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The Blue Nuns in Norwich: 1800–1805

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Margaret J. Mason
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Extract

The last years of the English Conceptionist nuns, the Blue Nuns, were spent in a large corner house in Magdalen Street, Norwich, from which the cheerful abbess, Mother Bernard Green, wrote notes to their benefactress, Lady Jerningham, at Cossey. This community had for 140 years lived near the Bastille in Paris. It had seen the Duchess of Cleveland quête in its church, Mary of Modena at a profession; it had taught girls who grew up to be notable English Catholic ladies, including Lady Jerningham herself. It had suffered the deaths of too many of its small community during and after the Revolution. Like the Benedictines of Montargis and the Austins of Bruges, the refugee Blue nun community knew the charity of the Jerningham family, but unlike those two flourishing houses it died out before its benefactors did. For a brief period, 1800–1805, the Blue Nuns kept choir, taught catechism, made purses, and received visitors in Norwich.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , May 1998 , pp. 89 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1973

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References

Notes

1 CRS 8, p. 281–282. Their Constitutions for the period from Easter to October set the Angelus at 5am; an hour of mental prayer in choir beginning at 5:30; Prime 6:30; Terce 7:45; Conventual Mass; work; Sext 10:30; Examen; dinner at 11, recreation; None 1pm; spiritual reading in cells; back to work at, silence at 3; Vespers 3:30; free time to read, work, pray in cell or garden; supper at 5:30; recreation; Compline at 7; Examen; Angelus 7:30; retire; Matins at 8; to bed.

2 Robert Edward, ninth Baron Petre, b. 1742, m. 1762 Anne Howard of Buckenham, Norfolk, who d. 1787; in 1788, he m. Juliana Howard of Glossop, recent long-time pupil of the Blue nuns; she d. 1833. The ninth Lord Petre d. 2 July 1801, and was succeeded by his son Robert Edward, tenth Baron Petre, b. 1763, who in 1786 m. Mary Bridget Howard of Glossop, sister of Juliana and also a long-time pensioner at the Blue nuns’ school. CRS 8, index.

3 Caroline Farmen or Firmen, 14, came to the school 6 Nov. 1784; left 31 Dec. 1785. CRS 8, p. 353.

4 Castle 1, pp. 158–161, 17 and 28 March 1800.

5 BU letter 146, 15 April 1800.

6 Castle 1, pp. 158–160.

7 23 December 1801, SRO 79.

8 BU letter 172, 16 June 1800.

9 CRS 8, pp. xiii–xiv.

10 SRO 84: 16 September, attributed to 1800.

11 Dom Basil Whelan, Historic English Convents of To-Day: The Story of the English Cloisters in France and Flanders in Penal Times, London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1936, p. 171; Alger, John G., Englishmen in the French Revolution, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1889, p. 341.Google Scholar

12 SRO 101; Boussoulade, Jean, Moniales et Hospitalieres dans la Tourmente Revolutionnaire (Paris: Letouzey & Ane, 1961), pp. 142–143.Google Scholar

13 CRS 8, pp. 186, 188.

14 SRO 1, 9 July 1800.

15 SRO 1, 9 July 1800.

16 Castle 1, p. 19; BU letter 31, 31 August 1785. CRS 8, p. 181: in 1784 Elizabeth Charker was also rejected for weak eyes.

17 SRO 111, 14 August, attributed to 1802.

18 CRS 14, p. 314 ped., Rev. Monox Hervey’s Registers, 1729–56 shows a pedigree for Rivett of Great Yarmouth, beginning with Christopher Revett of Yarmouth, 1647. Monox Hervey alias John Rivett, converted to Catholicism about 1713, priest, b. 1699, d. 1756.

19 Lord Bayning was Charles Townshend, cr. Baron Bayning, of Foxley, Berkshire, 27 Oct. 1797; he m. Annabella, dau. of the Rev. Richard Smith. They lived at Honingham Hall, Norfolk, near the Jerninghams at Cossey. Debrett’s Peerage 1831; see also The Diary of a Country Parson; The Reverend James Woodforde (London: Oxford University Press, 1929).

20 CRS 8, p. 272.

21 Charles, twelfth Lord Dillon, was Lady Jerningham’s eldest brother, who had abjured his religion in 1767 and inherited the estate of Ditchley. His grandmother, Mrs. Catherine (Christina) Sheldon Dillon, had lived in the abbess’ apartments in the Paris convent of the Blue Nuns, his aunt Lady Fanny Lee had been abbess, and his sister Lady Jerningham a pensioner. CRS 8.

22 Castle 1, p. 169.

23 Elizabethan Ingatestone Hall was the setting for Mary Braddon’s thriller Lady Audley’s Secret, Lucy Petre, Mrs. Philip Wellesley Colley, Life of the Honourable Henrv W. Petre and Eleanor Walmesley His Wife (privately printed 1907), pp. 256–257.

24 The Rule specified singing Vespers on Sundays and holy days, Matins on Christmas morning, and hours and Compline on first class feasts. The nuns were enjoined by their Constitutions to sing ‘Gregorian song’ as revived by Nivers, Louis XIV’s organist. The nuns were always to sing the antiphon Tota pulchra es and Salve at Compline, and sing the Te Deum at elections. High mass was to be sung every Sunday and holy day at 9 o’clock, also on many feasts enumerated in the Constitutions, p. 285. CRS 8, Part VIII, The Constitutions and the Rule, pp. 280–316.

25 Mrs. Opie, Poems (London: T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1802), republished in facsimile by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York, 1978. Garland Series: Romantic Context: Poetry: Significant Minor Poetry 1789–1830, selected and arranged by Donald H. Reiman, The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library.

