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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
IN VOLUME 14 of the Catholic Record Society, in an introductory survey mainly devoted to the foundation and history of the English Poor Clares of Gravelines, brief mention is made of their daughter-houses: Aire (established 1629), Rouen (1644) and Dunkirk (1652). Today all four houses are represented by St. Clare's Abbey, Darlington, where are preserved four manuscript volumes relating to the Rouen community: a Register of death-bills’ and three books of annals whose contents adhere closely to chronological order and which are titled ‘Rouen I’ (covering most years of the period 1644 to 1701), ‘Rouen II’ (1702–69) and ‘French Revolution’ (1791–1857).
Grateful thanks are offered to Rev. Mother Abbess and the community of St. Clare's Abbey, Darlington, for making these MSS. available and for every possible help and encouragement, and also to the late Fr. Basil Fitzgibbon, S.J., for guidance on selection and arrangement of the material, to Joan Cashman for collecting information and for assistance in editing and to Fr. Godfrey Anstruther. O.P.; Fr. Justin McLoughlin, O.F.M.; Fr. Cassian Reel, O.F.M. Cap. and Mr. Robin Gard (Northumberland County Archivist) for help with various problems of identification and dating.
1 The entries run from 1647 to 1779; there are additional entries (to 1796) on loose papers in the Register, which also holds three printed death-notices (1735, 1807, 1843). This Register is the chief source for Appendix 2 (‘Religious’), following the second instalment of this work in the next issue of Recusant History. Other Appendices will cover Abbesses, Novices, Scholars, Confessors, Ecclesiastical Superiors and Principal Benefactors.
2 The chronological arrangement of these narratives makes it unnecessary to burden the printed text (which almost invariably preserves the same sequence of events) with repeated folio-references; however, where additional matter is cited in the notes its folio-number is given.
3 ‘Rouen II’ and ‘French Revolution’ in the next issue of Recusant History. A little material from these ‘Chronicles’ is utilised in H. Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (hereafter cited as ‘Foley’) and in G. Anstruther, The Seminary Priests (hereafter ‘Anstruther’); they are also quoted—briefly and mainly for events of the French Revolution—in Dom Basil Whelan's useful survey, Historic English Convents of Today (1936). Typed transcripts of these MSS. are deposited in the Northumberland County Record Office.
4 ‘…. a Scotchman by birth and one who had bin Chaplain many years and companion to the Queen's Confessor in England ….’ (‘Rouen I’, fol. 1): evidently William Thomson, O.F.M. Conventual, for whom see Anderson, W. J., ‘William Thomson of Dundee ….’ in The Innes Review, 18 (Edinburgh, 1967) pp. 99–111.Google Scholar
5 Anne of Austria, widow of Louis XIII. For Sir Richard Forster see Appendix 7: Principal Benefactors.
6 For both, see C.R.S., 14, p. 167 (misdating the Rouen foundation 1648); also, for ‘Mr. Gray’ (Francis Gray, vere Thomas Jenison), Forster, A. M. C., ‘A Durham Family; Jenisons of Walworth’ in Biographical Studies, 1534–1829 (now Recusant History), 3, p. 6–7;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Anstruther, 2, pp. 169–70. For Fr. Rookwood, see also Appendix 5: Confessors. The Abbess at Gravelines was Mother Clare Mary Ann Tildesly, or Tyldesley, for whom see C.R.S., 14, pp. 36–7.
7 Possibly the Fr. Talbot referred-to later, whose identity is not clear. Several Jesuits, English and Irish, of that name, living in 1644, occur in Foley, 7, pp. 755–60; also one or more Franciscans, for whom see Thaddeus, The Franciscans in England (1898) pp. 77–8, 306; Dockery, J. B., Christopher Davenport (1960) p. 130.Google Scholar One of the Jesuits, William Talbot, appears to have had some earlier conection with Rouen.
8 See Foley, 7, p. 749, where his surname is spelt Sulyard.
9 Surname Wood, later a Choir-Sister but at this time Tourriere, i.e. a Sister who served outside the monastery; though dressed like Religious, very often they would not have taken vows. This rôle is clearly stated in Sr. Anne Collet's obituary which records that prior to her profession she had for 14 years ‘served without the monastery as Tourriere’ (Register of death-bills, Oct. 1668). For her and other Rouen nuns mentioned in the ‘Chronicles’, see Appendix 2 (from which ‘Sister Mary’ cannot be firmly identified).
10 Possibly the Margaret, daughter of St. Swithin Wells (martyred 1591), who is said to have entered religion; but her whereabouts have never been traced.
11 See Whelan, op.cit., esp. pp. 89–92.
12 i.e. taste, flavour.
