’s specific rules,

Alexia Grey and Elizabeth Evelinge, provided an indispensable tool for the survival of their convents by translating The Rule of the Most Blissed Father Saint Benedict and The

Rule of the Holy Virgin S. Clare, respectively. Since Grey worked as the mistress of novices in Ghent she saw the necessity of making the rule available and “employed her skill as a Latinist and/or her resources as a gentlewoman to put that rule into their mother

103 tongue and their own hands."210 Of particular interest in the Rule of St. Benedict is the emphasis placed on the vow of obedience, especially since many English Benedictine nuns simply disregarded this commandment as previously seen in the disagreement over choice of spiritual directors. Elizabeth Evelinge, already lauded as a proponent of

Franciscan spirituality, turned her sights to upholding the original version St. Clare had for her nuns, the strict adherence to extreme evangelical poverty. Originally approved in

1252 for St. Clare’s convent at San Damiano, her rule went through several revisions that discarded the Franciscan vision of poverty without communal possessions and stable incomes until St. Colette of Corbie resurrected the original rule in the fifteenth century, the same which Evelinge translated. Both the rule and a section of St. Clare’s biography review the exact parameters and specifications of adherence to evangelical poverty.

Although devotion to the holy rule proved a difficult task, steadfast faithfulness paved the way for each order’s preservation of authentic English Catholic spirituality.

Alexia Grey, Obedience, and The Rule of Saint Benedict

Generally accepted as the father of Western monasticism, the rule of St. Benedict remained the only standard of monastic observance at the beginning of the Medieval period. A complementary rule for women, however, never existed, which is particularly peculiar since women followed St. Benedict, the first being his sister, St. Scholastica.

Therefore, in Grey’s translation, she had to make substantial changes to the text to conform it to her convent, such as changing “abbot” to “abbess” and “brothers” to

“sisters”, and so on. Taking full advantage of her anonymous authority as translator, her

“partial transformation and variation, linguistic updating, and manuscript arrangement

210 Frances Dolan, introduction to Recusant Translators: Elizabeth Cary, Alexia Grey (see n. 168), xii.

104 can be considered as interpreted acts, which enable us in turn to gain a better understanding of the way women read, appropriated, and reworked early modern literary and religious texts."211 This reinterpretation allowed for the sustained continuance of

English female monasticism in exile.

The vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience were standard in any given convent in early modern Europe. Loyalty to these vows among the English convents in exile, however, formed a vital component of preserving and maintaining an English Catholic identity. In the Benedictine order, St. Benedict appointed the vow of obedience as “the cardinal principle of the monastic life.”212 Furthermore,

[T]he monastic life began with the intention to renounce self-will and to place oneself under the will of a superior, who represented the person of Christ. What was demanded was not mere outward conformity, but the inner assent of the wills to the commands of the abbot. Obedience must be prompt, willing, and without murmuring.213

So the rule of St. Benedict clearly states, "as the religious have vowed to God into their

Superiours them selves [ . . . ] Soe must today suffer themselves to bee guyded and governed by their Abbesse, and Superiour, as the Interpretours of Gods holy will”.214

Obedience to the rule and the nuns’ Superiors was the only way that they could stay together in their goal of functioning as a cohesive unit and preserve that sense of collective identity. To follow one’s own self-will challenged that objective. The English

Benedictines at Brussels who did not wish to practice Ignatian spiritual modes took it upon themselves to follow their own consciences and chose the spirituality they

211 Belle, “Locating Early Modern Women’s Translations: Critical and Historiographical Issues,” 9. 212 Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, 17. 213 Lawrence, 25. 214 Alexia Grey, trans., The Rule of the Most Blissed Father Saint Benedict (Ghent, 1632), in Recusant Translators: Elizabeth Cary, Alexia Grey (see n. 168), 15.

105 preferred. This directly violated the vow of obedience and caused them to eventually leave Brussels and establish their own convent in Cambrai. However, since St. Benedict foresaw conflicts such as this, there existed a way of negotiation for each nun to respectfully disagree with her abbess and possibly get her own way:

If any should request anything of her Superiour which shee thinketh needefull for the health of her body or soule, or for the performance of any duty and charge enjoyned her, let her first commend the matter to God, and with a resigned mynde let her open the case to the Superiour, and after it hath beene some two or three tymes denyed her, let her never mentioned the matter more, except shee verely thinke, her Superiour hath for got it, and shee will take it well, that shee bee put in mynde thereof.215

For reasons pertaining to body and soul, a nun could approach the abbess, voice her concerns, upon which the abbess would pray over the matter and reply either in favor or denial of the nun’s request. The avenue remained open for a nun to pursue her petition, but the superior held it within her right to either change her mind or remain steadfast to her previous decision. Among the sisters, the abbess represented Christ and therefore had to be obeyed in all things temporal and spiritual. Since in the case of the pro- and anti-

Jesuit conflict at the Brussels convent the dissenting nuns could not in faith obey their superior, Mary Percy, they received permission to leave and establish a separate convent where they could practice the spirituality they desired. This prudent choice to leave perhaps saved the English branch of the Benedictine order from dissolution and allowed all involved to adhere to the vow of obedience with express consent from their consciences.

Elizabeth Evelinge, Evangelical Poverty, and The Rule of Saint Clare

When St. Clare, a beautiful eighteen year old, abandoned her aristocratic life to pursue the lofty spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, she upheld every precept of his

215 Grey, The Rule, 16.

106 vision, including the radical dedication to evangelical poverty. Argued over for centuries by Poor Clare nuns and Franciscan friars alike, a watered-down, more “sensible” rule emerged when the order moved to France under the patronage of Isabelle, daughter of

Louis VIII. Approved by Pope Urban IV in 1293, this rule allowed the Poor Clare convent to own property.216 In the early fifteenth century, St. Colette of Corbie set out to reform the Poor Clare order to revive the intention of Clare. She did so by reinstituting the original rule, along with a set of declarations and ordinances for its successful execution, both translated by Evelinge. Since the English convents, in particular the Poor

Clare houses, desired to follow the spirit of their foundress as closely as possible, this uniformity with the past secured their plan to preserve this specific type of English

Catholic identity and spirituality. Knowing the exact specifications laid out by St. Clare, who “contracted so strict an amitie with holy poverty and became so enamoured thereof,”217 did Elizabeth Evelinge ensure that her fellow sisters steadfastly practiced the way of life they promised to follow and sustain through her translations.

All three of Evelinge’s translations, the rule, The declarations and ordinances made upon the rule, and the biography of St. Clare emphasize the ideals of evangelical poverty, that “the Abbesse, and all the Sisters, are bound to observe poverty, which they have promised unto God and unto S. Francis.”218 The rule of St. Clare forcefully addresses the specifications of poverty in chapter 6,

2. The holy father perceiving that we feared no poverty, labour, tribulation, vility, or contempt of this world, but that we esteemed these as great riches, he being moved with pitty did write unto us a forme of life, making this promise.

216 Bert Roest, Order and Disorder: The Poor Clares between Foundation and Reform (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2013), 124. 217 Evelinge, The history of the angelicall virgin glorious S. Clare, 144. 218 Elizabeth Evelinge, trans., The declarations and ordinances made upon the rule (St. Omer, 1622) in Elizabeth Evelinge II (see n. 168), 89.

107

6. I beseech you all my daughters and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, and counsell you, that you will always live in this most holy life, and poverty: and take great care that you do never depart from the same through the teaching or counsaile of anyone.

7. And as I have alwaies byn carefull with my Sisters to observe the holy Poverty which we have promised unto God, unto the holy Father S. Francis; in like manner all the Abbesses that shall succeed me in the office, and the Sisters that are to come, are bound to observe it inviolably unto the end, that is: Not to have received possessions or property, eyther by themselves or by other meanes interposed, nor anything that may rightly be called property.219

Since the order for such extreme measures of poverty came from the mouth of St. Francis himself, there could be no room for compromise in the eyes of Evelinge and other Poor

Clares. They could not give way to pressure even in the slightest way lest they fail in their mission in upholding authentic Franciscan and English values concerning spirituality. When St. Colette reformed the order, she clearly spoke about the specific restrictions on poverty so that no further misinterpretations or outrageous violations could be made in the future. The restrictions of property included all forms of personal property, as well as possessions held in common by the convent such as houses to rent, land to garden or plow in, and even perpetual alms promised by generous benefactors.

3. They shall also never have oxen, kyne, or flocks of sheep, or stable of horses, nor cuppes or dishes of gold, or silver, or any other pretious things: likewise Jewils of gold, or silver, or money, or pretious stones, or any other thinges, or provisions which may last above a yeare: all these are prohibited unto them.220

The original rule of Clare and the reforms instituted by Colette allowed for no steady sources of income whatsoever. Why such a strict provision? Not only did the English

Poor Clares imitate Ss. Francis and Clare, but first and foremost they followed the life of

Christ. Like the other vows of chastity and obedience, the English nuns in exile imitated

219 Elizabeth Evelinge, trans., The Rule of the Holy Virgin S. Clare (St. Omer, 1621) in Elizabeth Evelinge III (see n. 168), 30. 220 Evelinge, The declarations and ordinances, 91.

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Christ’s poverty and detachment from all earthly goods and desires. Being free from attachments meant that the nun was one step closer to achieving divine union. In the case of the Poor Clares, the absence of rents and property schooled them in complete and utter trust in God and their vigilant fidelity to English Catholicism.

Conclusion

Since the ban on Catholicism in England and the subsequent self-imposed exile of many recusants, the question of how to preserve and maintain and English Catholic identity naturally coincided with the struggle to find and practice a spirituality that represented all English Catholics. Of course, there is not specific brand of spiritual practice that fits one and all, which explains the need for different religious orders such as the English nuns established on the Continent. The debate over authority and spirituality among the clergy and laity, that boiled down to who had the best vision for English

Catholicism to move forward into the future, also manifested itself within the convents.

Seeking to contribute to the conversation from their cloistered surroundings, those women who had the skill and knowledge of writing in languages other than English translated key texts within their spiritual traditions to add credence and authority to their respective factions and arguments.

