No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2015
Elizabeth Inchbald's A Simple Story (1791) was the first novel written by an English Catholic with Catholic characters. It was set in the world of the Catholic gentry, a world that Inchbald knew well from her upbringing in Suffolk on a farm adjacent to the estate of an ancient Catholic family. Inchbald herself acknowledged that one of the book's characters, the ex-Jesuit Sandford, was based on an individual from her childhood, and some effort has been made by Inchbald scholars (notably Patricia Sigl and Michael Tomko) to research her Catholic background and the Gage and Rookwood families whose history may have inspired aspects of the novel. However, the Gage family's papers have not been considered for the light they can throw on Inchbald and the eighteenth-century Catholic community in Suffolk. These sources contain references to the Simpson family and have the potential to enliven our understanding of the immediate environment of Inchbald's youth. This article corrects misconceptions transmitted by James Boaden and other biographers of Inchbald, proposes a new identity for the man who became the model for Sandford, and draws attention to possible correspondences between the circumstances and relationships of the Gage family and the characters in A Simple Story.
1 Saward, J., Morrill, J. and Tomko, M. (eds), Firmly I Believe and Truly: The Spiritual Tradition of Catholic England, 1483–1999, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011, p. 375.Google Scholar
2 On the development of the twentieth-century ‘Catholic novel’ see Bosco, M., Graham Greene's Catholic Imagination, American Academy of Religion, Oxford, 2005, pp. 7—11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 On the early British Catholic Enlightenment see Glickman, G., The English Catholic Community 1688–1745: Politics, Culture and Ideology, Boydell, Woodbridge, 2009, pp. 221—39.Google Scholar On late eighteenth-century Catholicism see Carter, B., ‘Controversy and Conciliation in the English Catholic Enlightenment, 1790–1840’, Enlightenment and Dissent vol. 7 (1988), pp.3—24;Google Scholar Chinnici, J. P., The English Catholic Enlightenment: John Lingard and the Cisalpine Movement, 1780–1850, Patmos Press: Shepherdstown, WV, 1980;Google Scholar Holt, G., The English Jesuits in the Age of Reason, Burns and Oates: Tunbridge Wells, 1993; Morrill, Saward and Tomko (2011), pp. 253—379.Google Scholar
4 See, for instance, Jager, C., The Book of God: Secularization and Design in the Romantic Era, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 2007, p. 134.Google Scholar
5 On the anti-Catholic tradition see Haydon, C., Anti-Catholicism in Eighteenth-Century England: A Political and Social Study, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1993;Google Scholar Black, J., Eighteenth-Century Britain, 1688–1783, Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke, 2001, pp. 141—3.Google Scholar
6 Sommerville, C. J., The Secularization of Early Modern England: From Religious Culture to Religious Faith, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992, pp. 165—77.Google Scholar
7 Sommerville (1992), p. 182.
8 Glickman (2009), p. 178.
9 Doody, M. A., The True Story of the Novel, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, c.1996, p. 279.Google Scholar
10 Watt, I., The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, 3rd edn, Penguin, London, 1972, p. 91.Google Scholar
11 Littlewood, S. R., Elizabeth Inchbald and her Circle, O'Connor, D., London, 1921, pp. 1—17;Google Scholar Manvell, R., Elizabeth Inchbald: England's Principal Woman Dramatist and Independent Woman of Letters in 18th Century London, University Press of America, Lanham, MD, 1987, pp. 1—8;Google Scholar Jenkins, A., ‘I'll Tell You What’: The Life of Elizabeth Inchbald, University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 2003, pp. 1—14;Google Scholar Clemit, P., ‘Introduction’ in Inchbald, E., A Simple Story, Penguin Classics, London, 1996.Google Scholar
12 Boaden, J., Memoirs of Mrs Inchbald, Bentley, R., London, 1833, vol. 1, p. 333.Google Scholar
13 Manvell (1987), pp. 68, 74–5.
14 Jenkins (2003), p. 278.
15 McKee, W., Elizabeth Inchbald: Novelist, Catholic University of America Press, Washington DC, 1935, p. 121;Google Scholar Manvell (1987), p. 73.
