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Nuns of the Jerningham Letters: Elizabeth Jerningham (1727–1807) and Frances Henrietta Jerningham (1745–1824), Augustinian Canonesses of Bruges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Margaret J. Mason
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Extract

Four Jerningham Augustinian canonesses from Bruges were at Cossey, the home of Sir William Jerningham (1736–1809), in the summer of 1794, and then lived at Hengrave Hall near Bury St. Edmunds Suffolk. They were Ann, Elizabeth, Edwardina, and Frances Henrietta Jerningham, Sir William's cousins. The sixteen bound volumes of correspondence received by Lady Bedingfield 1776–1833 and now at Birmingham University, from which Egerton Castle's Jerningham Letters were taken, include three unpublished letters from Elizabeth, Sister Mary Agnes Jerningham (1727–1807) and three unpublished letters from her American niece, Frances Henrietta, Sister Mary Sales Jerningham (1745–1824). Sister Mary Sales's 1803 letter to Lady Jerningham is now at the Stafford Record Office.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , May 1995 , pp. 350 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1995

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References

Notes

1 Ann Jemingham: Sister Ann Teresa, prof. 4 Dec. 1735; d. 28 Dec. 1796 at Hengrave Hall. Elizabeth Jemingham: Sister Mary Agnes, prof. 8 Oct. 1745; d. 30 March 1807. Edwardina Jemingham: Sister Francis Joseph, prof. 29 May 1752; d. 22 June 1796. All daus. of Henry Jemingham and Mary L'Epine.

Frances Henrietta Jemingham: Sister Mary Sales, prof. 2 July 1777; d. 17 October 1824. Dau. of Henry Jemingham of Maryland, niece of the three sisters Jemingham above. Bruges.

2 A James Lepine, 27, teacher of languages, native of London, was a prisoner at La Force and Luxembourg, 11 October 1793 to 1 January 1794. Alger, John, Englishmen in the French Revolution, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1889, p. 341.Google Scholar

3 Betham calls the eldest daughter Mary; Bruges says Ann.

4 The nuns’ brother Charles Jemingham came to Cossey in June 1786 and probably advised Sir William and Lady Jemingham about a career in the Austrian army for their second son, William, b. 1772 (Castle vol. 1, p. 39). William's Austrian service completed in 1799, he fell ill in Vienna and the gouty General assured his parents in England that he was, under the care of the Prince de Croui's doctor and his own, being properly bled and blistered and given the last rites, and later that he had recovered and was in good spirits. Charles Jemingham married twice, 1st to his cousin Constantia Dicconson, daughter of Edward Dicconson of Wrightington Hall, Lancashire, and his wife Mary Blount (dau. of George Blount, who was brother of Anne Blount, the General's grandmother) and 2nd to a German lady, with whom he had issue. (See Burke's Landed Gentry 1882, ‘Dicconson of Wrightington’, to which family the Eccleston and Scarisbrick estates fell in late 18thc. and early 19thc. See also Castle vol. 1, pp. 146–149, and Betham.), Castle vol. 2, p. 391: Lady Bedingfield, talking to Prince Esterhazy's grandson in the court of William IV in 1833, cited the connection of her old cousin General Jemingham with Prince Esterhazy in order to further the English career of her second son Charles, whom she had placed in the Austrian service in 1821.

Charles Jerningham's younger brother Nicholas Jemingham married the widow of Thomas Carte (1686–1754), author of History of the Life of James, Duke of Ormonde (1735–1736) and A General History of England (1747–1755); it included an account of a cure of the king's evil by King James III, which helped make the work unpopular in its time). Nicholas inherited the historian's manuscripts, letters and official documents from his wife at her death. He received for their perusal £200 from Lord Hardwicke (either Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, 1690–1764, who presided at the trial of the Scottish Jacobite peers after Culloden, or his son Philip, 2nd Earl, 1720–1790) and £300 from James Macpherson (writer of the Ossian poems, and author of Original Papers, Containing the Secret History of Great Britain from the Restoration to the Accession of the House of Hanover, 1775). Finally Nicholas Jemingham sold the papers to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University for £50. He died in 1785. John Kirk, Biographies of English Catholics of the Eighteenth Century, (ed. by John Hungerford Pollen and Edward Burton), London: Bums and Oates, 1909; Farnborough, Hants.: Gregg International Publishers Ltd., 1968, p. 140; Encyclopedia Britannica.

The fifth Jemingham brother, Hugh, was a Franciscan at Douai. In 1776 Friar Jemingham was in Paris, where he became acquainted with the Catholic actress and author Elizabeth Inchbald and her husband, and later advised Mrs. Inchbald when she had religious doubts. He died at Dover on the return of the English Franciscans in 1793. Kirk's Biographies; Manvell, Roger, Elizabeth Inchbald: A Biographical Study (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1987).Google Scholar Thaddeus, Hermanis, The Franciscans in England 1600–1850, (London: Art and Book Co., 1898),Google Scholar mentions laybrother Felix Jemingham, prof. 1730, at Douai in 1779 and 1790. Elizabeth Inchbald's A Simple Story concerns the wife of an ex-priest, the last of his line, who marries to carry on the family; it is thought to be the inspiration for Jane Eyre.

