Reconsidering Catholic Lay Womanhood: Pious Transgressors in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century England [1 ed.] 9781003300861, 9781032267708, 9781032292861

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Reconsidering Catholic Lay Womanhood

This book offers a new perspective on the often-overlooked lives of lay women in the English Roman Catholic Church. It explores how over a century ago in England some exceptional Catholic lay women – Margaret Fletcher, Maude Petre, Radclyffe Hall, and Mabel Batten – negotiated non-traditional family lives and were actively practicing their faith, while not adhering to perceived structures of femininity, power, and sexuality. Focusing on c. 1880–1930, a time of dynamism and change in both England and the Church, these remarkable women represent a rethinking of what it meant to be a lay women in the English Roman Catholic Church. Their pious transgressions demonstrate the multiplicity of ways lay women powerfully asserted aspects of their faith while contravening boundaries traditionally assumed for them in an ostensibly patriarchal religion. In fact, the Church could be a place for expressions of unconventional religiosity and reinterpretations of womanhood and domesticity. Connecting together the lives of these women for the first time, this work fills a lacuna in the scholarship of modern Catholic and gender history. Drawing from private collections and numerous archives, it illustrates the surprising range of modes of Lived Catholicism and devotion to faith. Students and scholars of Catholicism, gender, and LGBTQIA+ studies will find significant merit in a book that assigns lay women a more prominent role in the English Catholic Church and offers examples of the flexibility of Roman Catholicism. Kathryn G. Lamontagne is a lecturer at Boston University where she teaches history and social sciences.

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Reconsidering Catholic Lay Womanhood Pious Transgressors in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century England Kathryn G. Lamontagne

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Kathryn G. Lamontagne The right of Kathryn G. Lamontagne to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-26770-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-29286-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-30086-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003300861 Typeset in Sabon by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

For my parents, who always had faith in me For Charlie and Rick, who love me the most & Providence

Contents

Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Terminology Introduction

viii xi xii 1

1 Catholicism and Lay Womanhood

21

2 Margaret Fletcher: A Middle-Class Convert

56

3 Maude Petre: Modernism, Cohabitation, and Respectability

88

4 The Society Sapphists: Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall

124

Conclusion: Making Connections among Lay Catholic Women

158

Bibliography Index

164 185

Acknowledgments

This book is the result of many years of research that began when I first moved to the Southeast of England from New England over 20 years ago. As a newcomer, later as an ex-patriate, then immigrant, and finally a naturalised British citizen, I was incredibly curious about the position of the Catholic faith in my new country. This book is the result of taking the time to understand the culture and sensibilities of my new home, while considering the true catholic, or “universality” of the Catholic faith. My curiosity was nurtured by a great number of academics, archivists, English Catholics, priests on both sides of the ocean, and, of course, my family and friends. Boston University – on both sides of the Atlantic – has been my “home” since 2005 and provided the impetus for the manuscript research. Particular thanks must be extended to the staff at Boston University London (Michael Peplar and Alison Campbell) for offering me a working home at their campus – which remains a home thanks to Christine Goodfellow. My advisor at Boston University, Arianne Chernock, has been a great support and mentor to me and I am so grateful that we were paired together at BU. Her never-diminishing patience, kindness, and frequent feedback have been crucial in moving this project forward to completion. Weekly conversations with other scholars of religion in the social sciences at BU’s Institute on Culture, Religion & World Affairs under the leadership of Timothy Longman have provided an excellent opportunity for feedback on drafts of various parts of this book in the past two years. I am grateful to Jay Corrin, Lynn O’Brien-Hallstein, Deeana Klepper, Maria Gapotchenko, Cathal Nolan, and Natalie McKnight at BU for their insights, comments, friendship, and mentorship. The Division of Social Sciences at BU’s College of General Studies is an incredibly collegial place to work. I am grateful to have colleagues in our interdisciplinary teams who are supportive of scholarship and teaching. I think I have almost taught a generation at BU, and each student remains with me in some way. Their enthusiasm for the future continues to delight me, despite that I remain in the past.