16 Jenkins (2003), p. 277.
17 Keegan, B., ‘“Bred a Jesuit”: A Simple Story and Late Eighteenth Century Catholic Culture’, Huntington Library Quarterly vol. 71 (2008), pp. 687—706;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Judson, B., ‘The Psychology of Satan: Elizabeth Inchbald's A Simple Story ’, English Literary History vol. 76 (2009), pp. 599–624.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18 Keegan (2008), p. 691.
19 Berington, J., An Examination of Events Termed Miraculous, as Reported in Letters from Italy, Oxford, 1796;Google Scholar Milner, J., A Serious Expostulation with the Rev. Joseph Berington, upon his Theological Errors concerning Miracles, London, 1797.Google Scholar
20 Craft-Fairchild, C., Masquerade and Gender: Disguise and Female Identity in Eighteenth-Century Fictions by Women, Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA, 1993, n. p. 85;Google Scholar Tompkins, ‘Explanatory Notes’ in Simple Story, n. p. 340.
21 Rowe, J., ‘“The lopped tree”: The Re-formation of the Suffolk Catholic Community’ in Tyacke, N. (ed.), England's Long Reformation 1500–1800, UCL Press, London, 1998, pp. 167—94.Google Scholar
22 CUL Hengrave MS 76/2/19, 21.
23 Carteret Leathes to Sir William Gage, 13 March 1744, CUL Hengrave MS 88/4/56.
24 Sigl, P., ‘The Elizabeth Inchbald Papers’, Notes and Queries vol. 29 (1982), pp. 220–24, at p. 223.Google Scholar
25 Tomko, M., ‘Remembering Elizabeth Inchbald's The Massacre: Romantic cosmopolitanism, sectarian history, and religious difference’, European Romantic Review vol. 19 (2008), pp. 1—18,CrossRefGoogle Scholar at pp. 4–5; Tomko, M., British Romanticism and the Catholic Question: Religion, Historyand National Identity, 1778–1829, Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke, 2011, pp. 56–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26 Gage, T., ‘Some Account of the Manor and Parish of Hengrave in the County of Suffolk’, CUL Hengrave MS 1/1–4.Google Scholar
27 Young, F., The Gages of Hengrave and Suffolk Catholicism, 1640–1767, Catholic Record Society, London,Google Scholar forthcoming; F. Young, Rookwood Family Papers, 1606–1760, Suffolk Records Society, Woodbridge, forthcoming.
28 SRO(B) HA 528/40.
29 CUL Hengrave MS 1/4, fol. 338.
30 The family feud is recorded in five letters written by Delariviere Gage to an unknown recipient between 28 October and 28 November 1729, CUL Hengrave MS 88/4/28, 29, 31, 32, 33.
31 Dorothy Wordwell was described as ‘Servant to Madam [Delariviere] Gage’ in the Constables’ lists of ‘Popish Non-Jurors’ refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance to George II in 1745, SRO (B) D8/1/3, bundle 2.
32 Downside Abbey MSS, Hengrave Register.
33 SRO (B) 449/4/19.
34 Stanningfield parish register (microfilm), SRO (B) J552/8.
35 Downside Abbey MSS, Hengrave Register.
36 This Mary Simpson seems to have been a member of the Coldham congregation as she was buried at Stanningfield on 7 September 1765, SRO (B) J552/8.
37 Rowe, J. (ed.), ‘Norwich Diocesan Return of Papists 11 November 1767 (Norfolk Record Office, DN/DIS 9/16)’, in Chadd, D. (ed.), Religious Dissent in East Anglia III, University of East Anglia, Norwich, 1996, p. 207.Google Scholar
38 Gerard, J. (ed. Caraman, P.), The Autobiography of an Elizabethan, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1951, pp. 24—31.Google Scholar
39 Morris, J. (ed.) The Condition of Catholics under James I: Father Gerard's Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1871, pp. 85—6.Google Scholar
40 Holt, G., St. Omers and Bruges Colleges, 1593–1773: A Biographical Dictionary, CRS, London, 1979, pp. 224–5.Google Scholar
41 Tesimond, O. (ed. Edwards, F.), The Gunpowder Plot: The Narrative of Oswald Tesimond alias Greenway, Folio Society, London, 1973, pp. 99—100.Google Scholar
42 For the library inventory, see CUL Hengrave MS 77/2, fols. 28–56.
43 Young, F., ‘“An Horrid Popish Plot”: The Failure of Catholic Aspirations in Bury St. Edmunds, 1685–88’, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History vol. 41 (2006), pp. 209—55.Google Scholar
44 A detailed account of the Catholic missions in Bury in the years 1732–43 can be found in the diary of another Benedictine monk, Alexius Jones, who was chaplain to the Bond family in the town, CUL Hengrave MS 69.
