Notes Introduction: Virginity and Patrilinear Legitimacy 1. Boswell, volume III, 406. 2. Pregnancy makes sex more verifiable than celibacy but it does not necessarily reveal paternity. 3. Bruce Boehrer has an important essay on this topic, in which he argues that an ideal “wedded chastity” emerges as a strategy for promoting marriage and procreation in a society that has traditionally idealized celibacy and virginity; “indeed,” he continues, “at heart the concept of wedded chastity is little more than the willful destabi- lizing of an inconvenient signifier, calculated to serve the procreative demands of an emergent political economy” (557). 4. For an important discussion of divine right of kings, see Figgis, 137–177, and for an analysis of the different strands of patriarchalist thought, see Schochet, 1–18. 5. See Boehrer for a discussion of Elizabeth’s legitimacy issues, which he uses as a context for reading Spencer. He argues that a “Legend of Chastity” functions as a displacement of the anxiety of legitimacy (566). On Elizabeth’s virginity, see also Hackett; and John King. On early modern virginity generally, see Jankowski; Kathleen Coyne Kelly; Loughlin; Scholz; and Schwarz. 6. Marie Loughlin argues for the relationship between Stuart political projects and virginity. James I had a habit of visiting married couples after the wedding night because, according to Loughlin, in the moment when the virgin daughter becomes the chaste bride “James’s configuration of the patriarchal state and his various political projects are materialized” (1996), 847. 7. For more on this, see McKeon (1987), 209. 8. Since the determination of firstborn son was not clear, firstborn ille- gitimate children often held some stake to the birth-right of the heir. Locke is interesting regarding these “Questions of Legitimation,” ask- ing rhetorically: “and what in Nature is the difference betwixt a Wife and a Concubine?” (1967), 231. 9. To the extent that “birth” can confer virtue, it is through the matrilineal inheritance. The mother’s virtue (exemplified by her protracted virginity and her steadfast chastity) confers on the child an inheritance of virtue. 180 NOTES Virginity, then, is more a sign than a material reality, and the Protestant virgin, at least in theory, much less embodied than her Catholic ancestor. 10. Thomas Sprat argues that the Royal Society and the Anglican Church “both may lay equal claim to the word Reformation” (part 3, section 23, page 371). Elizabeth Eisenstein argues for the relationship between the Reformation and the new science via exploitation of printing (697, 701); Ernst Cassirer examines the process whereby the “truth of nature” became much more reliable than the “word of God” (43). On this topic, see also Keith Thomas; and Shapin and Schaffer. 11. On the epistemology of the novel and its relation to science, see, most famously, Watt; and McKeon (1987), both of whom consider the topic of virginity and the epistemological strategies of science crucial to the novel, but they do not link these topics. John Bender analyzes the opposition between fiction and science. Ann Van Sant’s discussion of the empirical “testing” of Clarissa by Lovelace links the epistemology of the novel and science in the manner I am suggesting, but she does not explore the implications of the fact that what are being tested are virginity and virtue. April Alliston does link virginity to the epistemological strategies of the novel, saying “the truth about female sexual conduct ...remains the ulti- mate truth for fiction in France and England” (19). Chapter 1 Blessed Virgins: Anti-Catholic Propaganda and Convent Fantasies 1. First published as Five Love-Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier (1678) by Gabriel Joseph de Lavergne Guilleragues. Authorship is still a mat- ter of debate. 2. See, in particular, his discussion of truth and virtue (1987), 265–272. 3. The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) lists over twenty versions between 1678 and 1777. 4. 1 Corinthians 7:34. 5. Calvin exhorted that priestly celibacy is the product of an “impious tyranny not only against God’s word but against all equity” (1250) IV.12.23. 6. Freeman, 25. 7. Hobbes, part 4, chapter 44, 337. See Thomas for more on the Reformation, Catholicism, and magic. 8. Council of Trent, session XXIV, canto 10. 9. H. C. Lea and Eric Josef Carlson argue that clerical marriage in England was far more contested than in other countries that adopted Reformation ideals, though Helen Parish finds less ambivalence about celibacy in England than they do. 10. Lawrence Stone’s argument has been criticized by Patrick Collinson and Susan Dwyer Amussen, but recently defended by Anthony NOTES 181 Fletcher. I do not dispute the emergence of a new companionate (Protestant) view of marriage, but I question whether it gave women more options: they might marry whomever they chose, but marry they must, if social prestige and spiritual development were desired. 