Acknowledgments ix I am indebted to many, many people in England. In London, Cara Lancaster, the great granddaughter of Mabel Batten, kindly allowed me access to her home, her kitchen table, and family papers. Even today, when I pass by her door on a London bus, I am reminded of the importance of family and memory. My deepest thanks to her and the entire Harris family. Institutional support was provided by archivists at the Westminster Diocesan Archives who patiently helped me search through many (many!) boxes for materials on the case studies. The archivists at the Southwark Diocesan archive were kind enough to assist me with some of the more difficult handwriting in materials located there. This proved to be an infinite help when going through the reams of primary materials from Maude Petre at the British Library in Manuscripts. Other assistance was gratefully received from the Ransom Center at the University of Texas, numerous Roman Catholic priests in the United States and Britain for clarification on matters of dogma and doctrine, Cambridge University Library Services (Manuscripts Reading Room), the staff at the London Library, Highgate Cemetery, the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, the Catholic Women’s League, and the Institute of Education Library at the University of London. Most recently, the Catholic Record Society and Avril Baigent’s Lived Catholicism group from the Center for Catholic Studies at Durham have become integral parts of my English Catholic life. I look forward to attending these conferences. I also would like to acknowledge many helpful conversations with female scholars of religious studies that I hold in high esteem: Nancy Ammerman, Maria Power, Pamela Walker, and Joy Dixon. Thank you for all your comments and urging me on in support of my work. All errors or moments overlooked and controversial choices made in the manuscript remain my own. Other thanks must be extended more widely. First, the brilliant Benjamin Hannavy-Cousen provided editing support throughout the early stages of the process – thank you for all your help. Further, Providence College’s Dominican Friars educated me in Catholic Social Thought, theology, history, and epistemology. This book could never have come to fruition without this strong, scholarly background in Roman Catholicism. Providence continues to be at the forefront of my heart and mind. In addition, the Jesuit community at Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River, Massachusetts must be credited with unlocking the flexibility of Catholicism while nurturing an academic skepticism of the Church. The Brothers of Christian Instruction at Connolly offered another perspective of the same faith. Combined with regular attendance at diocesan parishes across the Atlantic World, these viewpoints made me increasingly aware that the Catholic Church was changeable and vibrant; not one thing, but many.

x Acknowledgments Finally, I must offer my deepest thanks to my family. They have stood by me from the first. My husband continues to support my research and the running of our family single-handedly while I am at the computer, in one library or another, year after year. Our son has shared me with this book and my students since he was a baby. You mean so much to me. Many, many hours, weeks, and days of family life have been lost to uncovering the lives of my four case studies. It is my distinct hope that this book will help shed light on the history of the faith in England. Lay Catholic women have long formed the basis of Lived Catholicism in many families, and I hope that this study of exceptional women will contribute to the growing scholarship of Catholic women in England.

List of Abbreviations

BL CH CL CWL CWSS FB GT LofC MDP MVB MF RH SDA SJ UT/UVT WDA

British Library Cara (Batten) Harris Cara Lancaster Catholic Women’s League Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society Francis Bourne George Tyrrell, SJ Ladies of Charity Maude Dominica Petre Mabel Veronica Batten Margaret Fletcher Radclyffe Hall Southwark Diocesan Archives Society of Jesuits Una Vincenzo, Lady Troubridge Westminster Diocesan Archives