26 CRS 8, p. 364.

27 Castle 1, pp. 11–12; CRS 8, pp. 347, 402.

28 Possibly the Rev. Henry Parker, O.S.B., Prior of the English Benedictine Congregation of St. Edmund’s in the Faubourg St. Jacques in Paris, who d. 1817. Scott, Geoffrey, Gothic Rage Undone: English Monks in the Age of Enlightenment (Bath: Downside Abbey, 1992), p. 217.Google Scholar

29 Sister Mary Catherine Talbot; d. 20 Feb. 1822, age 64, rel. 43, counting her Augustinian years. See Ann, M. C. Forster, “The Chronicles of the English Poor Clares of Rouen—II,” RH, Vol. 18, No. 2, October 1986, pp. 165, 177 Google Scholar; and Mason, “Nuns of the Jerningham Letters: Elizabeth Jerningham (1727–1807) and Frances Henrietta Jerningham (1745–1824), Augustinian Canonesses of Bruges,” RH, Vol. 22, No. 3, May 1995, p. 360.

30 BU letter 199.

31 BU letter 198, January 1801.

32 CRS 8, p. 134.

33 Ward, Bernard, History of St. Edmund’s College, Old Hall, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1893, pp. 51, 179–181 Google Scholar; Dawn, 2, p. 241.

34 SRO 71, 6 October 1801.

35 SRO 101, 24 October 1801.

36 Weiner, Margery, The French Exiles 1789–1815 (London: John Murray, 1960)Google Scholar.

37 Norfolk 1, p. 8.

38 Noifolk 1 p. 9. Parson Woodforde’s diary notes that it rained hard on 21 Oct. 1801: ‘N.B. No Bullock rosted at Norwich as talked of,’ Parson Woodforde’s Diaries 5, pp. 346–347.

39 SRO 72, 21 October 1801.

40 Ward, , St. Edmund’s College Old Hall, pp. 118–119, 181, 218.Google Scholar

41 Norfolk 1, p. 193: Rev. James Lane d. 5 April 1821, aged 84.

42 CRS 8, p. 13.

43 BU letter 225.

44 Castle 1, p. 216.

45 Castle 1, p. 220.

46 SRO 37, 28 December 1802.

47 SRO 44, 24 January 1803.

48 7 Sept. 1995 Letter from Fiona Strodder, Assistant Keeper of Social History, Norfolk Museums Service.

49 Norfolk 2, p. 23.

50 Norfolk 1, p. 200: Mr. Edward Rigby, M.D., of Norwich, d. on 27 October 1821, aged 74. Elected Alderman of Norwich in 1802, Sheriff in 1803, and Mayor in 1805. See also Dr. Rigby, Letters from France, etc., in 1789, edited by Lady Eastlake (1880), summarized by Constantia Maxwell, in The English Traveller in France 1698–1815, London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1932, pp. 151–162.Google Scholar

51 BU letter 358, 3 December 1804.

52 BU letter 59, 2 Jan 1792.

53 The index of CRS 8, p. 374, gives the death date for Henry Innes, priest, procurator of the Scots College, as 1834.

54 The Carmelites of the rue de Grenelle left their monastery on 14 September 1792. They lived in six groups in different parts of Paris, and kept in touch with the Prioress. In 1793 they had to change neighbourhoods to escape searches. Some of the Carmelites were imprisoned, then released. On 14 October 1793 the authorities seized the convent of the Blue Nuns. In 1797 Soeur Camille de Soyecourt bought the house of the Carmelite fathers to restore Carmel. The Carmelite monastery of the rue de Grenelle became in 1800 barracks of the Garde consulaire. Boussoulade, Moniales, pp. 36, 115, 132.

55 SRO 17; Stafford Record Office D641/3/H/1/7/1.

56 CRS 8, p. 272.

57 CRS 8, p. 271.

58 Letter of 19 Oct. 1995, Sister Marion Keens OSC, Convent of Poor Clares, Crossbush, Arundel, quoting the Third Order Franciscan nuns’ Book of the Dead; and CRS 24, pp. 92–93, quoting their archives.

59 CRS 24, pp. 92–93, Franciscan nuns’ Book of Clothings. In 1805 the Franciscan nuns were offered Hengrave Hall in Suffolk, where the Bruges Austin nuns had lived 1794–1802.

60 19 Oct. 1995 letter, Sister Marion Keens OSC, Convent of Poor Clares, Crossbush, Arundel.

61 Letter of 27 September 1995, Rev. Mother Anna Maria O.SS.S., Syon Abbey, South Brent, Devon TQ10 9JX.

62 Whelan, , Historic English Convents of Today, pp. 136–137.Google Scholar

63 Castle 1, p. 268.

64 BU letter 385, 28 July 1805.

65 History of the Benedictine Nuns of Dunkirk (London: Burns and Oates, 1958), pp. 135, 138. Mrs. Marcella Dillon, Superior of the IBVM community, d. 6 August 1811, and Mrs. Woods d. 1822. They boarded without payment.

66 CRS 8, pp. xviii–xix.

67 CRS 8, p. xix.

68 Mrs. Clarke was the wife of Robert Clarke, the Jerninghams’ coachman, and lived in the village near Seggins. Stafford Record Office D641/3/H/1/7/1.

69 CRS 8, p. 273.

70 Letter of 10 March 1996, Sr. Margaret Mary, Priory of Our Lady, Sayers Common, Hassocks, W. Sussex BN6 9HT.

71 Castle 1, pp. 218–219.

72 Williams, Helen Maria, Letters containing a Sketch of the Politics of France, from the Thirty-first of May 1793, till the Twenty-eighth of July 1794, and of the Scenes which have passed in the Prisons of Paris, vol. 1, London: printed for G. G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster Row, 1795 Google Scholar. Published by Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, Inc., Delmar, New York, 12054, 1975, p. 192.