5 Anne Blount, dau. of Sir George Blount, 2nd Bart, of Soddington, Worcestershire, was aunt of the talented and forceful Mary Blount, d. 1773, wife of the 9th Duke of Norfolk, whose chaplain was the Rev. Alban Butler. Betham; Robinson, John, The Dukes of Norfolk, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 1982.Google Scholar

6 Ann Jerningham: Sister Winefred, prof. 4 Dec. 1698; d. 2 August 1741.

Mary Ann Jerningham: Sister Mary Teresa, prof. 8 Oct. 1699; d. 27 May 1757. Both daus. of Sir Francis Jerningham, 3rd Bart., and Anne Blount. They were the sisters of Sir John Jerningham, 4th Bart., (1678–1737), Sir George Jerningham, 5th Bart. (1680–1774; father of Sir William, 6th Bart., 1736–1809), Charles Jerningham, M.D. (d. 1760), Edward, Francis (a Jesuit priest) and Richard.

7 Kirk, Biographies, p. 140.

8 Lady Lucy's mother, Lady Powis (d. 1691), was the devoted companion of Mary of Modena as well as governess to her son; Lord Powis was Lord Steward and Chamberlain at St. Germains-en-Laye. Lady Lucy, unlike her sisters, never considered married life and was perhaps turned to the cloister by the sight of the Stuart courtiers competing with each other for favours from the exiled James II and from Louis XIV. After studying the rules of all the English communities, and visiting several in which she was treated with great ceremony as a lady of quality, she was won by the simple cordiality at Bruges, which was then under Mother Mary Bedingfield (Prioress 1661–1693). She came to Bruges on 2 February 1692, took the scholar's habit on 1 March 1692, and made her profession 1 June 1693. She was Prioress from 1709 until her death at the age of 75 on 19 January 1744. Mother Herbert caused the present church to be built in 1736. Her sister Lady Nithsdale (Lady Winefred Herbert) who had rescued her husband from the Tower of London after the rising of 1715, chose the convent's marble altar in Rome. Another sister, Lady Montagu (Lady Mary Herbert), and three companions, from 1739 lived in the cloister by the bishop's permission. On 16 July 1741 the Bruges convent began a second mass for Lady Montagu's benefit, said in a little chapel in her upstairs room, the site of the old church, now called Ring Hail because it was the only room in the convent with a bell. It was here that Sister Olivia Darell's well-attended funeral was conducted in January 1802, by the curate of St. Anne's who had not taken the oath accepting the Civil Constitution of the clergy. Link, pp. 317–325, 392.

9 They were daughters of Sir Francis Jerningham, 3rd Bt., and his wife Anne Blount, dau. of Sir George Blount of Goldingham. Sir Francis and Lady Jerningham had seven other children, all boys: (1) Sir John Jerningham, who died after a childless marriage to Margaret Bedingfield, in 1737; (2) Sir George Jerningham, who m. Mary Plowden at age 53 and was father of Sir William, Edward the poet and Charles the Chevalier; (3) Charles Jerningham, M.D., who m. Elizabeth Roper and Frances Belasyse and d.s.p.; (4) Henry Jerningham, artist, engraver and goldsmith who m. Mary I'Epine, with whom he had five sons and three daughters (nuns at Bruges); (5) Edward Jerningham, m. Elizabeth Keighley and had a son in the French service and a daughter Henrietta who with the help of her uncle Sir George Jerningham became a Benedictine nun at Pontoise; (6) Francis Jerningham, a Jesuit priest, and (7) Richard Jerningham, who died young. Betham. SRO letter P/3/5/1.

10 Mary Wright was dau. of John Wright, Esq., of Kelvedon Hall, Essex (d. 4. Oct. 1691), and his wife Philippa (d. 16 May 1687), dau. of William Fitzwilliam, Esq., of Clixby, co. Lincoln. She s. Mother Mary Bedingfield as Prioress at Bruges in 1693 and ruled until 1709. Link, pp. 335–337, gives several examples of her great humility and trust in God as Prioress. ‘She had so avoided all intercourse with seculars that when she was first elected it was a great wonder among them whom we had made choice of, they being entirely ignorant that we had such a person in our monastery.’ She depended entirely on Divine Providence in all difficulties, and the community prospered during her government.

11 Link, p. 433.

12 Link, p. 317: ‘This proposal was not carried into effect.’ James III had come to the convent in 1708 and touched several afflicted nuns: Sister Clare Saunderson, Sister Henrietta Markham, and Sister Mary Bernard Tasburgh. In England, Queen Anne also touched for the king's evil (scrofula: tuberculosis of the lymph nodes or of the bones).