Terminology

The Catholic Church has long provided a space, albeit a contested one, for pious women who both accepted and transgressed societal expectations. In this book, I explore how a century ago in England some exceptional Catholic lay women – Margaret Fletcher (1862–1943), Maude Petre (1863–1942), Radclyffe Hall (1880–1943), and Mabel Batten (1856–1916) – who were actively practicing their faith, while not adhering to perceived structures of femininity, power, and sexuality, further negotiated non-traditional family lives and womanhood. The idea of linking this particular cohort of women together was inspired by Martha Vicinus’ commentary on the life of the religious lesbian Mary Benson, and how “the atypical” can be used to illuminate the “typical,” regarding the “impact of religion on 19th century women.”1 The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a time of great change in Europe. During this era, the Catholic Modernist Movement reflected this time of vibrant change when a push was made by the laity and various members of the Church to recognize contemporary changes in European society brought about by swift advances in technology and science. George Tyrrell and Maude Petre, among others, participated in this Modernist movement. Tyrrell and Petre lived together for a number of years but were not married. Petre battled with members of the hierarchy for the future of the faith – her gender repeatedly a source of dialogue. For her part, Margaret Fletcher, a convert, was committed to the Catholic family but remained single, advocating for women to find agency outside the home through work and education. Her status as middle-class, single, woman and convert forced her to work twice as hard to prove herself to the old Recusant families. Some women modified orthodox family life in this period, such as Radclyffe Hall and her lover Mabel Batten, queer women who shared a life together for a number of years and were arguably the most pious of all the lay women. Catholicism and England It is crucial to begin this work with a short primer on some of the foundational terminology on which I develop and build my argument regarding gender, sexuality, and Catholicism from c.1880 to c.1930. Catholicism is the

Terminology xiii faith-focus of this study and references to faith, spirituality, and religion will implicitly refer to Roman Catholicism unless specifically noted. Sometimes these same terms are also used directly to refer to Catholicism and its dogma. Dogma relates to the authoritative “truths of the Church” which come via revelation, but also the Pope or Curia and general teaching.2 They form the basic guiding principles of the religion. The expressions faith, spirituality, and religion are often used interchangeably, reflecting common usage. Faith is defined as a deeply held conviction or religious belief, but may also refer to the institutional church, an implicit belief in its teachings and the public practice of the religion. Religion is defined here as belief, organized practice, faith life, social indicators, or a combination of all. Other terms that I employ are more exacting to highlight clear breaks from other branches of Christianity in their definitions. Magisterium is the name and term for the authority that constitutes the teachings of the Church. Magisterium covers everything from the ancient doctrines to dogma, the encyclicals, and homilies promulgated at Mass. The Church follows a sacred tradition derived from the relationship between Jesus and his 12 male apostles as depicted in the New Testament – the Apostolic tradition. For Roman Catholics, the Apostolic tradition is what links the ancient beginnings of the Church with the modern day. That original tradition has since been augmented by other “truths” or dogma as defined over the centuries. These aspects of dogma include, for example, sainthood, the concept of the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, and so on. Those “truths” then become part of the Apostolic, sacred tradition and hence dogmatic. This means that, theoretically, to be a Roman Catholic, one must believe in a number of things as basic facts, or tenets. The study of Lived Catholicism would make the case that to understand yourself as culturally Catholic is sufficient to be “Roman Catholic,” without a deep need to understand conceptually all of these nuances of dogma and doctrine. In Lived faith, to “be” Roman Catholic is a flexible juxtaposition of belief, tradition, migrations, family, habit, and place.3 However, traditionally Catholics sh/would adhere to the basic tenets of the faith including transubstantiation, the infallibility of the Pope, the Trinity, and participation in the Sacraments.4 Often it is the spirit of Biblical teachings that are followed in Catholicism, rather than the literal reading of these words. Some aspects of the Bible are dogmatic while others are not. I use a large number of formal church documents that are foundational or explanatory. A Papal Bull is the highest, most formal document written by the Pope. An encyclical is the next most important: it is a teaching document written by the Pope and his advisors (those bishops and cardinals present in the Vatican) to counsel on Church teaching. The encyclical would then be promulgated to the people. Encyclicals may be reminders (as in the case of Humani Generis Redemptionem, 1917, which advocated better local preaching), condemnations (Lamentabili Sane Exitu, 1907), or exhortations on adopting certain stances on issues such as work, peace, or war