13 Francis, 3rd Visc. Montagu; mar. Elizabeth, dau. Henry, 1st Marquess of Worcester; d. 1682 (‘G.E.C’, Complete Peerage, 9, p. 101).
14 Francois de Harlay, Archbishop of Rouen, 1615–51. It has been suggested that Dean Browne may have been the secular priest William Brown (Anstruther, 2, p. 37). See also Appendix 6: Ecclesiastical Superiors.
15 Later founder of the I.B.V.M. houses in England, at Hammersmith and York (Bar Convent). Her sister the Vicaress at Rouen, and later Abbess, was Margaret Ignatius Bedingfield, for whom see also Appendix 2(a); they were two of the eleven daughters of Francis and Katherine Bedingfield of Redlingfield, Suffolk, who entered religion. See Coleridge, H. J., St. Mary's Convent, Micklegate Bar, York (1887) p. 46 ff;Google Scholar C.R.S., 7, pp. 232, 240, 432–2 (pedigree).
16 It was resolved through the foundation in 1629 of a Poor Clares’ house at Aire under the jurisdiction of the Franciscan friars for those nuns who preferred this arrangement, while the remainder, at Gravelines, stayed under the authority of the bishop (Whelan, op.cit., p. 67). See also Guilday, P., English Catholic Refugees on the Continent, 1558–1795 (1914) pp. 298–9.Google Scholar This well-documented work concentrates on the Low Countries and so says little about Rouen, but it does mention (p. 299, note 3) ‘letters from the Abbess of Rouen to Cardinal Barberini [which] describe pathetic scenes at their Convent to make ends meet.’
17 Walter Montagu, titular Abbot of St. Martin, Pontoise; see D.N.B., Lunn, D., The English Benedictines, 1540–1688 (1980) pp. 122, 140;Google Scholar C.R.S., 17, passim .
18 Benedictine, prior of St. Edmund's, Paris; see Birt, H. N., Obit Book of the English Benedictines, 1600–1912 (1970 reprint, intro. Lunn) p. 46.Google Scholar
19 French or Belgian equivalents of Eng. Aldermen.
20 Richard, Bradshaigh, alias Barton, S.J., Rector of the College at Liege (Foley, 7, p. 78);Google Scholar brother of St. Mary Ignatius Bradshaigh of Rouen, for whom see Appendix 2(a).
21 i.e. ‘James Perier, Knight, Count of Amfrevile and Cisay, Privy Councillor of State and Second President in the King's Court of Parliament in Normandy’, who laid the first stone of the church on 12 Aug. 1651.
22 See Appendix 2(b) for three daughters of Lady Portland (surname Weston) then at Rouen; a fourth daughter, Henrietta, arrived later (1653). For her see Appendix 4: Scholars.
23 See Appendix 4; also, fcr the Browne sisters, next paragraph.
24 Elizabeth, dau, of William Hungate of Saxton, Yorks and Margaret Sotheby; 2nd wife of Sir Henry Browne of Kiddington, Oxon. She had in fact three Benedictine brothers (Birt, Obit Bk., pp. 38, 39, 49). The daughter would appear to be Dame Frances Ebba Browne of Cambrai, entered in that convent's records, apparently wrongly, as daughter of Sir Peter Browne of Kiddington (C.R.S., 13, pp. 42, 74; also Birt, Obit. Bk., p. 213). She died in 1631 and he was aged 30 when killed at Naseby in 1645.
25 Henrietta Maria, widow of Charles I.
26 Benedictine, twice Prior of St. Edmund's, Paris (Birt, Obit. Bk., p. 49) some of whose monks seem to have over-stressed the precariousness of the Poor Clares’ establishment at Rouen where ‘they should soon see her [one of the Browne sisters] and her Nuns go a begging in the streets’ (‘Rouen I’, fol. 89). However, the then Prior, Fr. Francis Cape, was more conciliatory: see end of paragraph.
27 Ann Barlow, Anne Browne, Lucy Petre, Mary Stourton and 4 Weston sisters; see Appendix 4.
28 19 March 1655; they were Anne Browne (Sr. Francis of the Passion), Elizabeth Weston (Sr. Mary Clare) and Mary Petre (Sr. Mary Joseph). See Appendix 2(b).
29 This was caused by the carelessness of young Sister Francis in leaving a basket of wood chips near a fire which she had lit ‘to aire the community's cloathes’ (‘Rouen I1’, fol. 109).
30 Perhaps Méditations sur la Vìe de Jesus-Christ—composées et divisées en quatre parties—(Paris, 1644–46) by Julien Hayneuve, S.J. (Lat. Haynovio), for a list of whose works see Catalogue General des Livres Imprimés de la Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), 69, pp. 595–6.Google Scholar
31 Dunkirk did pass briefly into English hands (before being sold to France by Charles II in 1662) and during this phase another English convent was established there, by Benedictine nuns for whom see A History of the English Benedictine Nuns of Dunkirk… (1958).
