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The Chronicles of the English Poor Clares Of Rouen—II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
Extract
This Chronicle opens in 1702, the first year of the long rule of Abbess Mary of the Holy Cross, elected the previous December by 42 votes out of 64. She proved an outstanding superior whose works (printed and MS.) gain her a niche in Gillow's Bibliographical Dictionary, whose life drew a written tribute from Bishop Bonaventure Giffard and whose teachings inspired a book by Alban Butler. After the dissensions of the previous decade she restored spiritual health and harmony to the community and placed it on a more flourishing footing than for many years, receiving to profession thirty-four religious in 25 years (1707–32). Abbess Howard—if that was indeed her surname— entered into association with other religious houses by mutual agreement to participate in good works, prayers and merits: with the Benedictine Abbey of St. Amand at Rouen, whose Abbess was a great friend; with that of Val de Grace in Paris where she herself had lived and been converted; in 1711 with the Carmelites and in 1714 (a renewal of a former association) with the Capuchins. In addition the community's friend and benefactor M. de Tot had in 1703 founded a confraternity in honour of Our Lady and St. Joseph which some of the English nobility joined, including Lady Middleton and Lady Strickland.
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Notes
1 The first instalment of the late Dr. Forster's contribution appeared in the May 1986 issue of this journal and is referred-to in the Notes and Appendices as ‘pt. 1’. In this second part also there has been a certain amount of editorial emendation and annotation (in which ‘Anstruther’ signifies Anstruther, G. The Seminary Priests, 4 vols., 1968–77).Google Scholar
2 Joseph, Giliow A Literary and Biographical History or Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics (5 vols., 1885–1902),Google Scholar now augmented by an Index and Finding-List compiled by John Bevan (Ross-on-Wye, 1985). The Abbess appears in Gillow's third volume under ‘Howard’ (but see note 4, below).
3 A.B., A Short Account of the Life and Virtues of Mary of the Holy Cross, Abbess of the Poor Clares at Rouen (1767), based partly on a MS. memoir by Bishop Bonaventure Giffard.
4 So-called by Gillow, apparently following Alban Butler's attribution of this surname on grounds now untenable, viz. that she was a daughter of Sir Robert Howard (1626–98) whose Life by H. J. Oliver (Durham, N. Carolina, 1963) p. 8, note 22, dismisses this claim. Her true name may perhaps have been Talbot (as she was called when first in France, though when she went to Rouen she took the name of Parnel); if it was, her reason for abandoning it and for assiduously concealing her origins may well stem from its ill-repute at that time, due largely to the notoriety of the second wife (and widow, after his death in a duel with her paramour) of Francis Talbot, 11th Earl of Shrewsbury, and (perhaps more) from that lady's appearance in France, and indeed in Rouen, at the very time Mary of the Holy Cross was entering the Poor Clares, i.e. between the Autumn of 1674 and the Autumn of 1675; see Wake, J. The Brudenells of Deene (1953) pp. 179–180,Google Scholar and Appendix 2 to this contribution, under ‘Howard’. In the Poor Clares’ Register of death-notices (at St. Clare's Abbey, Darlington) the surname Talbot has been substituted, in a different hand, for that originally written and now indecipherable. Another notice (loose in the Register) does not mention a surname. See also Foley, Records S.J., 4, pp. 30–31 for a speculative footnote.
5 Widows respectively of Sir Thomas Strickland who had died in January 1694 (see pt. I, p. 98) and of Charles, Earl of Middleton, who d.. 1719 (D.N.B.); both ladies occur later in this ‘Chronicle’. Lady Middleton was a sister of the Countess of Shrewsbury mentioned in the preceding note (Wake. op. cit., pedigree at end).
6 See New Catholic Encyclopaedia, 3, p. 254.
7 Eldest son of Sir Thomas Strickland mentioned in note 5, above.
8 Of this priest the Register of St. Gregory's, Paris, records, ‘1712, July 12, Mr. Anthony Witham went with Cosen Meynell & Carnaby to the Poor Clares att Rouen to recover his health, where he remained …’ (C.R.S., 19, p. 121). For Witham, see Anstruther, 3, pp. 250–1, where, however, it is remarked, It is not known … when he came to England’. He died in 1763 and a legacy from him to the Rouen community is recorded in their English agent's account-book (A.A.W., Z44, pp. 49, 67, 71, 109) for which see note 31.