xiv Terminology (for example, Rerum Novarum, 1891 or Amoris Laetitia, 2016).5 A motu proprio is a document written by the Pope without the aid of anyone in the hierarchy. As the leader of the Roman Church, the Pope’s writings always hold special importance, but the style of the writing (i.e. whether it is a Bull, an encyclical, and so on) tells the reader who the intended audience is – the hierarchy, a specific state, or the people of the Church. I discuss the Modernist movement in the Catholic Church and Maude Petre’s involvement, specifically, as it related to papal encyclicals in 1907. The Catholic Modernists rejected many aspects of the “man-made” traditions of the Church, feeling they lacked justification. One such tradition that they took exception to was papal infallibility, which was officially promulgated as dogma at the First Vatican Council, 1869–1870. However, it should be understood that, The mere fact that the pope should have given to any of his utterances the form of an encyclical does not necessarily constitute it an ex-cathedra pronouncement and invest it with infallible authority. The degree in which the infallible Magisterium of the Holy See is committed must be judged from the circumstances, and from the language used in the particular case.6 Therefore, the encyclicals are not necessarily “Catholic Law” per se but are instead either warnings or advice from the Pope. They may also be documents containing the strongest suggestion that their advice be heeded.7 So, while it is not forced upon a Catholic to follow a “law” outside of dogma, one should also not advertise any heterodox opinions, which can result in excommunication. The Modernists who rejected infallibility often danced with excommunication, but those who rescinded their heretical stances remained in the Church. Disagreeing with anything ex-cathedra can result in accusations of apostasy or heresy. Ex-cathedra means, literally, “from the seat” and infers that a decision or writing made ex-cathedra comes directly from the Pope, with his full authority resting upon it. Further, I am employing “Modernist movement” or “Modernist” specifically to refer to the Catholic movement, or active participants. The term “modernity” will be used in reference to the secular, historical moment. Modernity, in this case, is defined broadly as the break with the Victorian past. Note, when referring to the Modernist movement in the Catholic Church I have indicated this by capitalizing the term “Modernism/t.” Catholic Modernism. Modernism was a clash over “the rights and limits” of “ecclesiastical authority,” but also “the position of the Pope in relation to bishops and faithful.”8 Modernists sought to engage with historical and scientific developments in the secular world, in light of their faith. They sought a Church with room for more opinions, rather than limited to those from above, i.e. the Pope and the Curia, in a more “democratic” style of discernment of issues of dogma.

Terminology xv In some circles, Modernism was also termed “Americanism.” “Americanism” in the United States grew out of debates surrounding the practice of faith and controversies surrounding loyalty and allegiance. Isaac Hecker (1819–1888), a convert and the founder of the Paulist order, was a powerful voice in trying to bring Catholicism into the modern era via engagement with social groups (like Margaret Fletcher did in Oxford with the Catholic Women’s League). “Americanism” was specifically rejected by Leo XIII in his encyclical Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae (1899). The American faithful hurried to show their orthodoxy and rejection of Modernism. The result was an overly conservative Church in the United States until Vatican II, in comparison to England where ongoing liberal reforms in government coincided with more flexibility in the Catholic Church. Ultramontanism is a philosophy that argues for the ultimate political and theological power of the Pope. In the past, as a movement throughout Europe, it related to ideologies of power. Therefore, in England an Ultramontanist would be against Modernism, support the power of the Church over the State, and “advocate [for] the restoration of his [the Pope’s] temporal power as a necessary guarantee of his spiritual sovereignty.”9 Ultramontanism should be contrasted with Cisalpinism. The Cisalpine Club, led by Sir John Throckmorton, made prominent by Father Joseph Berington (1743–1827), was prefigured by the Catholic Committee (1782–1792) of which Maude Petre’s ancestor the 9th Baron Petre was a founding member.10 Cisalpinists favored a more autonomous approach to Catholicism than one dictated by a central authority in Rome.11 They felt locally in England, for example, one could be Catholic and English without concern. Maude Petre later demonstrated a strong Cisalpinist mentality as evidenced by her role in the Modernist movement, which is derived from a personal consideration of the faith, rather than one decided from “across the mountains.” I use a number of terms to differentiate between various ecclesiastical authorities. The term “religious” is used both as a noun and a verb. Anyone who is a nun, sister, priest, or brother is known collectively as “religious.” Religious orders (male and female, cloistered and not) are imbued with definite reputations, and their goals are often bound together with their founder’s personal philosophies and aims within the Church or wider community. One order I refer to most often is the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits (SJ), who have long been regarded as one, if not, the most powerful order. Some of the foremost men of the Church were Jesuits such as Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), as well as the current Pope Francis. Diocesan, parish priests are not usually associated with an order unless there is a dearth of priests in the area. However, there are exceptions such as “Farm Street,” the Church of the Immaculate Conception, a Catholic Church administered by the Jesuits for the Diocese of Westminster. For simplicity, “hierarchy” denotes anyone who is not a lay member of the church. Generally, the term hierarchy would refer to bishops and