45 Alban Butler to John Joseph Hornyold, 23 December 1753, Westminster Diocesan Archives, A 40/97.
46 Boaden (1833), vol. 1, p. 4.
47 Rowe (1996), p. 213.
48 Flempton-cum-Hengrave parish register (microfiche), SRO(B) FL571/1.
49 Simple Story, pp. 3–5.
50 Gage, J., The History and Antiquities of Hengrave in Suffolk, Bury St Edmunds, 1822, pp. 245—6.Google Scholar
51 CUL Hengrave MS 1/4, fol. 341.
52 Gage, J., The History and Antiquities of Suffolk: Thingoe Hundred, John, Deck, London, 1838, p. 210.Google Scholar
53 Jenkins (2003), pp. 7, 8.
54 Tompkins (1988), n. p. 341.
55 Hervey, S. H. A. (ed.), Rushbrook Parish Registers with Jermyn and Davers Annals, Booth, G., Woodbridge, 1903, pp. 310—38.Google Scholar
56 Hervey (1903), p. 85. For the Lunehams see Simple Story, pp. 91, 93.
57 Tompkins (1988), n. p. 341.
58 Diaries, pp. 249, 255, 266, 271.
59 Tomko (2011), p. 56.
60 CUL Hengrave MS 1/4, fol. 73.
61 Simple Story, p. 40.
62 Holt, G., The English Jesuits 1650–1829: A Biographical Dictionary, CRS, London, 1984, p. 78.Google Scholar
63 Bury Register (private collection), fol. 102.
64 Simple Story, p. 38.
65 Holt (1993), pp. 114–26.
66 Simple Story, p. 38.
67 SRO(B) HD526/123/9.
68 Farrer, E., ‘Coldham Hall and the Rookwoods’, East Anglian Miscellany, newspaper cutting circa 1920,Google Scholar SRO(B) HD526/123/6.
69 Diaries, pp. 256, 259, 265, 269, 271.
70 Diaries, p. 266.
71 Boaden (1833), vol. 1. pp. 17, 142, 250, 267, 297, 333; vol. 2, pp. 6, 92.
72 Sigl (1982), p. 221; Waller, J., A List of Interesting Autograph Letters, Waller, John, London, 1872,Google Scholar nos. 188 and 119. No. 119 is described as ‘2% pp., 8vo. 29 April 1789. From Coldham Hall’.
73 Simple Story, p. 46.
74 Simple Story, pp. 325–6.
75 See Paine, C., The Culford Estate 1780–1935, Ingham Local History Group, Ingham, 1993.Google Scholar
76 Thomas Bray to Sir William Gage, 30 October 1741, CUL Hengrave MS 88/4/42.
77 Simple Story, p. 225.
78 Richard Holmes to Delariviere Gage, 4 March 1743, CUL Hengrave MS 88/4/53.
79 Sir William Gage to Richard Holmes, circa 1746, CUL Hengrave MS 88/4/34.
80 Simple Story, p. 34.
81 CUL Hengrave MS 1/4, fols 313–4. Sir William does not seem to have had much interest in his Montserrat estate and sold it to Thomas Meade.
82 Sir Thomas Day to Sir William Gage, 11 January 1743, CUL Hengrave MS 88/4/48.
83 Simple Story, p. 196.
84 Stewart, M. A., Domestic Realities and Imperial Fictions: Jane Austen's Novels in Eighteenth-Century Contexts, University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA, 1993, p. 106.Google Scholar
85 CUL Hengrave MS 1/4, fol. 348.
86 CUL Hengrave MS 1/3, fol. 317.
87 On Catholicism in Lancashire see Hilton, J. A., Catholic Lancashire: from Reformation to Renewal 1559–1991, Phillimore, Chichester, 1994.Google Scholar On the distinctive characteristics of Catholicism in East Anglia see Rowe (1998), pp. 167–94.