9 His mother was originally Winifred Trentham. His visit to Rouen on this occasion is mentioned in Sabran's Letter-Book (ed. T. G. Holt; C.R.S., 62) p. 126.
10 As were his father and mother (C.R.S., 55, notes citing memorial inscriptions).
11 Third bart., of Odstock, Wilts., and Barbara, née Belasyse.
12 See Appendix 5 (Confessors); also note 8, above.
13 Her mother's will indicates this; see Payne, J. O. Records of English Catholics of 1715 (1889) p. 13.Google Scholar
14 Henry, 5th Lord Arundell of Wardour; the licence, dated 27 July 1715, permitting him ‘to go beyond seas to Spaa’ is among the family muniments.
15 Frs. Thomas Fairfax and George Webb, for whom see Holt, T. G. The English Jesuits, 1650–1829: A Biographical Dictionary (C.R.S., 70) pp. 90 Google Scholar, 260–1, respectively. Lord Arundell's two sons were Henry, later 6th baron, and Thomas who had recently (1713–15) been accompanied on a tour of the Continent by another Jesuit and future Wardour chaplain, Fr. Richard Holland (C.R.S.. 62, passim; C.R.S., 70, pp. 119–20).
16 See Leys, M. D. R. Catholics in England, 1559–1829 (1961) p. 207,Google Scholar not identifying the Arundell daughter or her convent; also Doran Webb, E. (ed.) Notes by the 12th Lord Arundell of Wardour onthe Family History (1916) p. 66.Google Scholar
17 ibid; also Anthony Williams, J. Catholic Recusancy in Wiltshire. 1660–1791 (C.R.S. Monograph series, no. 1, 1968) p. 186.Google Scholar
18 The china was later (1734) given by the Abbess to Elizabeth, Countess of Castlehaven, daughter of the 5th Lord Arundell of Wardour.
19 Perhaps mentioned as Griffin in C.R.S., 62, passim.
20 i.e. a secular priest (see Anstruther, 3, p. 141); this paragraph has some relevance to the argument in Recusant History, 17, pp. 38–47.
21 See note 5.
22 For an outline, see Lough, J. An Introduction to Eighteenth Century France (1960) pp. 142–7.Google Scholar
23 Akerman, J. Y. (ed.) Moneys Received and Paid for Secret Services of Charles II and James II (Camden Society, 1851) passim; Anstruther, 2, pp. 198–9.Google Scholar
24 Lady Montagu d. 23 Nov. 1723; widow of the 5th Viscount who had succeeded his brother; the latter's widow did not die until 1744 or ‘45 and was buried in the church of the English Augustinian nuns at Bruges (G.E.C., Complete Peerage, 9, p. 102).
25 For her will, see Payne, Records of English Catholics …, p. 72.
26 See pt. 1, pp. 65–6; also Appendix 2.
27 Later 4th Earl (d. 1762), succeeding his nephew who d. 1750: pedigree in ‘S.N.D.’, Sir WilliamHoward Viscount Stafford, 1612–1680 (1929) facing p. 248.
28 For him see D.N.B.; Anstruther, 3, pp. 213–4.
29 The English College, Douai; see C.R.S., 28, passimîox the Rev. John Philip Betts and ibid, . p. 127 for his servant, doubtless Peter Browne (Petrus Famulus Dni Betts, 1725). For Betts see also Anstruther, 4, pp. 31–2, and for the four Betts nuns, Appendix 2. Peter Browne's employment at Rouen began in 1728 (Chronicle ‘Rouen II’, p. 98). A later Peter Browne, a priest, became the Poor Clares’ English agent in May 1759; see note 31.
30 See Appendix 2.
51 However, this period is covered from one standpoint in a pair of very interesting account-books kept between 1754 and 1794 by successive English agents of the Rouen Poor Clares, the Revv. William Walton (to May 1759) and Peter Browne (thereafter). These, here drawn-on mainly in Appendix 4, are A.A.W., Z44 & Z45. For Walton (later bishop) and Browne, see respectively Anstruther 4, pp. 289–90, 48–9 (as Brown).
32 ? Thomas Walsh, mentioned in C.R.S., 63, p. 428 & passim, and in Anstruther 4, p. 288; for Fr. Kennedy, see Appendix 5.