xvi Terminology above, but I have used the term to mean someone who is a religious with extraordinary powers over the laity, such as a priest or Mother Superior. For our purposes, female religious can be nuns or sisters. A nun is usually cloistered, living a contemplative life within the walls of the convent. A religious sister could be uncloistered, living and working philanthropically in the larger community. I have tended to use these terms interchangeably since regular usage generally fails to denote these differences in lifestyle, although the terms are defined separately through canon law.12 A béguinage is spiritual community of lay religious women. “Convert” specifically refers to one who professes a belief in the Roman Catholic faith as an adult and then officially joins the Church. This would be done today by following its Rites of Initiation: Baptism, Communion, Reconciliation, and Confirmation. Presently, the process is systematized, but during the period covered in this study, the conversion experience was much more relaxed.13 For example, Margaret Fletcher underwent a short period of inner reflection, presented herself to a priest at Farm Street and was initiated shortly after. Although actual numbers of converts in Britain are unknown for most of the 19th century, in 1917 alone it is estimated nearly 10,000 people converted to the Catholic Church across Britain.14 “Born Catholics” are those who were literally born into Catholic families. Being a “born” or “cradle” Catholic was somewhat unusual in England up until the mid-20th century given the minority status of the religion.15 The term “recusant” is a largely historical term (even in the late 19th century), and it refers to a Catholic who refused to join the Church of England despite pressures to do so. From Henry VIII’s reign until, effectively, 1829/1850, Catholics were subject to various governmental acts that penalized them in multiple ways for their Catholicism. The recusants rejected the Act of Supremacy (1534), the Elizabethan Settlement (1559), and the Act of Uniformity (1559). The Act of Supremacy elevated the Monarch to the head of the national Church and made it treasonable to pledge oneself to a foreign body, i.e. the Vatican in Rome. The fact that it counted as an act of treason not to take the Oath of Supremacy (where one stated their agreement with the Act of Supremacy) effectively disbarred Catholics from practicing their faith, except in secret. Hundreds of Catholics were persecuted and martyred for their beliefs during the English Reformation from the 1530s until the late 16th century. Oppression created a culture of insularity and fear for hundreds of years. In order to be educated in their religion, depending on circumstances, many were forced to be educated in Continental Europe (or, in Ireland, in “hedge schools”). Subsequently, generations of Roman Catholics were kept from engaging in the public sphere of British life until 1829, when the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed. Hence, the very small number of those “born Catholic” after the Reformation ensured their exceptional minority status in English society. It was not until the 1944 Education Act that Catholic children received free access to state-funded Catholic primary schools.