Though published anonymously, Elizabeth Evelinge became widely published for her translations of critical Franciscan texts attributed to St. Clare and the Poor Clare order. Evelinge represented her community at Gravelines as a shining example for the foundation of the Second English Franciscan Province as a model of English Franciscan spirituality. Furthermore, to the edification and example of her fellow Franciscan tertiaries, Catherine Greenbury contributed to the Franciscan cause to stir up feelings of

109 piety and contemplative motivation with her translation of the biography of St. Elizabeth of Portugal. These nuns that dedicated themselves to the Franciscan mission raised their voices and fought for their cause, establishing the Franciscan Province and preserving their English Catholic identity without leaving their cloisters.

While the laity wished to choose who they obeyed within the clerical hierarchy that guided English Catholicism through uncertain times, that conflict followed women into the English convents in exile, as well. Abbess Mary Percy, who inaugurated the

English convent foundations, witnessed the struggle for choice within her community.

Also wishing to represent authentic English Catholic spirituality, the English nuns wanted the option of either having a Jesuit confessor, who led them through the Spiritual

Exercises of St. Ignatius, or follow the path toward mystical contemplation as set forth by

Augustine Baker. During the early years of her leadership, Percy strongly advocated for the Jesuit cause, but eventually was won over to following the spiritual advice of

Benedictine priests. Perhaps as a sign of her cross over and in the hopes of finding some common ground for her sisters to agree upon without the pain of discord, she translated

An Abridgment to Christian Perfection. Combining the spiritual precepts of St. Ignatius, the methodical approach to prayer and meditation also advocated by the Jesuits, in addition to mystical aspects and achievements, Percy gave the dissenting sisters an opportunity to adhere to their vow of obedience to no avail. Despite her failure to give her community an example of piety to maintain the collective identity of the convent, the anti-Jesuit faction left the house in Brussels peacefully to establish a foundation where all could live and pray in accord.

110

Finally, as evident in the struggle for choice within the Benedictine convent at

Brussels, following the holy rule of the community provided an indispensable tool for the nuns to preserve an English Catholic identity to take back to England. Each representing their own specific brand of English spirituality, adherence to the rule was not optional and the translations by Alexia Grey and Elizabeth Evelinge made sure that the sisters knew what the qualifications were for living in the convent in harmony. Of particular interest to the Benedictine rule translated by Grey is the emphasis placed on the vow of obedience. As mistress of novices and perhaps in reaction to the disorder in Brussels,

Grey wished to avoid the same catastrophe in her convent in Ghent. Even though St.

Benedict allows for some leniency for not following the authority of the superior, it was only after prayerful consideration and a final decision from the abbess whether the nun could have her own way or be obedient to the one who represented Christ among them.

Following the extreme path of evangelical poverty resurrected itself through the reform movement of St. Colette and continued under the watchful and dutiful practice of the

English nuns in exile. Evelinge’s translation of the holy rule of St. Clare reiterated the exact specifications of their radical poverty that included no rents from properties, annual alms, incomes fairly common and required in most convent communities during the early modern period. Nevertheless, the English Poor Clares remained faithful to Clare’s original vision of St. Francis’ mission to renounce all earthly possessions in imitation of

Christ. Thus following their respective rules could the English nuns retain their sense of collective identity within the convent and work in unison toward their mutual goal of preserving and maintaining an English Catholic identity.

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CHAPTER 4

LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE: PATRONAGE NETWORKS AND LETTER- WRITING

Introduction

Clare Conyers penned a letter addressed to her cousin, Isaac Youngs, towards the end of the English convents’ time in exile. The beginning starts,

Most dear & honoured cousin Aire May the 7nth 1788 Having at present a little leasure time I thought I could doe no less then bestow it upon a friend who so much deserves my attentions: and knowing your pious dispossions I thought perhaps it would not prove disagreeable if I gave you some little notion how we spend our time, as the persusal might serve for a little pious amusement for a person of your sentiments; but alas it would seem very dull to one who delights in a worldly life which God be praised is not your case;

The remainder of the letter displays an incredibly detailed look into the daily schedule and activities typical inside the Poor Clare convent in Aire. Detailed letters such as

Clare’s to her cousin are not usually seen among the surviving letters of early modern

English nuns. So why would she write such a letter to a male relation in England? The answer lays in the continued identity construction and maintenance practiced by the

English nuns living in exile.

Letter-writing became an important tool for the English nuns to establish networks and secure patronage during their 200 year sojourn on the European continent.

The nuns’ letters served a three-fold purpose. First, in order to maintain an English

Catholic identity, they corresponded with English relations still living in England, as well as with recusants also living in exile throughout Europe. The English nuns’ letters served

112 as a reminder to other English Catholics that the nuns lived in exile as English subjects loyal to the monarchy and faithful Catholic coreligionists dedicated to preserve English monasticism. In other words, the nuns implicitly implored their potential benefactors not to forget them. Second, to secure patronage, English nuns who possessed extensive networks of family and friends put their letter-writing to good use by continually corresponding with them. The key to networking during the early modern period was not who the English nuns knew, but who their friends knew at the English court, or the

English Jesuit seminary in Douai, in addition to what wealthy English benefactor had a daughter discerning religious life, etc. Networks provided endless connections and possibilities. Since the nuns adhered to clausura, which prevented them from leaving the convent, their letters contained lively, interesting detail. Finally, the patronage forged by the extensive networks proved vital to the English nuns’ survival abroad for two centuries by looking toward their future circumstances. The nuns called upon their patrons for favors, money, new postulants and, towards the end of their exile, the means to travel home to England and reestablish themselves in their homeland. The nuns in return, continually offered up valuable prayers to keep their benefactors in good health and close to God.

The quantity of letters analyzed are particularly interesting due to the strict limitations and prohibitions placed on the English nuns regarding how many letters they could write, as well as receive.221 According to Claire Walker, “Monastic rule and statutes devoted lengthy sections to the preservation of enclosure, which could be

221 A policy generally applied to cloistered nuns throughout Europe post-Trent.

113 threatened even by indiscriminate correspondence.”222 Women entered a convent was to leave the world completely behind so that they could place their entire mind and heart on the contemplation of God. Constantly reading and writing letters filled with worldly news and gossip concerned superiors and confessors that such distractions inhibited the nun from achieving such a lofty goal. Although the English nuns indeed said goodbye to many of their English relations, “the nuns showed little desire to distance themselves from their coreligionists in England.”223 Looking at the English nuns’ desire to keep in contact with other English recusants makes perfect sense when looked at through the lens of identity formation. Very much like the English Jesuit missionaries and laity that left

England to preserve their faith, so too did the English nuns wish to sustain their way of life for the future. They needed the support of the wider English Catholic community in order to eventually realize that goal. Furthermore, not only did the nuns contribute to a collective identity, but they also formed and maintained their own individual identities as

English Catholics. By corresponding with family and friends, each respective nun strengthened her own ties not only to England, but to English Catholicism.

Before electronic mail, the telephone, and the telegram, letter-writing constituted the best and only form of long distance communication. Also, before letter-writing became an exclusively feminine enterprise during the Victorian era, men and women both corresponded extensively to achieve their respective ends. However, there is much more to the letter than meets the eye. In fact, “correspondences use a highly complicated on or that requires layers of careful unpacking, and awareness of the multidimensional

222 Claire Walker, “‘Doe not supose me a well mortifyed Nun dead to the world’: Letter-Writing in the Early Modern English Convents,” in Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, 1450-1700, ed. by James Daybell (Hampshire & New York: Palgrave, 2001), 161. 223 Walker, “‘Doe not supose,’”162.

114 nature of the epistolary (literally, the letterness of letters) and sensitivity to social and cultural meaning inscribed textually and materially for full understanding."224 The same principle applied to the letter of the English nuns. When Winefrid Thimelby wrote to her

Aston relations, she inquired not just after the health of her nieces, but expressed an ardent hope that one of them would join her in the Augustinian convent in Louvain.

Furthermore, she looked forward to their heavenly reunion and exhorted her relations to stay close to God and not to waver in the face of adversity. As seen in the sheer volume of Winefrid Thimelby’s correspondence, “the aim of such management, in the words of one courtesy writer, is ‘to gain, conserve, or increase the esteem and friendship of those we Converse with.”225 Although the English nuns loved their relations and prayed for their fellow Catholic countrymen, writing letters developed and nurtured such relationships. Intimate connections with a variety of potential benefactors meant an array of support readily available to call upon for aid or support. Thus letter writing forged and maintained the nuns’ presence within the English Catholic recusant community.

This networking tactic ensured the survival of the people within the enclosure, as well as the faith they strove to preserve. As Clare Brant argues, “Letters played out etymological connections between communion, communication and community. Able to cross time and space even as they were products of a moment and a place, letters acted out a Christian soul’s aspiration to escape earthly constraints. They manifested religion’s power to change boundaries."226 Etymology, or the study of the change of words over

224 James Daybell, “Letters,” In The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing, ed. Laura Lunger Knoppers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 181. 225 Bruce Redford, The Converse of the Pen: Acts of Intimacy in the Eighteenth Century Familiar Letter (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 3. 226 Clare Brant, Eighteenth Century Letters and British Culture (Palgrave Macmillan: Hampshire & New York, 2006), 313.

115 time, applies to the evolving face of English Catholicism. First a well-established religion tracing its lineage back to Augustine of Canterbury, now English Catholicism changed to survive in exile. Although it splintered into several factions with varying characteristics, letter-writing ensured the continued communion, communication, and community between the recusants and the English nuns. Even though the nuns could not leave the cloister, their letters reached across time and space and “escape[d] earthly constraints” so that they catered to the spiritual needs of the wider community in exile and secured their economic survival. The English nuns exceeded many boundaries placed on them by the early modern Catholic Church and changed the expectations, responsibilities, and capabilities of enclosed female religious. As examined in the following English nuns’ letters, “there is so much about contemporary social practices, and activities often ‘hidden from history’” that reveal how the nuns attracted novices, sought aid during major crises within the convent, acquired patronage for family members and for their own order, and the extensive aid they received when political uprisings on the continent forced the nuns to return to England at the end of the eighteenth century.

Attracting Novices

English women established convents in exile to serve two purposes: to preserve female monasticism and to answer the popular demand of English-speaking convents for recusant women. Novices that entered the English convents fluctuated throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, largely dependent upon the political climate in

England. According to a chart Claire Walker compiled (Figure 2), the number of religious professions increased steadily during the first forty years of exile, with the highest number accounting for 14.7% during the years 1621-1630 of total professions

116 between 1591-1710.227 During the next twenty years, the English convents experienced a sharp decrease in professions that accounted for about thirteen percent of total professions during the period. The last fifty years displayed a significant surge in young women taking perpetual vows, even though all hopes of returning to England dwindled when the Catholic James II abdicated in favor of his Protestant daughter, Mary II, and son-in-law, William of Orange. After the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne, died and the

Hanoverian dynasty began, the English convents did not experience the same vitality in religious professions.