33 See also Appendix 4 for her other exploits. The nun was Sr. Mary Benedict (Smith) for whom see Appendix 2.
34 ? mother of Robert Garvey who assisted the community in various ways (see Appendix 7).
35 This episode is related in Whelan, B. Historic English Convents of Today (1936) p. 184;Google Scholar the lay-sister was Sr. Anne Collet (Tomlinson) for whom see Appendix 2.
36 This was Sr. Winifred Anne (Culshaw); see Appendix 2.
37 Executed 28 July 1794.
38 Sr. Maria Magdalen (Chadwick), died 16 Nov. 1795 in London; see App. 2.
39 Ward, B. The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England (1909) 2, pp. 129;Google Scholar doubtless John Earle (Anstruther, 4, p. 95) and perhaps John (2) or Richard Smith (ibid, pp. 249–50).
40 Sr. Mary Scholastica (Belasyse); see App. 2 and, for another mention of her, App. 5.
41 Probably Peter Coghlan O.F.M., son of James Peter Coghlan, the Catholic printer and publisher (for whom see Gillow, Bibliographical Dictionary …, 1, p. 526). The former died in London in 1798 as chaplain to the Neapolitan embassy; see Thaddeus, The Franciscans in England (1898) p. 175; Dockery, J. B. Collingridge (Newport, 1954) p. 37.Google Scholar Another son, William Augustus Coghlan, a secular priest, appears to have spent his pastoral life in the north of England (Anstruther, 4, p. 68).
42 This excerpt from the Poor Clares’ ‘Chronicle’ is also printed in Coleridge, H.J. St. Mary'sConvent, Micklegate Bar, York (1887) pp. 243–4.Google Scholar
43 Michael Tidyman, secular priest, still there when the nuns left twelve years later (Anstruther, 4, p. 279).
44 Charles Hanne, S.J., then aged 84, who died in 1799 (C.R.S., 70, p. 111).
45 This congregation is studied by Professor John Bossy in Recusant History, 10, pp. 11–33.
46 See under Fletcher, Littlear and Smyth in Appendix 2(c).
47 Sr. Mary Anastasia (Lancaster); see App. 2.
48 Rev. Benedict Rayment; see App. 6 (Ecclesiastical Superiors).
49 The nuns’ confessor; see App. 5.
50 See under Greenhalgh and Obran in App. 2(c) where the other eight are also listed.
51 ‘… pills against rheumatism, apparently’ (J. McLoughlin on the former Aire community in ‘Our Plymouth Brethren’ in The Franciscan, Feb. 1950, pp. 16–19). See also under Darcy (Sr. Mary Bernard) in Appendix 2(c).
52 The trial is reported in The York Courant of 19 July 1838 and in The York Herald of 21 July; there is an allusion to it in Ward, W. The Life and Times of Cardinal Wiseman (1898) 2, p. 85.Google Scholar
53 Newman's friend and fellow convert, Ambrose St. John. One of the original members of the Birmingham Oratory, he became headmaster of the Oratory School; d. 1875, aged 60.
54 He had fled from Rome in November 1848 and a Roman republic was proclaimed in February 1849 but, after the re-establishment of papal government with French help, Pius IX was able to return to Rome in April 1850.
55 John Briggs, formerly president of Ushaw; there is much about him in Milburn, D. A History of Ushaw College (Durham, 1964).Google Scholar
56 Formerly rector of the English College, Valladolid (C.R.S., 30, passim); the Carmelites, from Lierre, had been at Darlington since 1830 (Whelan, op. cit., p. 228 & passim; Northern CatholicHistory, no. 4, 1976, pp. 30–35).
57 For Joseph Aloysius Hansom and his work, see B. Little, Catholic Churches since 1623 (1966) passim.
58 Unable to produce evidence substantiating allegations of immorality against Dr. Giacinto Achilli (a former Dominican) originally made by Wiseman and cited by Newman in his Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (1851), the latter was in 1853 found guilty of libel and fined.
59 The first and second Westminster Provincial Synods, discussed, with the third and fourth Synods, by Hogan, D. C. in The Clergy Review, 69 (1984) pp. 444–50.Google Scholar
60 William Hogarth, first bishop of Hexham.
61 See New Catholic Encyclopaedia, 8, pp. 388–9.