13 Probably dau. of John Darell, Esq., of Calehill, Kent, and the Hon. Olivia Smythe, 2nd dau. of Philip, 2nd Viscount Strangford and Mary Porter (granddau. of Endymion Porter, Groom of the Bedchamber of Charles I). Debrett's Peerage 1831; Burke's Landed Gentry 1882. Mother Darell's niece, Sister Olivia Darell, stayed in the Bruges convent during the refugee period, 1794–1802. Her courage and business capacity enabled her community to reclaim their cloister in 1802, just after her death. Link p. 409.

14 She was daughter of Thomas More of Barnborough and Catherine Gifford. Link, p. 353n. She was also aunt to Thomas Waterton of Walton Hall, Yorkshire, to whom she wrote twenty letters from 1779 to 1791, in which she is shown to be ‘forthright and tenacious … rather enjoying the sense of imminent emergency and danger’ at the beginning of the French Revolution. Blackburn, Julia, Charles Waterton, 1782–1865,Traveller and Conservationist, (London: The Bodley Head, 1989), p. 9.Google Scholar

15 Bruges; Guiiday, Peter, The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent 1558–1795, (London, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1914), p. 388.Google Scholar The American Henry Jerningham had seven children in all (his wife is not named): Charles Edward, b. 1749, d. 1777, s.p.; Henry Tobias, b. 1765; Frances Henrietta, b. 1745, ‘a nun at Hengrave, in Suffolk’; Mary, b. 1754, d. 1777; Helosyia, b. 1757, m. 1779 John Lancaster, Esq., of Charles County, Maryland, ‘by whom she has living four sons and two daughers’; Anne Edwardina, b. 1761, m. 1787 Joseph Queen, Esq., ‘by whom she has three sons and two daughers’; Olivia, b. 1763, m. 1785 Henry Hammersley, Esq., and d. in 1793, having issue one son. Betham,

16 Castle Vol. 1, pp. 58–65.

17 English ancestry was a requirement for admission until 1897. In 1823 there were four Belgian Augustinian canonesses at Bruges, all claiming—sometimes remote—English ancestry. Link, p. 415n. See also I Leap Over the Wall, an autobiography, and The Called and the Chosen, a novel, written by the former Sister Mary Cuthbert, Monica Baldwin.

18 See Sister Frideswide Stapleton, O.S.B., The History of the Benedictines of St. Mary's Priory, Prince-thorpe, (Samuel Walker, Hinckley, 1930).

19 CRS 8, Diary of the Blue Nuns, or Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, at Paris, 1658–1810.

20 In 1794 Sister Eusebia's brother and nephew Searle at Cadiz, Portugal, sent the nuns and their chaplain a hogshead of port wine. Link, p. 378. Sister Eusebia Pickering is mentioned in Blackburn, Charles Waterton, She came with her two sisters to the Bruges convent in 1758 at age 20, and in her letter dated 18 January 1758 to Thomas Waterton of Walton Hall, Yorkshire, nephew of Rev. Mother More, she described herself as ‘your once sweet and beloved wife.’ (Thomas Waterton m.Anne Bedingfield ca. 1780; they were parents of Charles Waterton.) By the time of her death in 1809, after 52 years in religion, her natural good temper had been overcome by anxiety and scruples, ‘and reasoning fell until she had no reason left. Superiors were afraid to contradict her, fearing she might lose her senses, as some of her family had had that misfortune.’ Blackburn, p. 10; Burke's Landed Gentry 1882.

21 See Link, p. 437; ‘Eight Years in England’ and ‘The Return to Bruges.’

22 Link, pp. 371–372.

23 Link, p. 374. Sir Thomas Rookwood Gage, 5th Bt. of Coldham Hall and Hengrave, who had s. his cousin in 1767, m. 1st 1747 Lucy Knight of Ringesby, Lincolnshire, by whom he had 1 son and 3 daus; m. 2nd 1782 Maria Fergus; died in April 1796 (Betham: 1795). His only son. Sir Thomas Gage, 6th Bt., m. 1st Charlotte Fitzherbert of Swinnerton, by whom he had 4 sons; m. 2nd Charlotte Campbell, 29 September 1796, by whom he had 2 daus; he died in 1799 (Betham gives the date as Nov. 1798). Link p. 383. Sir Thomas Gage, 7th Bt. (b. 1781 to Sir Thomas Gage, 6th Bt., and Charlotte Fitzherbert of Swinnerton) m. on 9 January 1809 Lady Marianna Browne, b. 15 December 1786, dau. of Valentine, 1st Earl Kenmare and his second wife, Mary Aylmer. In June 1809, Lady Bedingfield had dinner at Lord Kenmare's in London, where ‘Lady Mary Anne looked very handsome and pleasing. Sir Thomas put me out of patience by talking of pulling down Hengrave Hall to sell the materials. Neither his wife or brother seemed to like it.’ Castle vol. 1, p. 341.