The samples of letters analyzed in this section deal directly with the strategy and concern of English nuns attempting to attract young women to their cloisters, each belonging to a different time during the convents’ exile. Abbess Winefrid Thimelby,

Augustinian Canoness in Louvain, implored her nieces to consider a religious vocation during the 1660s, a time of abundant candidates to religious life. Clare Conyers, a Poor

Clare nun at Aire, wrote towards the end of the nuns’ exile in the 1780s. From the prosopographical research done on the Who Were the Nuns? website,228 Conyers’ convent experienced a high number of professions over the previous 30 years, but also felt the loss of a majority of those recently deceased.

Recruitment proved a difficult task for the English convents since a vast majority of English women could not actually visit their preferred monastic house, making a decision based mainly on hearsay in letters from monastic relations, recusant travellers who visited the convents, and father-confessors. Young women needed an in-depth look at the daily schedule of convent life, offering a mere snap shot of what kind of life they

227 Claire Walker, Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe, 20. 228 http://wwtn.history.qmul.ac.uk/index.html

117 would dedicate themselves to undertake. Clare Conyers’ letter to her cousin, Isaac

Youngs, provides a most peculiarly detailed hour-by-hour account of what the Poor Clare vocation consisted of over the course of the day. Now, while Clare proclaims at the beginning of the letter that her cousin, a most pious gentleman, might consider reading about the daily life of nuns as “amusement,” it is easy to consider that he was not her only intended audience. Letters such as these rarely remained private between the writer and reader. Oftentimes third parties became privy to the information, particularly if a benefactor was mentioned. So, although much more research could be done as to Isaac

Youngs’ social network connections among recusants in England, it would not be so far- fetched to consider him showing this detailed letter to a missionary priest, who knew of a young woman or two that considered religious life but weren’t sure how to go about narrowing down their options. Such recruitment would ensure the continued mission of the English nuns to preserve English monasticism for women and maintain an English

Catholic identity by solely accepting English women instead of resorting to allowing foreigners to keep the convent open.

Clare Conyers and the Poor Clares in Aire

The reason for writing this letter is plainly seen not just in the Poor Clare convent but in every English convent on the Continent: “the decline which manifested itself in all the communities at the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty (1714) soon showed its effects, for in 1745 the four English Poor Clare Convents contained about half of their former numbers.”229 Conyers states in the letter that they were twenty-four in number, which was curiously low for a convent that did not restrict the number of nuns in

229 Peter Guilday, The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent, 300.

118 residence, like the Discalced Carmelites.230 From 1750-1788, thirty-seven women professed perpetual vows, with the highest number of professions during the 1770s.

Furthermore, the amount of deaths was staggering: thirteen deaths occurred before 1790, mostly young women.231 Since many of the young nuns died, that left a high number of elderly nuns within the convent. As a leader in the convent community, holding several positions over the years and eventually elected as Abbess, Clare Conyers took it upon herself to write her cousin in England for his spiritual amusement as much as for the opportunity to attract new novices.232

Much like the other English convents, the Poor Clare at Aire followed the standard Liturgy of the Hours, praying eight times a day starting with the Midnight

Office, Matins. Rising at 11:30 pm to the call of a sister exclaiming, “Domine labia mea aperies,” to which the sleeping sisters responded “os meum annuntiaba laudem tuam,” they chanted until 1 am, meditated for about thirty minutes more, then “we say 6 Pater

Nosters and as many Ave Marias & Gloria Patris with our arms extended in form of a cross, these prayers is what we term making our crosses and is offered up for benefactors.”233 The practice of “making crosses” appears continually in Clare’s letter as an example of how often the nuns remembered their benefactors throughout the day.

Praying for those that supported the convent financially proved important for several reasons. First, both parties exchanged goods: the benefactors provided monetary support and the nuns prayed for their spiritual and temporal well-being. Second, and this

230 In the Carmelite Rule as laid out by Teresa of Avila, only 13 women were allowed within a convent at any given time. The number was later raised to 21, leaving 20 spaces open for the nuns and one space to represent either St. Teresa or Jesus. 231 Who Were the Nuns? information from Aire Register. 232 Known in religion as Sister Rosalia Clare. 233 Clare Conyers to Isaac Youngs, Aire, May 7, 1788, in Life Writing I. Vol. 3, The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800, ed. Nicky Hallett (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012), 277.

119 particularly applies to English benefactors, prayer gave the English nuns a sense of helping the English Catholic cause by spiritually supporting those that faced persecution on a daily basis. This connected the nuns to their compatriots and provided them a sense of connection to their homeland every single day.

Clare Conyers continues to elaborate on various other activities throughout the day that might appeal to English young women. During their dinner around the early afternoon, the nuns congregated in the refectory where “there is always one appointed to read at table . . . the Holy Scripture the Lives of Saints the obligations of a religious state

& some others regarding the different feasts of the year.”234 Each text read aloud exemplified the astute holiness of the religious house: reading of Holy Scripture indicated that the nuns received a thorough religious education, even during meal times; hearing the lives of the saints ensured that the women commemorated the sacrifices of holy men and women, especially sanctified English martyrs and saints throughout England’s distant and recent past; “the obligations of a religious state” most likely refers to the recitation of the Rule, which served as a reminder to the English nuns of their duty as religious to uphold their vows and stringently follow all guidelines; finally, the Poor Clares remembered specific feast days during the year, such as Franciscan saints Francis, Clare,

Bonaventure, Colette, and Anthony, in addition to English saints Thomas Becket, Julian of Norwich, and Edward the Confessor.

Further on in the letter, Clare describes the responsibilities and official offices within the convent. A senior nun oversaw the novices, another had care of the church, three choir nuns including Clare served as portresses, who answered the door and took care of deliveries, two nuns took care of the sick sisters, while another two worked in the

234 Conyers to Young, 278.

120 kitchen. She continues on with the procedures of elections for the aforementioned positions taking place every three years “& may continue the same again or change them just as the community thinks proper.”235 Such organization showed interested candidates from Youngs’ connections that the convent at Aire possessed a specific set of rules for life and operated a well-organized establishment, a key element in a holy and efficient religious house.

This letter exemplifies a fundamental component of the continuation of English convents in exile: attracting young English women to their cloisters. Not only did these young women bring money in the form of a dowry and continued family patronage, the nuns’ very presence in the convent ensured the continued the effort to construct and maintain an English Catholic identity for future English Catholics, as well as for the reestablishment of the faith in England in the future.

Winefrid Thimelby and the Canonesses in Louvain

While Clare Conyers’ letter does not explicitly address a certain young woman of the Catholic gentry class, the letters of Winefrid Thimelby most certainly do.236 Her letters specifically target her nieces, Catherine and Gertrude, also known as Keat and Gat, respectively. Abbess Winefrid wrote constantly to her sister, Catherine Aston, her brother-in-law, the Honorable Herbert Aston, and also to Keat and Gat, reiterating her desire for them to take religious vows and join her in the Augustinian convent at Louvain.

In fact, the sheer volume of letters Abbess Winefrid wrote reveals a great disparity between her and other English nuns of the period. While women religious indeed corresponded with their relations, the convent superiors and confessors limited such

235 Ibid, 279. 236 Alias Mary Thimelby.

121 contact, since they believed frequent writing of letters distracted the nuns from their prayers and work. If nuns received letters from family or friends, the superior read it first, who gave the receiving nun permission to write back at a later time. However, they often bent the established rules to fit their interests and desires. As abbess, Winefrid Thimelby wrote as much as she desired, as evidenced by her large volume of letters. The fervent desire for her nieces to become nuns speaks well of her as a loving aunt, who only wished the same happiness she experienced as a professed religious. In the end, Catherine professed the vows of an Augustinian Canoness at Louvain in 1668.

From the year 1650 to Keat’s profession in 1668, Abbess Winefrid composed letters to Herbert Aston that constantly speak of her niece, which suggests the parents also preferred a religious vocation for their daughter. In Letter XLIV Winefrid writes to

Mr. Aston of Keat, requesting he send her information concerning the young girl’s health and well-being.237 In the next paragraph, the abbess begins to poetically elaborate on

Keat’s possible religious vocation:

Sweet Jesus grant itt so. How willingly shall I singe a nunc dimittis, when I see Keat as happy as my self, I mean as contented, for true hapinis consists in goodnis; and wheresover she bee, I hope she will exceede me in that; for I can boast of nothing but your favor, and the profesion, that I am, as much as Keat can wish.238

Evidently Winefrid wished the best and highest form of joy for her niece in becoming a nun. As an English nun who preserved an English Catholic identity for future generations, Catherine Aston joining a religious order served a two-fold purpose: to

237 Winefrid Thimelby to Herbert Aston, Louvain, date unknown, in Tixall Letters; or the Correspondence of The Aston Family and their Friends during the seventeenth century, vol. 2, ed. Arthur Clifford (Edinburgh: James Ballantyne & Co., 1815), 18. Thimelby only sparsely records the year of her letters, which leaves the historian to venture an educated guess. Since the editor of the Tixall letters records that Letter XLII was probably written around the death of her sister Catherine in 1658 and before the profession of Gertrude Thimelby, Letter XLIV was probably written in 1658. 238 Thimelby to Aston, 18-19. The nunc dimittis is the Latin name for the Canticle of Simeon (Luke 2:29-32).

122 continue the legacy of English monasticism and to fulfill her own contentment in pursuing a religious vocation. Winefrid continues her aspirations in Letter XLVI maintaining the “small hopes of ever seeing Keat so hapy as my selfe.” Furthermore, “I dar never mention itt to her, for, on that proiect, I could better spend teares then inck.

This sad thought puts me quit out of saying more then that I constantly am Your most affectionat sister, WIN. THIM.”239 This small section of the letter explains a great deal about Winefrid Thimelby’s intentions for her niece: this profound bliss that the abbess found living out a religious vocation compelled her to desperately desire to share it with her beloved niece. The very fact that the idea of Keat rejecting such a prospect puts

Winefrid in such a state that she could not even continue writing the letter to Herbert

Aston.

