4 - Surviving in Exile: Strategies and Supporters of the English Convents in Exile, c. 1600–c. 1800

Summary

‘They are strangers without support in a country which is as the place of their exile, which they suffer with so much courage & joy for the glorious cause of Religion.’

Keenly aware of their situation as exiles, members of the English convents were faced with many challenges as they sought to secure their survival. Their aim was to preserve their faith ready for the time when they would be able to practise it in their homeland among their countrymen. This brief extract from an appeal for assistance written in 1654 by the Poor Clares at Gravelines after they lost ‘the only retreat they had in the world’ following an explosion, focuses on how they were able to persevere – they suffered with joy for their religion.

Members of the English convents founded in exile – both the enclosed communities and the Mary Ward Sisters – were aware of their importance and the role they should play in the survival of English Catholicism for women, identified here as ‘the glorious cause’. Observing conventual rules with a heavy emphasis on obedience, most of them spent their lives within enclosures, with the result that, in the past, scholars frequently viewed nuns as withdrawn and passive. However, as a result of recent research and with greater access to their archives, it is clear that we need to review these opinions and recognise them as agents, participating in a long-term movement to secure the survival of their faith, making many decisions for themselves within the framework of their vows and their foundation documents. This chapter will also argue that the English nuns were mistaken if they thought that they were without support among their neighbours: in fact, there were many locals who cared and contributed to their survival in the long term.

Appeals for Support

From the early years of the foundations, convent communities were conscious of the need to raise funds for themselves in different ways. Several carefully worded appeals have survived in which they articulated calls for assistance. Expressions of grief, pain and suffering included in appeals, prayers, chronicles and even obituaries served to motivate external supporters as well as to spur members on in their striving for spiritual improvement. Some nuns had already experienced suffering before they joined; others deliberately embraced hardship and pain after profession.