24 Sister Stanislaus, Penelope Gage, was one of eight children, six daughters and two sons, of Sir William Gage, 2nd Bt., and Mary Bond, dau. of the comptroller of household of Queen Henrietta Maria. Sister Stanislaus had died on 27 October 1772 at age 84. Sir Thomas Rookwood Gage, 5th Bt., and his brother John, a Catholic priest, were sons of her brother John Gage and Elizabeth Rookwood of Coldham Hales, co. Suffolk. Penelope's aunt Penelope Gage (dau. of the five-times-married Sir Edward Gage, 1st Bt., and his first wife, Mary Hervey, dau. of Sir Edward's stepfather Sir William Hervey) had m. Edward Sulyard of Haughley Park, co. Suffolk, and was probably an ancestress of young Lady Jerningham, Frances Sulyard, who m. George Jemingham, Sir William and the Hon. Frances, Lady Jerningham's eldest son, on 26 December 1799. Link, p. 374; Debrett's Baronetage, 1835.

25 Link, pp. 375–376.

26 Link, pp. 375–376. Such crowds came to the convent at Hengrave that servants had to be stationed in each cloister to keep them in order.

27 Bruges.

28 Link, pp. 377–378. Gifts from others in 1794 included three dozen japanned candlesticks for the choir (Mr. and Mrs. Paston); fresh fish from Norwich every week in Lent (the three Havers sisters; Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Bedingfield, and Mrs. Norris); twelve hourglasses (Mrs. Wright); two dozen of mountain wine (Mr. Carter, the clergyman from Hengrave parish); sixteen pewter dishes and thirty plates (Mrs. Darell of Scotney); a coffee pot, a quilt, and wool for spinning worsted (Mrs. Hum, a Presbyterian at Bury St. Edmunds); game, venison, pike and carp (Lord Cornwallis, Bernard Howard, Lady Calthrop, Mrs. Rushbrook, Mr. Acton, all near neighbours of Hengrave Hall); geese for St. Michael's Day (Lady Gage). Coals were carted duty-free by Mr. Pugh. Plain furnishings were made out of deal wood.

29 Link, pp. 378–379. At the Sacred Heart school at Amiens in spring 1819, Charlotte Bedingfield was encouraged by her mother Lady Bedingfield to sew lilac or pink satin flowers. See Mason, ‘Nuns of the Jerningham Letters: Charlotte Bedingfield, Louisa Jerningham, and Clementina Jerningham,’ RH, October 1993.

30 Link p. 383; Debrett's Baronetage 1835. Perhaps daughers of Henry Darell, Esq., of Calehill and Elizabeth Gage, who had nine children, six of them girls: Mary, Lucy (m. Sir Edward Hales, 6th Bart, [son of Sir Edward Hales, 5th Bart., of Woodchurch, Kent, and Winefred Webb, dau. of Sir John Webb, 3rd Bart.] who d.s.p. 1829; his sister Anne Hales became a nun), Catherine, Elizabeth (m. John Linch French, Esq.), Barbara (m. 22 Aug. 1809 Francis Cholmeley, Esq. of Brandsby [b. 9 June 1783] and d. his widow 20 Dec. 1861 [1860?]), and Margaret. Burke's Landed Gentry 1882; Betham, where Hales of Woodchurch and Webb of Odstock entries are in conflict; Debrett's Baronetage 1835.

31 Link, p. 382.

32 Bruges. Link, p. 383: the timing of her death meant that New Year's Day office and mass could not be sung, ‘as in England no instrument of music should be heard when a corpse is in the house.’

33 CRS 7, p. 213, which refers to Foley, vii. 13.

34 According to Link, it was Felicité de Saisseval who was a pensioner at Hengrave by the kindness of Lady Jerningham. The Countess de Saisseval, whose mother Madame de Lastic had been lady in waiting to the daughters of Louis XV, and who herself was a friend of Madame Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI, brought her numerous children to England in January 1795; they had to beg door to door at Dover for shelter. In June 1795 ‘the little Saisseval’ had jumped into Sir Richard and Lady Bedingfield's wedding carriage in London on her way to the Benedictines’ school at Bodney. At Bodney in May 1797 a Mlle, de Saisseval cried all day, showing more heart than head at the time of the death of Lady Jerningham's sister, Sr. St. François Dillon. Mme. de Saisseval attended the wedding of Sir Thomas Webb and the Hon. Frances Dillon in Lady Jerningham's house in Boulton Row in 1799. A Mlle, de Saisseval was given the benefit of the Blue nuns’ tuition when they settled in Norwich in 1800, and attended the Brook Green School in July 1801, at Lady Jerningham's expense. E. Bayly at Brook Green House: ‘I am happy your Ladyship is pleased with Miss de Saisseval's improvement, considering her disposition when she first came, I must confess it has been beyond my expectation. I trust as she advances in years the Countess will find real comfort in her. I imagine your Ladyship received the Bill of December last, the sum of which I have added to the inclosed.’ Aline de Saisseval, the eldest daughter, ‘found happiness helping her mother in the various charities to which her life was henceforth devoted,’ including the Filles de Marie. Mme. de Saisseval, two of her daughters and a domestic return to France in 1801. Weiner, Margery, The French Exiles 1789–1815, (London: John Murray, 1960), pp. III, 147–148;Google Scholar Link, p. 438; Ciwfte vol. 2. pp. 79, 152; BU letter 96; SRO P/3/10, 106; Bede Camm, Dom, Sister Mary of St. Francis, SND, (London: Washboume, 1913), p. 124.Google Scholar