Abbess Thimelby’s hope of Keat joining her religious order raised significantly when another female relation entered the convent of Augustinian Canonesses. Gertrude

Thimelby, wife of Winefrid’s brother, Henry, and sister to Herbert Aston, professed vows in 1658 after the death of her husband. Winefrid recounts the intermittent sadness and joy of her sister-in-law who’s “eyes’ deluge not yet wholy ceaced, yet who can repine att so hapy a flood, which has raysed her to the contemplation of heaven, wher such pearls as her teares contribute with other jewells to the ritches of that ocean of delight.”240 At this point, it seems that Keat seriously began to consider becoming a nun, since Winefrid writes that, “Keat also goes along with much smoothnes, not knowing any thing but happiness. Yet can complaine, she must expect so longe before she be a nun.”241

Catherine appears eager to join religious life, but may have been too young to enter. At

239 Ibid, 23. 240 Ibid, 25. 241 Ibid.

123 the time of Gertrude Thimelby’s profession, Keat participated in the celebration as

Winefrid recounts the ceremony:

Our dear sister hath now changed murning into whight attire. Oh had you seen the solemnity, I am confident yr hart wod not have contained all the ioy, but shed some att yr eyes. Keat was the bearer of her crowne; was itt not fit she shuld, who meanes to duble itt, in the last, and lasting nuptiall feast?242

The abbess further cements Keat’s desire to become a nun since, carrying the crown of roses during the ceremony, she clearly meant to double it with her own profession in just ten years’ time.

Abbess Winefrid Thimelby’s affection for her young niece continued through the years as it appears in subsequent letters that Keat suffered frequently from illness at the family home in Bellamour. The caring aunt queries Mr. Aston as to “what hopes of having my dear Keat againe? My want of resignation deserves, I fear, this rod of separation.”243 At this point in the volume, it is difficult to determine exactly what year

Winefrid wrote each letter since Gertrude Thimelby’s profession in 1658. The next letter with a clear date is Letter LVIII dated June 24, 1677. By this time, Catherine Aston has made her final vows in the Augustinian convent in Louvain for about nine years. As such,

Winefrid’s dear Keat fulfilled her aunt’s ardent desire in her pursuing a religious vocation. Within the English convents in exile, it was not unusual for multiple generations of family members to reside within the same religious community. As such, this family closeness helped the English nuns to develop a tight-knit community that effectively preserved an English Catholic identity. It is also likely that the English nuns actively recruited young women among their English friends and relations precisely in order to keep these English convents English. By having the support of actual loved ones

242 Ibid, 30. 243 Ibid, 41.

124 within the convent, as well as the affection of spiritual sisters in Christ, the mission to construct and maintain an authentic identity achieved a greater rate of success.

Seeking Aid

Whenever the English nuns needed financial assistance, they reached out to their network of family, friends, and benefactors for help. A vast majority of the time, the nuns requested aid for everyday needs, such as maintenance, donations for new religious items, and the dowry required from new entrants. However, the importance of the network never seemed more vital than during times of crisis. According to James

Daybell, "Women's letters of petition [ . . . ] reveal familiarity with rhetorical and epistolary forms in terms of structure, language, strategies and manuscript layout."244

Writing to family, friends, and potential benefactors, the nuns carefully crafted their letters in humble and submissive petition to acquire the aid they required.

The letters highlighted in this section explain the disastrous atrocities that occurred to the Poor Clares in Gravelines in 1654 and the Bridgettines in Lisbon in 1755.

The arsenal in the town of Gravelines experienced a massive explosion due to gunpowder that consequently leveled a significant amount of the convent. Lisbon, Portugal experienced what is called “the Great Earthquake” that destroyed a majority of the city, caused fires, and triggered a tsunami. Since these disasters affected the respective cities the nuns inhabited, they could not depend on local help. As Donald Warren reveals,

"given a society of mobile people in search of a better life, the vitality of natural helping networks can no longer be based exclusively on local ties.”245 Considering the English nuns decided not to assimilate into the local communities in order to maintain their

244 Daybell, “Letters”, 186. 245 Donald Warren, Helping Networks: How People Cope with Problems in the Urban Community (University of Notre Dame Press: Indiana, 1981), 1.

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English identity, they did not rely solely on local aid, although they did mingle with the local population on an as-needed basis.

On a much wider scale, the letters that these English nuns wrote asking for aid from their compatriots "also illuminate the way figures from the periphery of the British world position themselves."246 Due to the extensive networks the nuns established, they resembled English citizens living across the globe, throughout the empire. These networks proved a vital tool in their continued existence and aided them in their vocation to construct and maintain and English Catholic identity.

Poor Clares in Gravelines

The first letter, written by an unknown English Poor Clare to an unnamed benefactor, perfectly sums up the role letter-writing played in the construction of an

English Catholic identity, both for the nuns as well as a reminder for the wider English

Catholic community. The Poor Clare nun described the blast and devastation that occurred when 800 barrels of gunpowder, bombs, and grenades caught fire and ravaged the town, killing nearly 400 persons. The blast injured about ten to twelve nuns among the sixty in the convent as they worked at their respective chores. This letter exemplifies a compilation of multiple accounts of what happened that day because the nun writing surely did not witness everything she described in the letter.

At first without hearing any noise, they saw the whole house open on all sides, entire walls to leane & bend one upon another the dores & windows broken, the roof & grates carried away, the beams, solivo’s stones & bricks to fly beyond the town in a thick cloud of dust which almost stifled them. The poor Sisters who were together at work had their veils carried away, & felt their works pull’d out of their hands by the violence of the agitated ayre.247

246 Lindsay O’Neill, The Opened Letter: Networking in the Early Modern British World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 16. 247 Poor Clare nun to Anonymous benefactor, Gravelines, June 10, 1654, in Life Writing I. Vol. 3, The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800, ed. Nicky Hallett (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012), 315.

126

Immediately after recovering the injured sisters from the ruins, they sung a Te Deum in thanksgiving for God delivering them unscathed. The convent community then proceeded to seek out monetary aid. The anonymous sister reminded the benefactor and, by extension, wider English Catholic community of the Poor Clare’s sacrifice in leaving

England to establish religious houses to preserve the English Catholic faith future generations.

This unknown nuns’ letter provides an extraordinary example in its understanding of the work the nuns undertook in the English Catholic identity cause. First, she reminds the anonymous benefactor that, “the piety of their [the nun’s] Catholick parents had built for them out of their country with much difficulty against the persecutions of

England.”248 Founded in 1609, the Poor Clares at Gravelines faithfully upheld the English

Catholic faith all the way through the gunpowder explosion. The persecutions of England against their Catholic compatriots inspired their devotion. Like the nuns who wrote the histories of their convents and about the English martyrs, this Poor Clare nun also invokes the past in her plea for aid. Second, she assures the benefactor of the deserving state of these nuns to rebuild their poor monastery. “They are persons of quality,” she exhorts, “& of the best houses in England, who have left their country, their parents, their fortune & their pretensions not only to conserve the purity of the Catholick Religion; but to embrace the sanctity of the strictest order in the Church.”249 In other words, the

English Poor Clares of Gravelines gave up their entire lives, including the possibility of marriage, children, wealth, and position, in order to conserve English Catholicism for

248 Poor Clare to Anonymous, 315. 249 Ibid, 316.

127 future generations. The anonymous nun assures her generous patron that they deserved money because of the sacrifice for their holy cause.

Finally, the Poor Clare nun reminds the reader that these English women continued to persevere in exile, “without support in a country” not their own “for the glorious cause of Religion.” These women could have stayed in England where they had the constant support of family and friends to aid them in times of need. However, since the English government did not permit religious houses, the nuns ventured into the unknown without the slightest hint of future support. At that present moment, the unknown nun implored her benefactor, hoping for his charity and those that resembled him, for assistance. Her strategy in invoking the Poor Clares’ identity as English

Catholics put into play the idea that "identities are part and parcel of the texturing of frames put into play by networkers and likewise invoked by receivers of messages to understand what each other wants and what each other can do."250 The English gentry living in exile existed within the frame of English Catholics in exile. The anonymous nun let her benefactor know what her convent community needed from his network and informed him exactly of how he might help.

Bridgettines in Lisbon

On the morning of All Saints Day, November 1, 1755, a massive earthquake struck the city of Lisbon, while a majority of the faithful attended Mass. Catherine

Witham wrote to her mother in January 1756 with an account of the events of that day.251

The letter begins, “allmighty Gods goodness spaird us, Sweet Jesus make me & us all

250 Paul D. McLean, The Art of the Network: Strategic Interaction and Patronage in Renaissance Florence (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2007), 7. 251 Known in religion as Catherine de Santa Anna.

128 gratefull to his devine sefety for the great favour he has done us.”252 Like a majority of the letter written by the English nuns there is a spiritual element to exhort the reader to look to God at all times and for all things. In this section, Catherine thanks God for preserving the English Bridgettines from any casualties. If the earthquake took place in the night, more nuns would have perished since the cells sustained most of the destruction. Since the earthquake occurred on a holy day, the nuns ate their breakfast throughout the convent instead of in the refectory. Catherine worked in the kitchen washing up the dishes when “the dreadfull afair beyond itt began like the rattleing of coaches on the things before me danst up & downe upon the table.”253 She, another nun, and the abbess began to run to safety to the choir “but there was no entrance but all falling round us, & the lime & dust so thick there was no seeing.”254 Finally Catherine and the rest of the Bridgettines met up in the garden where they took refuge several months following the earthquake. With the conditions of the convent so ruined, especially the 35 destroyed cells, they shared a “woden roove” with two priests.

Throughout the letter, Catherine Witham mentions several other names of English compatriots affected by the quake. A certain Sir Harry Klen, Mr Killinghales, and Mrs

Tunstall are all mentioned in the correspondence. Sir Klen died when a house fell upon him. Mr Killinghales luckily avoided the calamity altogether since it appears that he made an annual trip to Lisbon. She further mentions that Mrs. Tunstall informed her of the death of Mr. Killinghales’ servant.255 While there is no further information on Klen and Killinghales, we do know that the Tunstalls were very much involved with the

252 Catherine Witham to mother, Lisbon, January 27, 1756, in Life Writing I. Vol. 3, The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800, ed. Nicky Hallett (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012), 309. 253 Ibid. 254 Ibid. 255 Ibid, 311.