32 This and the preceding event are here treated in the same sequence as in the MS. See also Whelan, op.cit., pp. 68–9; Guilday, op.cit., p. 300 and note. For the Abbess at Gravelines, Mother Louisa Taylor, see C.R.S., 14, pp. 27–8, 62 and portrait facing.
33 She died later in the same year (see Appendix 3: Novices).
34 Professed 20 May 1663 in the presence of her father Henry, 3rd Lord Arundell of Wardour, who ‘gave her £1,000 portion’, and of her brother Henry Arundell (‘Rouen I,’ fol. 157). For Sr. Cecily Clare, see also Appendix 2(b) and Notes by the 12th Lord Arundell of Wardour on the Family History (ed. E. Doran Webb, 1916) pp. 65–6 and pedigree facing p. 84 (misdating her profession 1662).
35 See Appendix 6; he was described as ‘the only man that has power with my Lord Archbishop’ (‘Rouen I’, fol. 161).
36 Andrew Lynch, Bishop of Kilfenora (Finaboren) in Ireland, at this period acting as suffragan to the Archbishop of Rouen; see Brady, W. Maziere, The Episcopal Succession in England, Scotland and Ireland, 1400–1875 (Rome, 1876–77), 2, p. 127.Google Scholar He also officiated at Sr. Ciecely Clare's profession in May 1663 (‘Rouen I’, fol. 157); see note 34.
37 For another account of a plague-affected convent, see Hamilton, A., Chronicles of the English Augustinian Canonesses of St Monica's at Louvain, 1625–40 (1906) ch. 8;Google Scholar Morris, J., Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, 1(1872) pp. 281–7.Google Scholar
38 Always written thus in the MS. (rather than as ‘in fine’), resembling Fr. enfin in short; to sum up.
39 i.e. the community were keeping the feast of the Guardian Angel at the Divine Office on that date; the litany mentioned later in the same paragraph relates to this.
40 aged 13 and like others, some of them younger, repeatedly prefixed in the MS. by ‘Mrs.’ (here omitted). For this usage, see Durrant, C. S., A Link between Flemish Mystics and English Martyrs (1925) p. 430,Google Scholar note; also C.R.S., 65, p. 240.
41 Bloody flux: dysentery; glister = clyster = enema.
42 i.e. 2 Feb. 1668, perhaps in her fortieth year; see Appendix 2(b).
43 Extraordinary Confessor; see Appendix 5, also note 70. ‘Rd. Father Golding, an English Capucin, preached’ at the profession of Sr. Angela Augustin (Hamilton) on 8 Mary 1663 (‘Rouen I’, fol. 157).
44 councillors or advisers to the Abbess.
45 See note 34.
46 respectively brawn (fleshy part) of the arm and groin.
47 Rhinoceros horn (?), supposedly an antitoxin.
48 Rev. James Price, for whom see Appendix 5.
49 There were two nuns of the same surname, Cornwallis, at Rouen at this time: Sr. Francis Joseph and Sr. Mary Alexius; see Appendix 2(b). The writer of the ‘Chronicle’, Sr. Cecily Joseph, also a Cornwallis, did not join the Rouen community until 1686 (ibid.). Catherine Cornwallis and Frances Sheldon were later reburied in the cloister (see Appendix 4 for details).
50 Mother Frances Bedingfield, I.B.V.M. (see also note 15); the Capuchin may have been the Fr. Lewis (? Louis) or Fr. Martial, both mentioned in 1668 as visiting the plague-stricken community.
51 For definition see note 9.
52 Presumably Fr. Carpentier, or Carpentir, earlier described as chaplain.
53 See Appendix 4: Dorothy Cuffaud (arrived 1676); also, perhaps, Mary Banks.
54 See note 27.
55 Both Mary Vaughan and Frances Sheldon came in the summer of 1668 (App. 4).
56 ‘Rouen I’, fol. 361.
57 eg. Ursula Fermor, Mary Stourton, Anastasia and Anne Stafford-Howard, for all of whom see Appendix 4.