35 BU letter 105.

36 The Miss Bedingfields and Mrs. Waterton may have been Helen, Isabella, and Anne Bedingfield (Mrs. Thomas Waterton), cousins of Sir Richard Bedingfield 5th Bart, three of the ten children of his uncle Edward Bedingfield. Edward Bedingfield, b. 1730, was the sixth son of the third baronet. Sir Henry Arundell Bedingfield, and Lady Elizabeth Boyle. He m. Mary Swinburne, dau. of Sir John Swinburne, 3rd Bart., and Mary Bedingfield, granddau. of Sir Henry Bedingfield, 1st Bart. Edward Bedingfield's eldest daughter Mary (b.ca. 1758, d. 27 March 1811 ‘in the 54th year of her age’) was a Benedictine nun in the Ghent community. His second dau. Anne had m. Thomas Waterton before 1782 and have five sons including Charles Waterton the naturalist, b. 1782, and a dau. Helen, who m. Robert Carr, Esq., and d.s.p. 1840. Another possible Mrs. Waterton was the wife of Thomas Waterton's brother Christopher Waterton, of Woodlands, co. York. He m. Anne, dau. of John Waddell, M.D., and widow of Edward Birmingham, Esq., by whom he had 3 sons and 2 daus., Matilda and Agnes, who m. respectively Edmund Jerningham (b. 5 Sept. 1805 to William Jerningham and Anne Wright; m. 25 June 1829) and Charles Bedingfield (b. 5 Sept. 1803 to Sir Richard Bedingfield and Charlotte Jerningham; m. after 1833). Burkes Landed Gentry 1882; CRS 19, p. 92; Debrett's Baronetage 1835; CRS 7, p. 237; Castle vol. 2, 333–334, 389–392.

37 Castle vol. 1, p. 378: a woman in the corner of the Yarmouth-Bury coach, Nov. 1810, said that the Bedingfield children were ‘delightful, widi Nuns’ names Agnes, Victor, &c.’

38 Castle vol. 1, pp. 138–139.

39 See Castle vol. 1, p. 151: the ‘bluster’ took place in Lady Jerningham's house in Boulton Row on 24 March 1799, when the archbishop of Narbonne with the abbé Sauvage and the bishop of Exeter performed separate marriage ceremonies uniting Lady Jerningham's niece the Hon. Frances Charlotte Dillon and Sir Thomas Webb, 6th Bart. There were 26 in attendance.

40 Frances Charlotte Bedingfield, b. 19 April 1796, Lady Bedingfield's eldest child, m. William, 11th Lord Petre. Charlottes not yet bom were Lady Bedingfield's youngest dau., Charlotte Elizabeth Bedingfield (Sister Mary Agnes Bedingfield of the Bruges Augustinian canonesses, described as lively), b. 9 January 1802; Charlotte Georgina Jerningham (Mrs. Thomas Fraser, later Lady Lovat), first child of George Jerningham and his wife Frances Suiyard, b. 8 October 1800; and Charlotte Goold (Madame Charlotte Goold of the Society of the Sacred Heart), one of nine children of George Goold and Lady Charlotte Browne, b. after 1802. Lively Matilda Bedingfield m. George Stanley Cary in 1820; quiet Agnes Bedingfield m. Thomas Molyneux-Seel in 1823.

41 Link, p. 388.

42 Link, pp. 383–385. Sister Clementina Howell made her final vows to the chaplain, Mr. Oliver, in a ceremony after lauds, and after breakfast resumed her novice's habit, ‘as we were much afraid of being discovered.’ Catherine Bennet, an Irishwoman, kept her secular dress as a laysister postulant and was addressed as Catherine rather than Sister Francis Clare, ‘to conceal it from the servants.’ Eliza Sidney took the habit of a choir nun on 11 October 1800; she went by the name of Smith in order to keep her convert father's uncle from leaving Cowpen Hall, Northumberland, away from him. Sister Lucy Locker (d. 1839), convert dau. of the Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital, entered in 1801; she had been imprisoned at Gravelines with the Poor Clares of Gravelines and of Dunkirk and the Benedictines of Dunkirk during the Revolution.