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English convents in exile and had many daughters as nuns. Why did Catherine Witham reference these names to her mother? According to Lindsay O’Neill,

But as a correspondent mentioned other individuals by name within a letter to receiver most likely knew them. By mentioning them the correspondent allow the receiver to keep abreast of the actions of those connections as well as those of his direct correspondents. One did not need to send or receive a letter to be part of an epistolary network. Acknowledging the second layer connection broadens the scope of the epistolary world and helps reveal how it functioned.256

This name-dropping done by Catherine ensured aid from these individual’s very own networks and heightened the chances of receiving enough financial aid from their sources to rebuild the convent in Lisbon. If fellow English Catholics resided within these extended networks, this secured the English nuns’ presence within the exiled community’s consciousness. Considering that the English nuns remained ever present within the minds of their compatriots, then they could further extend their patronage networks in preparation for a smoother transition back in English society.

Another Bridgettine, Frances P. Huddleston, wrote to her nephew Ferdinand

Huddleston in June 1756 requesting funds to rebuild their convent.257 Frances

Huddleston’s letter does not give an account of the earthquake, but solely asks her nephew for aid: “The inclosed is a humble petition from this Society, which I beg you will take into your pious consideration, as also to lay the same before such charitable christians as you think may concur to our relief.”258 During the early modern era, "This was a society which people were used to assisting one another. [ . . . ] This was not a new idea. The sense that ties of mutual obligation and reciprocity held society together had

256 O’Neill, The Opened Letter, 79. 257 Known in religion as Sister Placida Francisca de Santa Birgitta. 258 Frances Huddleston to Ferdinand Huddleston, Lisbon, June 15, 1756, in Life Writing I. Vol. 3, The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800, ed. Nicky Hallett (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012), 301.

130 long held weight.”259 The greater English Catholic community served in this way because helping a group with the same faith and values, like the Bridgettine nuns, in the end helped them inch closer towards their final goal.

Huddleston’s letter contained a further request for monetary assistance by the abbess of the community, Constantina Hackett, Catherin Baldwin, portress, Huddleston and Elizabeth Hadgshon, as well as two Benedictine fathers, Augustin Sulyard and Peter

Wilcockes. Since they explain that “our friends and benefactors here having equaly suffer’d” and Huddleston previously described their situation as “most notorious,” the

Bridgettines offered, “to continue ever praying for the prosperity and conservation of all benefactors.”260 This “give and take” relationship played an important role in the network connections the English nuns made throughout their exile. By “offering spiritual favors in return for practical assistance,” the nuns reassured their patrons of spiritual aid in return for monetary help.261 If the nuns repaired their church and convent as soon as possible then they could resume their prayer life. How fast this happened depended upon the generosity and swiftness of their benefactors.

Patronage

The English nuns living in exile depended upon their extensive networks to establish bonds of patronage among the recusant community. Generally, patronage consists of a “relationship of exchange that provides mutual benefits to both parties, but in which one partner is clearly superior to the other.”262 While the patrons and benefactors clearly supported and encouraged the enterprise undertaken by the English

259 O’Neill, 97. 260 Frances Huddleston to Ferdinand, 301. 261 Walker, Gender and Politics, 111. 262 Catherine Patterson, Urban Patronage in Early Modern England: Corporate Boroughs, the Landed Elite, and the Crown, 1580-1640 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999,) 2.

131 nuns, each relationship had a clearly superior partner, who held the changing tide of fortune within their hands, like in the case of Mary Ward and her Institute of the Blessed

Virgin Mary.263 She sought the patronage of the pope and other clergymen in high ecclesiastical office to support her new and controversial religious order. These men clearly held the upper hand in this client-patron relationship, since their approval meant the continuing or ending of Mary Ward’s popular and rapidly spreading community. On the other hand, the English nuns not only reached out into the secular world for their own sakes, but for the well-being of persons within their networks such as Anne Cary. She worked on behalf of her brother, Patrick Cary, to secure for him a position in the English and Spanish courts during the Interregnum period. His position in either court would have extended Anne Cary’s patronage network thus connecting her convent community to a wider variety of potential benefactors. Such relationships formed through patronage networks only ensured the continuance of the English nuns’ mission to construct and maintain an English Catholic identity.

Mary Ward and the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mary Ward once considered a religious vocation to cloistered life among the Poor

Clare community in St. Omers in the Low Countries. However, she went on to establish an active community for English women based on the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits. The new order encountered problems because of the strict regulation of clausura imposed upon female religious during the early modern period. Even though the Institute spread throughout Europe, Ward fought diligently to gain papal approval for her vision, even among slander within the clerical hierarchy. Her letters to Pope Urban VIII in 1629 and

1630 show her final efforts in keeping her community alive and continuing her active

263 Also known as the “English Ladies.”

132 apostolate. Unfortunately, due to the failure of papal patronage, the Institute never gained confirmation and remained a secular institute in England until the nineteenth century.264

Mary Ward first wrote to Pope Urban VIII on March 25, 1629 on the advice

Giovanni Battista Pallotto, Nuncio Extraordinary in Vienna. The nuncio believed her community could obtain approval if she had an audience with the pope. The network connections she displayed within the letter showed the pope that her Institute gained widespread attention and approval from various heads of state and religious authorities.

First, she gives the names of Urban’s predecessors, Paul V and Gregory XV, to give further support that the papacy had, in the past, supported her endeavors. Of Paul V, she says “His Holiness gave his approval, promised to consider confirming the Institute, and had letters of recommendation written to the Bishops and Apostolic Nuncios of the regions where they wee living at the time.”265 Next, she names the Holy Roman Emperor,

Ferdinand II, the King of Spain Phillip III, and the Archduchess Isabella of Flanders. In the year 1621, each head of state wrote a letter of recommendation to Pope Gregory XV to confirm the Institute. Mary Ward describes that, “he also replied to the above named rulers by sending excellent letters that showed the favour he meant to do to the petitioners and their Institute.”266 These illustrious links indicate that a "single link was never sufficient; supplicants need many connections in the power to send a vibration throughout a whole web of linkages."267 The very fact that she acquired as much attention for the

264 McLean, The Art of the Network, 5. 265 Mary Ward to Pope Urban VIII and the Cardinals, Rome, March 25, 1629, in Mary Ward (1585-1645): a briefe relation-- with autobiographical fragments and a selection of letters, ed. Christina Kenworthy-Browne (Woodbridge: Catholic Record Society, 2008), 150. 266 Ibid. 267 O’Neill, 101.

133 approval of her religious order proves that her mighty list of social network connections made it possible for her to continue her work as long as she did.

She continues in the letter by reiterating to Urban not to believe the slanderous gossip spreading about the English Ladies, such as “preaching in pulpits and squares, and holding public disputations on divine matters.” The most prominent voice opposed to the

Institute, Father Valeriano Magni, a Capuchin friar, who also incidentally worked against the Jesuits. Mary Ward indicates to the pope that “he made many statements that were very far from true—a mistake that nearly always goes with excessive zeal on what are supposed to be good causes.”268 The order established two colleges and numerous schools for girls across the European continent during its short tenure. At the end of the letter, she reminds the pope that ending the Institute would be most perilous to the

English women “because they are the largest number and they come from a native country infected with heresy, to which they cannot return without great danger to their souls.”269 As part of constructing and maintaining an English Catholic identity, many

English women joined the ranks of the Institute in imitation of their English compatriots who became missionary Jesuits. These women wanted an active part in making England faithful to Catholicism again, just as English Jesuits set up their own colleges in Spain and the Low Countries to send missionaries back to England to support the recusant community. As such, Ward pleads with the pope “not to allow them to be cast out as women of ill repute, but to have their case examined.”270 In her final appeal to Urban VIII five years later, she assures him of her devotion “to serve his Divine Majesty” through

268 Mary Ward to Pope Urban VIII and the Cardinals, 153. 269 Ibid, 154. 270 Ibid.

134 the Institute.271 However, by the end of the letter, “having humbly set this forth,” she submits to his authority “to desist from such practices.”272 Although the Institute did disband a couple years later, Mary Ward and a small group of English Ladies did in fact return to England as a secular order and established schools for girls where they continue into the present day.

Anne Cary and the Court of King Charles II

During the early modern period, family ties played an important role in establishing patronage networks: “Family provided the cornerstone of affinity. Even from the time of birth a new member of the family entered into a range of complex relationships extending from parents and siblings to encompass to some degree all those who bore the family name.”273 As seen clearly in the previous letters, family connections formed the foundation for lifelong networks. For the English nuns, these connections did not end once they entered the convent; most cases stayed stable and flourished through many generations. Anne Cary, a Benedictine nun at Cambrai,274 began petitioning in

March 1650 on behalf of her brother Patrick for a court position with the ambassador

Edward Hyde, Lord Clarendon. During the previous year, the English Civil War ended and the Interregnum period commenced with the beheading of Charles I under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell. The king’s heir Charles II continued to fight throughout

1650 to secure his position as King of England, starting with negotiations in Breda,

Scotland to sign the convenant allowing him to be declared king.

271 Mary Ward to Pope Urban VIII, Munich, November 28, 1630, 156. 272 Ibid, 157. 273 Malcolm Walsby, The Counts of Laval: Culture, Patronage and Religion in Fifteenth and Sixteenth century France (Hampshire & Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), 52. 274 Known in religion as Sister Clementia of Sancta Maria Magdalena.

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During this uncertain time in Stuart England, Anne Cary did her utmost to secure her family’s future stability and prosperity. Seeking a position for her brother in either the courts of the exiled Stuarts or the King of Spain, Anne writes to Lord Clarendon that

“your Lordship must first knowe that I venture to propose this matter to you onely upon consideration that it I to one who is able to iudge whither it bee fit or no to bee proceeded in [ . . . ] without feeding mee with unprofitable hopes, and will not feare to refuse if hee thinke it unreasonable.”275 She continues to suggest that Patrick be placed somewhere where “his Relligion might bee no impediment to him,” meaning in the court of the

Spanish Netherlands, or in the entourage of Charles II, to whom “hee is a very faithfull and Loyall subject to his King [ . . . ] a very good Catholicke.”276 The Benedictine community at Cambrai would have undoubtedly established strong patronage connections with either the Catholic faction surrounding Charles’ mother, Henrietta

Maria, or with the Spanish monarch, who already supported other English convents like the Bridgettines in Lisbon or the Carmelites in Antwerp.