11. Rogers, “The Enclosure of Virginity,” shows how the doctrine of passive resistance demonstrates nostalgia for the possibility of retirement as fertile and argues that it was imagined to be a way (for men) around active (military) engagement, but I think that such a passive, ascetic route to religiosity is usually gendered female under Catholicism, since women’s only religious role is passive. 12. For other examples of beliefs in special powers of virginity, see Keith Thomas, 215, 268–269. 13. Shuger (1997) argues, against the traditional reading, that the Lady is immobilized due to her sexuality, not empowered due to her chastity. In any case, she rather miraculously escapes rape. 14. Dolan makes a similar point but locates the origin slightly earlier, arguing, “by 1680, it was almost impossible to defend a Catholic woman publicly and credibly” (13). 15. There was a heated debate amongst Protestants over whether monas- teries were a part of the ancient church or were a corruption to be reformed. English defenders of (ancient) monasteries often emphasized them as centers of learning and of valuable property. Tanner, e.g., documented the history of English monasteries because they were a part of “the glory of our English Nation” (2). 16. Cavendish’s text does not explicitly assign religion to either side, but it does counterpose a convent with male political interests, and one male character deems Lady Happy’s plan as “heretic.” 17. Cited in The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume XV, 459. 18. The author is listed as L. Sherling but both OCLC/World Cat and the Huntington Library identify L. Sherling as a pseudonym for Daniel Pratt. 19. This is not to ignore the sexualized Catholic representation of the nun as “bride of Christ,” nor the spiritual aspects of chaste sexuality, but rather to argue that the connection between sex and religion is in this case deployed to de-spiritualize the nun. 20. See Wharton. 21. I do not mean to suggest that Catholicism coincides with better treat- ment for women, or that Protestantism disallowed insubordination more than Catholicism. Throughout this chapter, I analyze and inter- rogate the Protestant perspective on Catholicism, but I certainly do not mean to take sides. 22. The text is infamous due to its censorship and role in obscenity legislation. See Foxon; and Pettit. The 1683 edition, to which I refer, consists of three dialogues. Later versions expanded to six dialogues. 23. See also Turner, who argues, like Pettit, that the anti-Catholic satire is a pretext for pornography. Turner does argue that the Reformation rhetoric becomes increasingly crucial in later versions: “Venus’ erotic 182 NOTES naturalism always had an evangelistic tinge, establishing the equivalence of sexual awakening, ‘primitive’ innocence, direct access to Scripture, and Cartesian understanding of physical nature. But now the sexual tenor becomes the vehicle, the pretext for Protestant discipline and holy matrimony” (2003, 353). But I am working with the first edition of Venus and argue that even here the pornography is not separable from the Protestant agenda. Wagner has asserted that pornography is often a “vehicle for revolutionary thought” (17). 24. One very simple support for my point is the fact that most anti- Catholic propaganda is not pornographic, but most pornography is anti-Catholic. Lynn Hunt argues that early pornography is “almost always an adjunct to something else” (10). 25. Kate Chedgzoy argues that in a number of seventeenth-century texts, a woman’s desire for the life of a female community is seen as a with- drawal from the circuit of exchange and reproduction that guarantees the future of the patriarchal family (58). 26. See Bowden. 27. Cited in Dolan, 34. 28. See, e.g., George Duckett, who argues that the Pretender will return the wealth of the monasteries to the papacy. His concerns were not without foundation. William Dugdale (a well-known royalist) and Roger Dodsworth and his (William Dugdale’s) successors had been, since the 1640s, documenting the history and wealth of monasteries for the royalist/Catholic cause. 29. Boccaccio’s Decameron, e.g., has stories of lascivious priests. The early Reformation in England also had its examples in John Foxe and John Bale, and later John Donne would invoke this trope. 30. This text is attributed, like Venus in the Cloister, to Barrin (1678), 24. 31. The Dictionary if National Biography (DNB) relies on Gavin’s own self-representation, which I find specious. 32. This story appears in volume three. All page references are to that volume. 33. Venus in the Cloister similarly suggests that Catholic religious houses have “remedies” against pregnancy by the priests, Barrin (1683), 83. 34. Barrin (1678), 93. 35. Infallibility is interesting here: it seems to be a sarcastic reference to the pope’s infallibility, but ironically the remedy, in this case, does prove miraculously efficacious.