43 BU letter 167.

44 The Lady Gage whose great charity in 1794 and 1795 to the Bruges community is detailed in Link was the second wife of Sir Thomas Rookwood Gage, 5th Bt. (who d. 21 March 1796). She was Maria Fergus, who m. Sir Thomas in 1782. Betham. It is not clear it was she or the widow of the 6th Bt., Charlotte Campbell, who was disobliged.

45 BU letter 168.

46 Sister Olivia Darell, dau. of George Darell of Calehill, Kent, entered the Bruges convent at 17 and was ‘much beloved by her aunt, Mother Olivia Darell,’ who was Prioress from 1744 to 1766. Link, p. 392n. Sister Olivia's father George, second son of John Darell, Esq., of Calehill and the Hon. Olivia Smythe, 2nd dau. of Philip, 2nd Viscount Strangford, inherited Scotney Castle from his cousin Arthur Darell in 1720. Her cousin Henry Darell, Esq., of Calehill, m. Elizabeth Gage, dau. of Sir Thomas Rookwood Gage, 5th Bt., of Coldham Hall and Hengravc (d. 1796), and his first wife, Lucy Knight of Ringesby, Lincolnshire. Betham: Burke's Landed Gentry.

47 Link, p. 389.

48 Link, pp. 380, 393.

49 Bu letter 212.

50 Link, p. 394.

51 Bu letter 247, written on 12 July 1802, the day after the feast of St. Benedict, Sr. Therese Nevill at Bodney to Lady Bedingfield, who had just left Matilda with the Benedictines there before her journey.

52 Link, pp. 398–399. Mrs. Jerningham, mother of the two-year-old Charlotte Georgina, future Lady Lovat, was five months pregnant with the twins Frances Sophia and Georgiana Jerningham, b. 15 Feb. 1803, later admired by Barbara Tasburgh: ‘In 1834 I went through my first London season … The Catholics of that era were much handsomer and more distinguished than they are now; they have sadly dwindled down and uglified since then. I remember seeing Lady Shrewsbury [Maria, dau. of William Talbot of Castle Talbot, co. Wexford, and Mary O'Toole, m. 27 June 1814 John Talbot, who s. his uncle as 16th Earl of Shrewsbury 5 April 1827] with her two daughters [Mary, b. 29 May 1815, and Gwendaline, b. 3 Dec. 1817], afterwards Princesses Borghese and Doria, at a garden party, also the twin Miss Jerninghams, dark and stately, and these are only a few examples of distinguished-looking Catholics.’ Charlton, L. E. O., ed., The Recollections of a Northumbrian Lady, 1815–1866, being the Memoirs of Barbara Charlton (neé Tasburgh), wife of William Henry Charlton of Hesleyside, Northumberland, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949), pp. 82–83.Google Scholar

53 Link, pp. 401–402.

54 SRO letter P/3/10/202.

55 The bishop of Ghent, Mgr. Fallot de Beaumont. ‘Bruges formed part of the Diocese of Ghent from the Concordat of 1801 till 1827, but owing to the troubled times it was only in 1832 that a Bishop of Bruges was appointed.’ Link, p. 397.

56 Charlotte Stuart, Duchess of Albany, dau. of Prince Charles Stuart (Charles III) and Clementine Walkinshaw, b. October 1753 at Liege, d. 17 November 1789 of cancer at Bologna. Her uncle Henry Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York (Henry DC), d. 13 July 1807 at age 82 near Rome. Shield, Alice, Henry Stuart, Cardinalof York, and His Times, (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1908), pp. 158, 296.Google Scholar

57 Carmelites of Lierre, 1794–1806 at St. Helen's, Auckland, near Durham. Their benefactor was Sir John Lawson of Brough Hall. Sir John Lawson, 5th Bart., m. 1768 Elizabeth Scarisbrick of Scarisbrick, Lancashire (she d. 10 June 1801). Their daughters Anastasia (b. 1769) and Elizabeth (b. 1770) married, both in 1789, respectively, Thomas Strickland of Sizergh and John Weight of Kelvedon. Their son Henry d. an infant in 1771. Betham; Whelan, pp. 226–228.