Patrick Cary accompanies his sister’s letter with one of his own to Lord

Clarendon. Cary commences in remembrance of the relationship Clarendon had with the recently deceased Lord Falkland, brother to Anne and Patrick: “My Lord, all else (who had the happynesse of knowing you) assured mee that you were soe noble as not onely to conserve fresh memory of my Brother Falkland, but allsoe to extend your affection, and favour to those who had any relation unto him; a thing becomming much your

275 Anne Carey to Lord Clarendon, Cambrai, March 4, 1650, in Elizabeth Cary Lady Falkland Life and letters, ed. Heather Wolfe (Cambridge: RTM Publications, 2001), 424. 276 Ibid, 425. At this time the religious of preference of Charles II is difficult to define since, during his reign, he clearly embraced the Anglican faith and imposed further restrictions upon Catholics. There is also his famous deathbed conversion to Catholicism, which also suggests he may have been a secret Catholic his whole life. His relationship to the English convents in exile is notable, especially with Mother Mary Knatchbull of the Ghent Benedictines.

136 generositie, and answering to the rarenesse of your other qualityes.”277 By invoking the name of his deceased brother, Cary reminds Hyde of a particular obligation he owes to the Cary family and anyone of the late Lord Falkland’s acquaintance, “Those seeking the favor of the powerful used the language of supplication in almost ritualistic ways, trying to create obligation in their hearers.”278 Cary continues by giving an account of his previous links to the Crown when he received a pension from Henrietta Maria herself, who in turn recommended him to the service of a nephew of Pope Urban VIII. When he lost his income in Italy, “the queene had promist to recomend mee earnestly to my Lord of Ormond; and Catholickes were now by the articles of peace made capable of bearing

Offices in that Kingdome” through a peace between Irish rebels and the royalists.279

Unfortunately Patrick could not take up this position after the defeat of the Duke of

Ormonde by Cromwell’s forces. Cary’s long list of grievances of his many failed attempts at obtaining a profitable position only strengthened his plea for Lord

Clarendon’s aid.

On April 25, 1650, Edward Hyde penned a response to Cary’s letter. Hyde writes that, since the loss of Lord Falkland, “I have rarely felt soe great a pleasure as the first sight of your Name in a Letter” and the great joy he possessed at the possibility of seeing

Cary in France while the English court resided in Paris. Well into the letter Hyde explains the financial constraints upon the exiled English court with a “reall want of Money” and

“that there is a universall stopp of all Pensions which have been granted formerly.”280

With the tide of fortune so uncertain concerning the royalist cause, Lord Clarendon does

277 Patrick Cary to Lord Clarendon, Brussels, March 18, 1650, in in Elizabeth Cary Lady Falkland Life and letters, ed. Heather Wolfe (Cambridge: RTM Publications, 2001), 427. 278 Patterson, Urban Patronage, 16. 279 Patrick Cary to Clarendon, 430. 280 Lord Clarendon to Patrick Cary, Madrid, April 25, 1650, 434.

137 not promise Cary anything, but assures him at the end of the letter that the king remembers his brother of happy memory. He recommends Cary to Mr Secretary Nicholas to seek out a position for him. This speaks to the fact that “no patron, however, wealthy, powerful, or exalted, is an island.”281 Since Hyde could not help Cary, he tapped into his own patronage network and employed someone who might offer assistance. On the very same day, Hyde writes a similar letter to Anne Cary reiterating what he communicated to her brother, that “ [I] have given him no encouragement to expecte any obligacion from this Crowne.”282 As acting patron for her brother, Lord Clarendon rightly communicates his progress to Anne Cary and keeps her up-to-date.

Anne Cary ends her correspondence with Lord Clarendon on June 5, 1650. She writes to inform him that, by the time she received his April 25 letter, her brother “had taken upon him our Holy habitt at Doway amongst our Fathers” the Benedictines.283 She attests that, “having begunne his tryall with so strong a resolution, and so much consolation; that I verily belleeve nothing will have the power to make him change it.”284

Anne Cary concludes her letter with the assurance that, if her brother ever needed a worldly patron again, he could depend upon the kindness of Lord Clarendon in the hopes that “your Lordships will bee as ready to favour him as you are now.”285Although the circumstances prevented Hyde from securing a court position for Patrick Cary, Anne preserved a vital patronage contact within the exiled English court for the future.

281 Werner L Gundersheimer, “Patronage in the Renaissance: An Exploratory Approach,” in Patronage in the Renaissance, ed. Guy Fitch Lytle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 19. 282 Lord Clarendon to Anne Cary, Madrid, April 25, 1650, 436. 283 Anne Cary to Lord Clarendon, Cambrai, June 5, 1650, 440. Patrick Cary entered the novitiate in May 1650 at approximately the same time Lord Clarendon wrote his final letter to him. 284 Ibid, 441. 285 Ibid, 442.

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Returning Home: The Blue Nuns of Paris and the Jerningham Letters

In the wake and aftermath of the French Revolution (1789-1799) the English convents in exile depended upon their patronage networks and letter-writing to secure new residences in England. The Blue Nuns of Paris utilized their connection with the

Jerningham family who, in turn, tapped into their patronage links to obtain housing and funding. The Jerninghams connection to the Blue Nuns originated with the convent’s first abbess, Angela Alexious alias Anne Jerningham, even though she left the convent four years after its establishment. The family continued to support the nuns when the school opened by sending their daughters for an upstanding English Catholic education. Those who attended included Ladies Mary, Anastasia, and Anne Stafford, the two latter joined the order, and the Honorable Frances Dillon, who later became Lady Jerningham and helped the remaining Blue Nuns settle in England.286

The Blue Nuns problems with the French authorities began in 1790 when a group of commissioners demanded an account of the convent’s “revenue, and property, and took an inventory of its furniture and effects.”287 The commissioners returned a year later to see if the nuns would give up religious life, to which they responded in the negative.

Anastasia Stafford referred to this experience in a letter to her father, when she conjectured “perhaps we shall at Last be forced to seek a refuge in our own Country.”288

The government took a full detailed account of each of the nineteen nuns, lay-sisters, and novices residing in the convent that included religious name, alias, age and years of

286 Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the Blue Nuns, 376. Frances Dillon married William Jerningham who became 6th Bart. Of Costessey after his eldest brother died. 287 Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, xiii. 288 Anastasia Stafford to William Stafford, Paris, July 13, 1791, in The Jerningham Letters (1780- 1843) Being excerpts from the correspondence and diaries of the Honourable Lady Jerningham and of her daughter Lady Bedingfield, ed. Egerton Castle vol. 1 (London: R. Bentley and Son, 1896), 51. Known in religion as Sister Mary Ursula.

139 profession. In October 1794 the French authorities seized the convent and placed the nuns under arrest in the home of their chaplain, Mr. Shelley.289 On November 14 the remaining nuns moved to the English Augustinian convent in Paris where lay sister Ann Woolrich died.290 Finally, in July 1796 the surviving Blue Nuns returned to their Paris convent, except Anastasia Stafford, Mary Anne Aston, Anne Duffield, and Anne Lonergan, and the novice Elizabeth Barrow.291 Of the original nineteen Conceptionists, six passed away during their confinement by the revolutionary government. The last ten nuns remained in the convent until the Directoire confiscated all English establishments in France in 1799.

That year two more nuns died.292 With the final fall of the hammer, the final six Blue

Nuns finally returned home to England.

Although the Blue Nuns’ Diary account ends abruptly in 1792, their experiences in England can be pieced together from the letters of Lady Jerningham to her friends and relatives. She first mentions the Blue Nuns in a letter to her daughter, Charlotte, dated

March 17, 1800. She describes how her son, Edward, does not come down for dinner but,

“keeps salon in the evening with the Nuns, who have hitherto passed their Recreation with me” at Cossey Hall. She further imparts that, “one is always dressed in the habit with the Blue mantle, as a sample of how they used to be, and an apology for their present appearance.”293 The nuns maintain a temporary horarium in place with Mass celebrated in the abbesses bedroom, “then their Breakfast at Nine, dinner there also at

289 Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, 410. Mr. Thomas Shelley arrived at the Blue Nuns’ convent on May 20, 1778 as the last confessor to the community. Returned to England with them but did not settle with them at Norwich. Died in Wolverhampton January 8, 1807, aged 70 years. 290 Known in religion as Sister Mary Thomasina. 291 Anastasia Stafford joined a society of women called Les Filles Orphelines (Diary, 415), while Aston, Duffield, Lonergan, and Barrow returned to England. They did not reunite with the 10 Blue Nuns who later settled in England. 292 Sister Winefrid Joseph alias Elizabeth Stock and Sister Mary Bonaventure alias Dorothy Parker. 293 Lady Jerningham to Charlotte Bedingfield, London, March 17, 1800, 158.

140 one, and Collation at 6.”294 Lady Jerningham generously monitored the Conceptionists’ finances, and procured further funding from friends and patrons:

The Nuns finances are thus: 800L in the funds, and another 100 due them by Bernard Howard as remains of money belonging to his aunt Mother Agnes. 5L a year subscribed for them by Mrs. Porter, 5L by Lady Mostyn, and I have reason to reckon upon 5 from Lady Kenmare on account of her Mother, who was brought up with them.295

In another letter written on April 8, Lady Jerningham informs her daughter of the nuns’ growing financial position with a 50L note from Lord Shrewsbury and an additional 20L a year. She states that “I think they will be able to do” in their new house in Norwich with a further 100L owing to them to purchase furniture.296 Another donation came from Lord

Dillon in Ireland for an additional 10L annually with a note that “he will always

Remember with gratitude their [the nuns] kindness to Him and his Connections” since his first encounter with the nuns, one of whom had emotionally moved him with her blue habit, quiet demeanor, and pretty face.297 The sisters also received notice that the government increased their pensions from one guinea to thirty shillings a month per head.298 The Blue Nuns eventually moved into their new home on Magdalen Street in

Norwich around July 1800.299 They expressed their gratitude to Lady Jerningham with a quote of scripture,

What Reward shall we give to the Angel? What can be worthy of his Benefits? He Conducted me out, and brought me back again in safety. He Received the money of Gabelous, He Delivred me from being Devoured, He made thee to see the Light of Heaven, and we are filled with all good things thro Him.300

294 Ibid, 159. 295 Ibid, 159-160. 296 Ibid, 167. 297 Ibid, 175. 298 Margaret J. Mason, “The Blue Nuns in Norwich, 1800-1805,” Recusant History 24, no. 1 (1998): 103. 299 Mason, “The Blue Nuns,” 90. 300 Ibid, 170. Bible passage reference Tobit 12:1-4a

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The Blue Nuns of Norwich, formerly of Paris, owed a great deal to Lady Jerningham and her patronage network.