Terminology xvii Gender and Sexuality I occasionally use the term “Christian feminism” as Margaret Fletcher did in her work of the same title.16 As the status of women changed, “feminist” terminology was constantly in flux. Margaret Fletcher defined Christian feminism as a tenet of Christianity, whereby “every man and woman has an equal claim to justice,” and where “there is one moral law for men and for women.”17 She lamented over the place of women in the Church that: For 300 years two of these principles have been violated in this country, women’s equal claim to justice has not been recognized in the family, and there have been two moral laws, even there, one for man and one for woman … For more than fifty years, women in this country have been struggling to recover an elementary Christian right.18 This advocacy for women’s natural rights and equalities formed the cornerstone of Christian feminism. Therefore, without denying the political aspects of different types of feminisms, Christian feminism was the intellectual process for theorizing womanhood in “patriarchal” religious systems. Fletcher is the only subject who specifically worked within a framework of Christian feminism, but there are certainly aspects of this idea resonating throughout the lives of all the women. Feminist theology and Christian feminism should not be confused. Feminist theologians may work across all religions, but many do focus on Christianity. According to Rosemary Ruether, feminist theology emerged in the mid-20th century and takes feminist critique and reconstruction of gender paradigms into the theological realm. They question patterns of male dominance and female subordination, such as exclusive male language for God, the view that only males can represent God as leaders in church and society, or that women are created by God to be subordinate to males and thus sin by rejecting this subordination.19 Christian feminism falls under the umbrella of Feminist Theology. Christian feminism can expand or contract to include female ordination, critiques of church practices in relation to women, with Christ’s work at its center. However, the idea of Christian feminism predates Feminist Theology by about half a century. The term “odd women” will be explored in further chapters as a trope for reconciling the sexuality of spinsters, widows, and various kinds of cohabitating women domestic gender stereotypes such as the Cult of Domesticity.20 Vicinus argued that, “the woman outside heterosexual marriage in the second half of the nineteenth century, often derided as an abnormality, was variously classified as redundant, superfluous, anomalous, incomplete, odd.”21 This terminology has been helpful in situating ideas around celibacy and

xviii Terminology the family throughout this book. Further, the terms “cult of domesticity,” “pure womanhood,” and “spiritual womanhood” are used interchangeably following the practice of Jenny Daggers in the context of British Protestant women.22 I prefer the usage of “True Womanhood” or “True Catholic Womanhood” after Kathleen Sprows Cummings.23 I also at times refer to the “New Woman.” While not usually self-identifying, the “New Woman” transformed traditional notions of womanhood and domesticity in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain. The term “New Woman” was coined by Sarah Grant in 1854 as “a vibrant metaphor of transition,” a woman simultaneously “for the degeneration of society and for that society’s moral generation.”24 It is this complexity of belief that typifies the “New Woman” from 1880 – radical, individualistic, and opinionated. The “New Woman” controversially rejected traditional notions of gender stereotyping, but significantly for this study, a “New Woman” could also be an actively practicing Christian. Barbara Caine explains, For some the ‘new woman’ was almost synonymous with the advocates of women’s rights, but many of those active within the women’s movement hated both the term and the qualities which it seemed to describe…show[ing] very clearly the extent of generational conflict and that the younger women used the term precisely to attack Victorian notions of marriage and womanliness.25 “New Woman” was a synonym for any forward-thinking, progressive woman, who acted outside of prescribed gender roles and was of the generation born in the late 19th century and coming of age before that century’s turn. The role of women in society was in flux, but so were many other aspects of British life during the late-Victorian Era, such as religious faith, the status of Empire, and class structure. Other terms that could use further definition are those relating to sexuality. While the history of homosexuality is beyond the current scope, familiarity with some definitions may be helpful when engaging with what leading Queer scholar Frederick Roden terms as “dissonant behaviours.”26 Radclyffe Hall described herself as an “invert,” making use of Havelock Ellis’ terminology made famous in Sexual Inversion (1897).27 “Inversion” was the contemporary term for homosexuality that Hall preferred to use when describing her sexuality. From 1869, when the term “homosexuality” was coined, and throughout the early 20th century, the word referred primarily to male desire, and subsequently lesbian love was marginalized despite familiarity with ancient Greece’s Sappho. Note, the term “inversion” was first discussed in 1893 by French physician Julien Chevalier, who wrote that he felt it was important to create definitions of sexuality, lest masculine “inversion” be confused with “pederasty and bestiality.”28 He continues to state that while some may contend inversion does not exist, this was simply not the case.29 “Inversion” was also applied and used by the Catholic Father John Gray’s