58 The Carmelites of St. Joseph and St. Anne, Hopland, Antwerp, who had housed the Bruges nuns in June 1794 on their way to England, were given refuge at Lanheme by Lord Arundel. Lord Arundel 1756–1808 was Henry, 8th Baron, b. 1740, m. 1763 the heiress Mary Conquest of Irnham, co. Lincoln. He had inherited Lanherne from his mother, Mary, dau. and h. of Richard Arundel Bealing of Lanheme, Cornwall. Lord Arundel had two surviving daus.: Mary Christiana m. her cousin Everard James, 9th Lord Arundel, in 1785; Eleanor Mary m. Charles, 7th Lord Clifford of Chudleigh (Lady Jerningham's cousin through his mother, Lady Anne Lee), in 1786. The Carmelites of Hoogstraet were at Canford, Dorset, 1794–1825. Their benefactor was Sir John Webb, 5th Bart. (d. 1796), who according to Debrett's Baronetage 1835 m. Mary Salvin, dau. of Thomas Salvin of Easingwold, co. York. Betham says he m. the second dau. of Sir Richard Moore of Fawley, Berkshire. His only s. dau. and h. Barbara m. July 1786 Anthony, 6th Earl of Shaftesbury, Sir John was s. by his nephew, Sir Thomas Webb, 6th Bart., whose mother was Mary, dau. of John White of Canford, Dorsetshire. Whelan, pp. 202–207.

59 The Poor Clares of Graveiines were at Gosfield Park, Essex, where they inhabited a farm house. Their benefactress was the Marchioness of Buckingham, Lady Mary Elizabeth Nugent, a convert, who practiced ‘every little act of piety that is cherished in convents’ and, from 1805 on, took great notice of Lady Jerningham's pious young convert daughter-in-law Emily Middleton, who m. Edward Jerningham 15 October 1804. Edward, a Catholic lawyer of great gifts including a light versatility of manner, in October 1810 facilitated the match between the Marchioness’ convert dau. Lady Mary and James Everard Arundel, future 10th Baron (grandson of the benefactor of the Carmelites of Antwerp). Edward Jerningham in October 1810 also visited the Poor Clares at Gosfield. There he discovered a Eugenia Jerningham in their register and charmed the nuns, including the clever Sister Mary Aloysia Martin (prof. 29 June 1788, age 18; s. Mother Mary Victoria Penswick as abbess July 1813; d. at Graveiines 22 Jan. 1829). Lady Buckingham d. 16 March 1812. The Poor Clares under Mother Mary Aloysia Martin reclaimed their Graveiines convent in 1814. In October 1818 Lady Jerningham visited them and observed that they were poorer than it was necessary for Poor Clares to be. In 1838 the Graveiines convent was given over to the French Ursulines of Boulogne. Whelan p. 181; CRS 14, p. 31; Castle vol. 1, pp. 263, 265, 374–375; BU letters 553, 1122.

60 Sir Richard and Lady Bedingfield's travels with their eldest child Frances Charlotte, 6, during July—November 1802 included Brussels, Spa, Antwerp, Bruges, Frankfurt, and Dusseldorf. Henry, 2, and Charlotte, 5 months, were at Oxburgh with their nurse and the houseskeeper; Matilda, 5, was with the Benedictines at Bodney and Agnes, 4, was with her grandmother Lady Jerningham. Catalogue; Ernest Betham, ed., A House of Letters, (London: Jarrolds, n.d.), p. 78.

61 The Benedictines of Montargis, at Bodney, did not move to Hengrave Hall, which was on the departure of the Bruges nuns rented by Bernard Howard, future Duke of Norfolk, who lived at Fomham Hall, a house designed by James Wyatt near Bury St. Edmunds. In 1811 the ladies at Bodney moved to Heath Hall, in Yorkshire. Link, p. 398; Stapleton, Princethorpe; Dukes of Norfolk, p. 191.

62 Sister Alipia, Catherine Mary Talbot, had come from Ireland with Elizabeth Dillon, see below, to the Bruges school in 1776; learned French at the Abbaye de Pretz, Douai; prof, at Bruges 1780. She was the eighth of thirteen children, one of ten daughters of the Hon. Charles Talbot and Mary, daughter of Sir George Mostyn of Talacre, Flint. Her eldest brother, Charles Talbot, b. 8 March 1753, s. his uncle George on 22 July 1787 as the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury; on 12 September 1792 m. Elizabeth Hoey of Dublin; d.s.p. 5 April 1827. Her nephew John Talbot s. as 16th Earl. Her great-uncle Gilbert Talbot, who would have been the 13th Earl, was a Jesuit; her aunt Lady Lucy Talbot and her natural aunt Jane Burton had entered the Paris community of Blue nuns in the 1750s. Sister Alipia seems to have left the Graveiines community at Gosfield, which was under Abbess Mary Victoria Penswick (dau. of Randal Penswick of Great Eccleston; prof. 1764, age 18, at Graveiines; abbesss at Gosfield Jan. 1799-July 1813), for the Rouen community at Haggerston, under Mother Winifred Clare Smith (Abbess at Haggerston and Scorton 1799–1820, d. 11 March 1824, age 83). She went through a year's novitiate and became a Poor Clare nun, Sister Mary Catherine Talbot; d. 20 Feb. 1822, age 64, rel. 43, counting her Augustinian years. Link pp. 341–343,372; CRS 8; Debrett's Peerage, 1831; CRS 14, pp. 157–158; Forster, ‘The Chronicles of the English Poor Clares of Rouen-II,’ RH, Vol. 18, No., 2, October 1986, pp. 165, 177.