Through the Jerningham family’s generosity, the Order of the Immaculate

Conception lived out its final days in England as recognizable English citizens.

Unfortunately, the order did not have the opportunity to flourish after moving to

Norwich. Of the last six sisters, Elizabeth Edwards joined a religious community in

Winchester, and Anne Kirby moved to Lisbon to take vows as a Bridgettine.301 The final four nuns, Mother Mary Bernard alias Elizabeth Green, Sister Augustine alias Mary

Lloyd, Sister Frances Agatha alias Margaret Whiteside, and Sister Joseph Benedict alias

Elizabeth Simpson lived together in Norwich until unknown circumstances seemed to require them to separate. This departure never occurred since Sister Augustine died in

1804, Sister Frances Agatha died on December 8, 1806, and Mother Mary Bernard on

April 8, 1810. Sister Joseph Benedict’s final whereabouts were known when she lived in

Wolverhampton in 1816. Her date of death is not currently known. With that, the Blue

Nuns of Paris/Norwich ceased to exist though they made every effort to secure themselves in their home country.

Conclusion

While letter-writing and patronage networks played an important role during the early modern period, historians are only beginning to scratch the surface as to the extent and vast connections Europeans established and utilized. The English nuns living in exile were by no means excluded from the phenomena. In fact, a major factor in their survival and continuing presence in the Low Countries and France can be credited to their patronage networks within the recusant Catholic community. Without the financial

301 Known in religion as Sister Mary Joseph and Sister Mary Catherine, respectively.

142 support of their patrons, the English nuns could not have constructed and maintained an

English Catholic identity mainly because, through letter-writing, they reminded the recusants of their presence. For instance, both Clare Conyers and Winefrid Thimelby wrote to their relations in England to attract novices to their respective communities.

Conyers’ correspondence with her cousin gave such a detailed account of the Poor

Clares’ daily schedule that Isaac Youngs could have passed it on within the church papist’s circle where young Catholic women discerning religious life might consider this community. Thimelby searched a bit closer to home in the case of her niece Keat, who displayed a certain interest in becoming a nun. The Mother Abbesses fond desire for her niece to share in her joy as a professed Canoness rouses the emotions due to the affection forthrightly expressed in the unusual bounty of letters for a nun of her time. The extraordinary effort taken on behalf of these two nuns displays how vital it was to attract novices to the religious life so that English monasticism might flourish in exile and

English Catholicism return to the home country.

The English nuns also relied heavily upon their letter-writing skills and patronage networks during times of crisis. After the gunpowder explosion destroyed part of the Poor

Clare convent in Gravelines and the earthquake in Lisbon severely damaged the

Bridgettine house, the nuns reached out not only to their family members, but the extended networks of their kin to receive the necessary aid in abundance and in a timely manner. The nuns traded the financial assistance they received for spiritual favors for the well-being of the generosity given to them because, without the repairs needed to repair their convents, the nuns could not live out their lives of prayer and sacrifice necessary to restore English Catholic monasticism to England.

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Additionally, the nuns accessed their patronage networks for a variety of other reasons, too, as seen in the cases of Mary Ward and Anne Carey. The Institute of the

Blessed Virgin Mary founded by Ward stirred up controversy what with their Ignatian spirituality and mission that earned them the nicknames “English Ladies” and

“Jesuitesses:” communities of women religious who worked in active apostolates was frowned upon in the early modern Catholic Church. Mary Ward established seemingly influential network ties amongst the Vatican hierarchy all the way up to the papacy itself.

Unfortunately, she rode the tides of change a bit too quickly for the likes of the Church, which shut down her operation and forced her to continue her work discreetly in England for nearly two centuries. On the other hand, Anne Carey networked on behalf of her brother, Patrick, with the highest statesman in England, Edward Hyde, to secure him a position in the court of Charles II, who was rumored to harbor secret affections for the

Roman religion. Carey’s presence in the English court could have attracted numerous benefactors to his sister’s Benedictine convent but the transaction could not take place due to a strain on the king’s finances.

Finally, letter-writing and patronage networks provided a sure and secure way of returning home to England at the end of the nuns’ exile. The Blue Nuns of Paris, though never a vibrant and thriving community financially speaking, established themselves in

Norwich due to the patronage of one of their formal pupils, Lady Jerningham. Through the constant support of the Jerningham family since their foundation in 1658, the

Conceptionists obtained enough money to furnish their new home on Magdalen Street in

1800 and attempted to carry on with their lives as professed nuns. Unfortunately, the order lost many members due to death and departures during and after the French

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Revolution. Though the final member passed away in 1810 and the order officially extinct, it cannot be said whether the Blue Nuns could have succeeded in their mission to maintain and successfully transfer English Catholicism back to England. That remains to be seen and analyzed by the endeavors of their compatriot, exiled sisters who returned to

England in the final chapter.

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CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

By endeavoring to preserve and maintain an English Catholic identity, the English nuns living in exile kept two objectives in mind: first, to return to England and second, to possess a recognizable English character to attract a new generation of Catholic novices and accepted by Anglicans since England still remained a predominantly Protestant country. Since the English nuns constructed methods of maintaining an English Catholic identity and returned to England toward the turn of the nineteenth century, did they succeed in their attempt at recognition in their home country? The answer to this manifests itself in a three-fold progression starting in the mid-eighteenth century and finally coming to fruition in the mid-nineteenth century.

Recognition from English Protestant Travellers

When English Protestants travelled the European Continent on holiday, they rarely missed an opportunity to visit the English convents in the Low Countries. Despite the anti-Catholic sentiment prominent during the Hanoverian era, and convents considered as dangerous breeding grounds for “popery”, none of that appears in the accounts of the English Protestant travellers. In fact, the travellers depicted the convents as “as English human communities, and found a shared feeling of Englishness, crossing the confessional divide.”302 While the English nuns purposefully maintained their

Englishness, Protestant travellers discovered to their satisfaction little patches of England

302 Liesbeth Corens, “Catholic Nuns and English Identities”, 443.

146 on foreign soil. For instance, Joseph Taylor spent a pleasurable few hours with some of

England’s most prominent Catholic family, the Howards, within the parlor of a

Dominican convent,

It was with a group to pleasure that I spent several hours with Mrs. Howard and the Lord Stafford's sister, who ordered chairs to be brought for us into the speaking room and diverted us with an account of almost all the agreeable affairs of the world. [ . . . ] I must own this pretty creature moved me so much, that I was sorry to see her confined within the compass of an iron grate.303

Though the rule of enclosure separated the nun from the world, imagine the surprise of

Joseph Taylor when he carried on a pleasing conversation with a seemingly other-worldly creature about a variety of secular topics. Taylor also recognizes a certain emotion while taking in the image of the woman dressed in her white Dominican habit and pities that she must reside on the other-side of the grille. Certainly not a foreign feeling among

Catholics, as well, his recognition of this unidentified nun as a corporal being with a beauty all her own evokes such a personal reaction to her state in life as a fellow English compatriot.

Another meeting that took place in 1718 between Sir John Percival and the well- renowned Abbess Mary Knatchbull, whose secret letter networks aided Charles II in obtaining the English throne. Taking place a good forty years since the Restoration,

Percival recounts that, “They lost good possessions in England and are poor, yet she told me that she thought it unreasonable to expect the recovery of them, if ever the Catholic religion were restored.”304 He proves a sympathetic listener since many families lose property and possessions in the transition of monarchies and state religions, such as during the dissolution of the monasteries. Charles II promised Knatchbull a considerable

303 Joseph Taylor, 15-23 August 1707, Brussels. Touring the Low Countries: Accounts of British Travellers, 1660-1720, Kees van Strien, ed. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1998), 119. 304 Sir John Percival, 28-30 June 1718, Ghent, Touring the Low Countries, 165

147 sum of money as reward for her aid, but received a small fraction of what was owed to her. Concerning the topic of the restoration of Catholicism in England, she did not venture into controversy or argument about the subject, which surprised Percival since such conflict “which is the common weakness of these female societies, the men seldom touching on that point with strangers.”305 Impressed by her tactfulness, he goes on recording that,

But in the conclusion of our discourse she said that she believed Protestants who served God in a good conscience and were under invincible ignorance, whether by education or otherwise, or as acceptable to God as others who were in the right way. But then she owned this was not the opinion of many of her religion. This gave me occasion to tell her a remark I had often made, that the English Roman Catholics were generally more charitable in their thoughts of us than those of other nations.306

Her generous comments about the Protestant faith allowed Percival the chance to open up about his private opinion of the Catholic religion, thoughts that he probably did not share amidst his intimates. Such an honest conversation could not have taken place if Percival did not identify with her as an English subject prone to the same feelings of mutual admiration for another of the same country. Knatchbull concluded the conversation asking to pray for Sir John and he responded that, “her prayers would do me no good after death, I was sure they would while I lived [ . . . ]." Despite the confessional divide,

Perival recognized Knatchbull not only as a fellow English compatriot, but also as a

Christian whose prayer held the same weight if not more than another of his Anglican persuasion.

As seen in these accounts of English Protestant travellers, the nuns’ efforts of preserving their English Catholic identity seemed to work on a small sample of English

305 Ibid. 306 Ibid.

148 subjects on foreign soil. That proved a triumph since their primary objective was to not assimilate into the local society and English travellers were able to pick out these religious houses, sit and talk with the English nuns and determine for themselves whether these women in fact perceive them as members of their small island nation. While the nuns proved successful on a small scale in a foreign country, how did they fare on a much larger platform in England?