58 App. 4.
59 See also Appendix 2(c).
60 For this exodus, see Kenyon, J., The Popish Plot (1972) pp. 224–5.Google Scholar
61 C.R.S., 19, pp. 105–6 (he left Rouen in April 1679 for Paris).
62 This was Margaret Fettiplace, née Mostyn, niece of Mother Margaret and Dame Ursula Mostyn of Lierre, where she herself later became Prioress. She was the widow of Bartholomew Fettiplace of Swinford, Oxon. whence she derived an annuity of £150 (declared to the Forfeited Estates Commissioners in 1717 by letter of attorney, she being unable to register it in person). See Mrs. Stapleton, B., A History of the Post-Reformation Catholic Missions in Oxfordshire (1906) pp. 272–3;Google Scholar Estcourt, E. E. and Payne, J. O., English Catholic Nonjurors of 1715 (1886) p. 217 Google Scholar (with ‘Liege’ for Lierre); History of the Benedictine Nuns of Dunkirk (1958) pp. 38–9. A letter of hers, dated 26 Aug. 1697, is among the intercepted Catholic correspondence printed in C.R.S., 56, pp. 157. See also Appendix 3 to the present work; Coleridge, St. Mary's…Micklegate Bar, pp. 54–5.
63 Mrs. Catherine Hawkins, née Giffard, was the widow of Thomas Hawkins of Nash Court, Kent. Her son (unnamed), summoned to her deathbed from his studies in Paris, was accompanied to Rouen by his tutor, the Rev. Peter Saltmarsh (‘Rouen 1’, fol. 342). For the son, Thomas, and the Hawkins family see Foley, 3, pp. 491 (and pedigree) — 493; C.R.S., 8, pp. 366–7; also Payne, J. O., Records of the English Catholics of 1715 (1889) pp. iv, 24 Google Scholar (Thomas's will, 1763/66). For Saltmarsh, see Anstruther, 3, p. 195. For ‘no-popery’ violence in Kent and elsewhere in 1688, see Anthony Williams, J. in Studies in Seventeenth Century English Literature, History and Biography (ed. G. A. M. Janssens and F. G. A. M. Aarts, Amsterdam, 1984) pp. 245–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
64 Sr. Mary Joseph (Mary Petre) who had succeeded Sr. Francis of the Passion (Browne) two years earlier, the latter having held the office for 17 years following the death of Sr. Mary Ignatius (Bradshaigh) on 28 Dec. 1673. She was replaced as Vicaress by her sister, Sr. Lucy Francis (Lucy Petre). See also Appendix 2 (sections a & b).
65 ‘King’ was Fr. Trentham's alias (Anstruther, 3, p. 233).
66 ‘…. and to put another in the place of Mr. Rigmaiden, who went that year to live in the Country with the Lord Arundel’ (‘Rouen I’, fol. 366); doubtless John Maurus Rigmaiden, O.S.B., for whom see Birt, Obit. Bk., p. 102, which does not mention his residence with Lord Arundell, i.e. Thomas, 4th Baron, whose son Matthew died at Rouen in 1699 (Notes by the 12th Lord Arundell of Wardour…, ed. E. Doran Webb, p. 71 and pedigree facing p. 84). During Fr. Trentham's absence the Rev. Edward Cary had acted as confessor save for one month when ‘Father Menisse [? Menzies] a Scotch Canon Regular came twice a week in the afternoons to heare the Community's confessions’ (‘Rouen 1’, fol. 368), Fr. Cary being then at Calais in his capacity of Chaplain-General to James II’s army (ibid.). For him, see Anstruther, 2, pp. 47–8; also, for ‘Secret Service’ payments to and via him, Akerman, J. Y. (ed.), Moneys Received and Paid for Secret Services of Charles II and James II (Camden Society, 1851) pp. 157–207 Google Scholar passim.
67 ‘Rouen I’, chap. 45: ‘Of our Confessor Mr. Trentham's Journey into England’.
68 She is named as Sr. Clare of St. Joseph.
69 Both were at Rouen during the period in question, but Sr. Cecily Joseph, who came in 1686, was a later arrival than Sr. Francis Benedict (Clifton) who may have had more personal knowledge of the opening skirmishes which, from her own account, antedated that year. For both sisters, see Appendix 2(b).
70 According to the Gillow card-index, now at Downside (kindly communicated by Dr. D. A. Bellenger, O.S.B.), a John Golding, born c. 1630, son of Sir Edward Golding, bt, was a Capuchin by the end of 1655. His father, when a widower, was also a Capuchin and at Rouen c. 1655 but if the latter died about Christmas 1666 (Gillow) he cannot be the Fr. Golding mentioned in the plague-narrative. See also note 43 and Appendix 5. The book attributed to John Golding has not been traced.
71 Anstruther, 3, pp. 254–5; he was at St. Gregory's, Paris, from Feb. 1689 to May 1692, then at Douai whence, after a brief return to Paris, he left for England in Feb. 1696.
72 On this, see R. A. Knox, Enthusiasm (1950) chaps. 11–14.
73 See Nicholas Blundell’s Diary, 2 and 3 (ed. F. Tyrer, Lanes, and Cheshire Record Soc, 1970, 1972) passim.