63 Sister Aurelia Dillon, Miss Betty Dillon of Ireland, had come to the Bruges convent with Miss Kitty Talbot, Sister Alipia, see above, in 1776. She like Sister Alipia spent some time in the Bruges school and at the Abbaye de Pretz at Douai, learning French; prof, at Bruges 1780. Sister Aurelia Dillon died 9 January 1803 at age 45, a model of religious perfection: she concealed many interior conflicts under a cheerful exterior, sang the office with a great deal of feeling, never spoke sharply, thought herself always at fault, and thought she deserved only punishment, pain, contempt and reproach. Link pp. 341–343, 372.

64 The Rev. Edward Beaumont baptised the future midshipman Edward Richard Bedingfield at Oxburgh on 24 January 1805. CRS 7, p. 213.

65 Link, p. 410.

66 Mother More in her infirm days ‘gave herself up to prayer, reading, and needlework, which she continued till her hands were too weak to hold the needle,’ Link, pp. 411; 360–361, 373n. Sister Louisa Austin Mawhood was elected Prioress to replace Mother More and was the first to serve for only three years, rather than for life. Her father, a London merchant, left a diary detailing the days of the Gordon Riots, when he sheltered Bishop Challoner. Daumont, p. 411: Mother Mawhood was known for her great charity.

67 BU letter 997, 26 December 1816. See also BU 908. Lucretia was at the Bruges school for over five years, at the end of which Lady Jerningham still thought her in need of control. Lucretia m. 19 July 1836 Edward Anthony John, 13th Viscount Gormanston, and d. 5 Feb. 1891, age 86. Catalogue p. 115; Debrett's Peerage 1878.

68 Catalogue, p. 66, shows letters from Charles and Edward Bedingfield at school at Alost in December 1816, as well as a letter from Rev. Pere von Crombruggh at Alost, in French, to Sir Richard Bedingfield about his sons.

69 Bruges records show four Bedingfield nuns ‘of the name’ but more of the connection: Mother Augustina (Helen) Bedingfield, b. 1604, prof, at Lou vain 1622, 3rd Prioress at Bruges 1640, d. 1661.

Sr. Augustina (Elizabeth) Bedingfield, widow of Sir Alexander Hamilton, prof, at Bruges 1674 at age 64, d. 1683. Both Srs. Augustina were 2 of the 11 nun daughters of Francis Bedingfield of Redlingfield and Katherine Fortescue.

Lucy Hamilton, dau. of Elizabeth Bedingfield, Lady Hamilton, above, had become a nun at Bruges in 1648; novice mistress; d. 1693.

Sr. Mary Bedingfield, prof. 1652, 4th Prioress at Bruges 1661, d. 1693. Niece to Srs. Augustina and dau. of their brother John Bedingfield and his wife, Suzanne Wyborne.

Sr. Mary Bedingfield, prof. 1678, d. 1712.

Sr. Agnes Bedingfield, prof. 1687, d. 1725. Srs. Mary and Agnes were nieces of Rev. Mother Mary Bedingfield and daus. of her brother Francis and his wife, Mary Paston of Appleton. Bruges. Under Mother Augustina Bedingfield, known as a wit, a beauty and saintly, Prioress 1640–1661, a new building was erected which housed the refectory, which had a stone floor, oak footboards, long narrow tables with benches fastened to the walls, rush wainscotting, leaded casements, oak presses where refectory linen and pewter plates were stored, serving-hatch, and pulpit; the workroom opening into a low narrow cloister; the kitchen; and on the second floor a double row of cells. Also in Mother Augustina Bedingfield's time, in 1644, midnight rising for matins was changed to 3:30am by the ecclesiasticial superior. In the summer of 1656, Mother Augustina entertained the exiled Charles II in the refectory with a collation. Her niece and successor, Mother Mary Bedingfield, who had run away from home in 1650 at the age of 17 to save her vocation, during her Priorate added a wide marble cloister and eleven cells. Link p. 259,261, 263, 266; see also Monica Baldwin's interior descriptions in I Leap Over the Wall and The Called and the Chosen.

70 Daumont, p. 546: Mother Mary Clare Moore was Prioress 1810–1820.

71 BU letter 1348, 25 February 1821.

72 Edward Richard Bedingfield, 16, spent the winter in Bermuda as part of his service as midshipman aboard the Phaeton. BU letter 1384, Catalogue, p. 96.

73 Daumont, p. 546: Mother Mary Monica Hill was Prioress 1820–1823.

74 BU letter 1456, Charlotte Bedingfield at Bruges to Lady Bedingfield at Antwerp, February 1822.

75 BU letter 1576, 13 November 1822, Charlotte Bedingfield to Lady Bedingfield.

76 BU letter 1584.

77 BU letter 1724, September 1824.