Reaction and Experience in Returning Home

With the after effects of the French Revolution, an already xenophobic English population viewed refugees from the war-torn Continent with suspicion, not unlike in our own day and age. Three accounts survive of the English nuns return home and their reception and reactions from the locals. First, the Rouen Chronicles continued onto Book

III with a narrative of their travels. On January 18, 1795, the Poor Clares, liberated from

French custody, could not return to convent. Many benefactors offered shelter to the nuns, but they did not want to be separated from each other. The first group of four left for England on July 1 then another three on July 22 and one nun, who had cancer in the breast but, “choosing rather to die on the road than to be left behind in that barbarous country, she set off with great courage”.307 Twenty more left August 6, then fourteen on the 17th, with all reunited on the 2nd of September on Sommerset Street No. 17

Manchester Square London. Sister Maria Magdalene (Mrs. Mary Chadwick) died soon after many years of enduring breast cancer. After a brief stay in London, they moved to

Haggerton Castle in Northumberland and then several years later in 1807 set up

307 The Rouen Chronicles Book III in The Convents and the Outside World. Vol. 6, The English Convents in Exile, ed.Carmen Mangion (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013), 365.

149 permanent residence in Yorkshire.308 Though there no specifics as to reactions from local citizens, the Poor Clares could not have secured housing, furnishings, food, clothing, and other essentials without the aide of Catholic benefactors, in addition to generous locals and neighbors.

The Augustinians of Bruges received quite a rude and fearsome homecoming after cruising into the Thames unidentified: “Our joy was great when we entered the

River Thames, but was soon dampt by an alarming event an English Man of War lay out to keep watch we were Smartly Fired at.”309 After the initial confusion got sorted out, they stayed with wealthy patrons, first lodging with with Mrs. Lucretia Wright, wife of the owner of Wright’s bank and the nuns’ banker, then with the Jerninghams at Cossey, and later given a house by Sir Thomas Gage, a baronet at Hengrave Hall. When the

Augustinians began to settle in the country, the nearby residents “were at first afraid we were French Men in disguise, but this apprehension soon vanished, and they became very fond of us. We were never an Hour secure of being alone for all sorts of persons Flocked to see us, as they would have done to see some Foreigne Christians, but all were very

Civil, and many very Compassionate and generous in sending us Provisions”.310 While the fear of French invasion remained prominent, the nuns, ever objects of fascination no matter the era, settled into their new setting and received visitors non-stop as a local tourist attraction. Apparently viewed as “foreigne Christians,” that goes without saying, since Catholicism had indeed been an unfamiliar and alien mode of worship, especially in the country. Nevertheless, the civility, compassion, and generosity portrayed by the

308 “Covent notes” Who Were the Nuns? database. 309 “An Account of the Austin Nuns Travels from Bruges to England,” in The Convents and the Outside World. Vol. 6, The English Convents in Exile, ed. Carmen Mangion (Pickering and Chatto, 2013), 375. 310 Ibid, 376.

150

English inhabitants towards the Augustinians resulted in a happy bond and a mutual respect for one another.

In a final account of an unexpected homecoming in a letter to Prioress Clare

Joseph Dickinson of the Carmelites in Port Tobacco, Maryland, Teresa of Jesus Cowdray of the Antwerp Carmelites provides a rather amusing story of what occurred after they docked in Blackwell on July 12, 1794:

We landed at St. Catherine’s Stairs Wapping, where we found collected a crowd of sailors & dirty looking people, in wonder and admiration at the sight of such strange creatures, for we cut a very ridiculous figure, [ . . . ] In fine we were afraid of them and they of us. Some began to swear at us and call us French Devils! But we no sonner told them we were English and had run away from the French, than they cried out “Ladies you are welcome home” and they showed us all the civility they could, attending us to the inn, and one woman ran out of a shop and kissed some of the nuns and others expressed great compassion for the old ones [ . . . ]311

The Carmelite nuns had “cut a very ridiculous figure” because they wore civilian clothes over their habits, so they looked rather bloated and bulky. A mutual fear and apprehension is acknowledged from all involved parties since the locals did not know these strangers and the Carmelites had no idea as to how they would be received.

Tensions mounted when an on-looker called out to them, but after allaying their fears as to the nuns’ true identity as English subjects who also fled from the “French Devils” they experienced a warm welcome home. A prominent Catholic family, the Arundells, offered their home in Lanherne for the Carmelite nuns to settle in. In this instance, as with the

Augustinians, the nuns shared a common thought with their countrymen: fear of the

French. This mutual feeling further united the severed bonds between the nuns and their compatriots and allowed both parties to feel at ease with one another. So, since the

311 “Account of the nuns coming to England from a letter to Prioress Clare Joseph Dickinson of the Carmelites in Port Tobacco, Maryland from Teresa of Jesus Cowdray,” in The Convents and the Outside World. Vol. 6, The English Convents in Exile, ed. Carmen Mangion (Pickering and Chatto, 2013), 380.

151

English nuns successfully returned and settled in England unharmed, did their objective of preserving English Catholicism for future generations take root and bear fruit? Over the course of the nineteenth century, the English nuns’ hopes and prayers of Catholicism and female monasticism flourishing in England exceeded all their expectations.

A Lasting Legacy

Just as the early modern English nuns heard the call to religious life, so too did modern nineteenth century Catholic women. At this time, the isle had evolved into the

United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.312 Over the course of the modern era, the Catholic Church relaxed its centuries old rule of enclosure that paved the way for active orders to thrive and work among the people in various apostolates.

Modern English Catholic women viewed religious life as “a useful and admirable occupation, companionship and physical security, and, most significantly, they believed it led to their ‘salvation’ and the salvation of others.”313 One of the first to track the progress and mission of conventual institutions was a Protestant named John Murphy.

Amidst a wave of “anti-Popery” sentiment, Murphy wished to put to rest “such strange misconceptions of the nature of conventual institutions” and that they should be “revered and cherished.”314 To further attest to the popularity and appeal of entering religious life,

Murphy recounts that by 1873 over 3,000 nuns and sisters occupied 235 convents. The number continued to grow because by 1900 between 8,000 and 10,000 sisters lived and worked in nearly 600 convents.315 As such, the taking of the veil, “contrary to

312 Scottish Act of Union, 1714; Irish Act of Union, 1801. 313 Mangion, Contested Identities, 48. 314 John Murphy, Terra Incognita or the Convents of the United Kingdom, (London: Longman Greens, 1873), 3. 315 Susan O’Brien, “Terra Incognita: The Nun in Nineteenth-Century England” Past and Present, No. 121 (Nov., 1988): 110.

152 contemporary popular belief, meant the beginning not the end of a useful life.”316 Their work gave their lives purpose and contributed significantly to the well-being of the poor, destitute and uneducated in England. While the average age of the aspirant was twenty- three or twenty-four, by no means was it a hasty decision made by misinformed girls:

“Catholic women were cognisant of the consequences of religious life. They thoughtfully assessed its benefits and drawbacks, oftentimes basing their evaluation on personal knowledge and experience before taking the first steps towards entering a religious community.”317

By this time in England’s history, the discerning young lady had several options at her fingertips. The call to religious life could also provide professional satisfaction since religious congregations of women were involved in many apostolates such as education, healthcare, working with the poor, and tending to the needs of orphans and struggling mothers. The work of women religious, in a sense, “was in advance of the general development of a professional life for women.”318The professional, working identity of religious sisters were highly sought after and referred to as the “foot soldiery of the English Catholic hierarchy.”319After Catholic Emancipation, educating the

Catholic masses, particularly children, became a high priority to raise the next generation of Catholics. With the bulk of educational efforts focused mainly on working class women and children, religious sisters’ task was two-fold: to evangelize and to prepare young women “to become the wives of the bourgeoisie.”320 Catholic doctrine permeated school curriculum, which instilled a sense of piety in their pupils and prepared them to

316 Ibid, 121. 317 Mangion, 54. 318 Susan O’Brien, “Terra Incognita,” 115. 319 Walsh, Roman Catholic Nuns, 31. 320 Ibid, 37.

153 receive the sacraments. Young ladies at the secondary level were not only taught how to read and write but were also taught the basics of how to run a household. As seen through this light, the next generation of Catholics would not be taught the faith solely in the classroom but at home as well. These young women were being trained to make sure that the traditions of Catholicism would be passed down and safeguarded for the future.

With vocations to the active religious abounding, did young women still feel attracted to cloistered life? John Murphy also provides an account of the “Ancient

Orders” that predated the English Reformation. By the latter part of the nineteenth century, the cloistered convents that lived in exile still existed and expanded their respective orders. The Benedictine nuns founded eight convents in the United Kingdom, all in England, and ran a boarding school for young women at Princethorpe and were

“among the first educational institutions of the kingdom."321 The Augustinians established two houses in England, Devon and Sussex, where the latter ran a mental asylum. Murphy iterates that the “nuns are well-qualified for the duty, having been trained in the asylums of the very Rev. Canon Maes, at Bruges, where mental maladies are so successfully treated."322 Even after their transition to England nearly a century before-hand did people trust the nuns with their sick and mentally disabled. The

Carmelites opened sixteen convents in the United Kingdom, with six in England and ten in Ireland. The Poor Clares, too, established five houses in England and six in Ireland.

Unlike their early modern predecessors, the nineteenth century active and cloistered convent communities in England openly accepted Scottish, Welsh, and particularly Irish aspirants since “socio-economic pressures that existed in the ‘strong-farmer’ class of

321 Murphy, 309. 322 Ibid.

154 post-famine rural Ireland, therefore created an unremitting push factor.”323 Since the

English convents no longer existed on foreign soil, the necessity to maintain an English identity no longer existed. Finally, the Franciscan nuns of the Third Order opened ten convents in England that operated boarding and day schools, female orphanages, and industrial schools. Murphy concludes that, “the ministrations of nuns are invaluable, indispensable.”324

So the exiled English nuns descendants continue to 2016, with seven Carmelite, five Benedictine, twelve Poor Clare, six Augustinian, three Bridgettine,325 and five

Loretto convents existing, operating, and praying for the on-going preservation of

English Catholicism. The determination and vision of the early modern English convents in exile proved a success that is safe to say exceeded their expectations.

Shortly before her own death, Mary Joseph of St. Teresa, prioress and faithful compiler of the annals of the Antwerp Carmel, penned her own remembrance for posterity and handed it over to the next chronicler. Her final words to the community were, “Pardon me, dearest sisters, for presuming to say so much, but when occasion serves for the love of God, remember it and pray for me.”326

323 Walsh, 7. 324 Murphy, 318. 325 The original Bridgettines of Syon split during the nineteenth century, with ten returning to England and the rest residing in Portugal. The rest of the community returned to England in 1861 and settled in Devon. This last remnant of pre-Reformation monasticism closed in 2011. Convent Notes, Who Were the Nuns? database. 326 Nicky Hallett, Spirited Lives, 118.

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