Terminology xix lover, the convert Marc-Andre Raffalovich (1864–1934), in Uranisme et unisexualité (1895). Raffalovich joined a tertiary order of Dominicans after his 1896 conversion, which coincided with the publishing of his book.30 Hall saw herself as an “invert,” so I have employed this term in contexts where Hall herself used it. Looser terms are also useful when writing about sexuality. One of these that I have employed is queerness, after Roden’s usage: “the notion of ‘queerness’ … moved beyond homosexuality,” as it is “contained within, yet residing on the margins of, a heteronormative culture.”31 Therefore, the term “queerness” brings together a more varied modeling of sexualities than the often male oriented understandings of historical homosexual relationships.32 This idea is helpful when studying Hall and Mabel Batten, who were, in fact, a highly conservative couple whose “dissidence” stopped short of challenging traditional notions of womanhood and domesticity, as they understood them for themselves. From c.1880 to c.1930, many traditional attitudes were simultaneously both accepted and transgressed. Indeed, Hall and Batten’s relationship, and lives as Queer Catholic women, can be perhaps best accessed through a widening of definitions. Some scholars, such as Vicinus, have discussed the use of the term lesbianism as being disabling due to its prescriptive and restrictive aspects, which, for her silences the “multiplicity of same-sex desires.”33 More recently, Sharon Marcus has expanded the working definitions of “lesbianism” for the historian, arguing that any terminology attempting to define sexuality is always inadequate and cannot embrace the myriad ways in which women’s friendships and sexual love were, and are, manifested.34 In the case of Hall and Batten, both of these assertions can be considered, as their relationship contained aspects of transgendering, bisexuality, lesbianism, and heterosexuality. However, the kind of “undefinable definition” of lesbianism espoused by Marcus may be the most useful in considering their relationship. Notes 1 Martha Vicinus, “The Gift of Love’: Nineteenth-Century Religion and Lesbian Passion,” Nineteenth Century Contexts, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2001), pp. 241–264, p. 242. 2 Daniel Coghlan, ‘Dogma,’ The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909). 3 See: Nancy T. Ammerman, Studying Lived Religion (New York: New York University Press, 2021); Robert A. Orsi, History and Presence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016); Robert A. Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950, 3rd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010). 4 For a fuller list outlining the beliefs of Catholics and explanations, see Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Profession of Faith,” June 29, 1998; Ad Tuendam Fidem, John Paul II (1998). 5 Rerum Novarum, Leo XII (1891); Lamentabili Sane Exitu, Pius X (1907); Humani Generis Redemptionem, Benedict XV (1917). 6 Herbert Thurston. “Encyclical,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 5 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909).

xx Terminology 7 To expand, encyclicals are an area that some Catholics are well versed in, but, other, “cultural Catholics,” may be largely unaware of their import in terms of the magisterium. One famous American example of this was when Al Smith, the 1928 Presidential candidate and a Catholic, asked “what the Hell is an encyclical?” when confronted about Papal pronouncements. See Thomas J. Shelley, “ ‘What the Hell Is an Encyclical?’: Governor Alfred E. Smith, Charles C. Marshall, Esq., and Father Francis P. Duffy.” U.S. Catholic Historian, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1997), pp. 87–107. 8 Petre, My Way of Faith, p. 212. 9 “Ultramontanism,” The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909). 10 E. Duffy, “Joseph Berington and The English Catholic Cisalpine Movement” (PhD, Cambridge, 1973). 11 Friedrich Hügel, Maude Dominica Petre and James J. Kelly, The Letters of Baron Friedrich Von Hügel and Maude D. Petre (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), p. xix; Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), pp. 18–19; E. Duffy, “Joseph Berington and The English Catholic Cisalpine Movement” (PhD, Cambridge, 1973). 12 Carmen M. Mangion, Contested Identities: Catholic Women Religious in Nineteenth Century England and Wales (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), p. 3; Cara Delay, Irish Women and the Creation of Modern Catholicism 1850–1950 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019). 13 Patrick Allitt, Catholic Converts: British and American Intellectuals Turn to Rome (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 135. Allitt provides some examples of these same kinds of conversions in the case of American women turning to Catholicism. 14 Edward Norman, Roman Catholicism in England from the Elizabethan Settlement to the Second Vatican Council (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 108–109. 15 John Bossy, The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press,1976); J.C.H. Aveling, The Handle and the Axe: The Catholic Recusants in England from Reformation to Emancipation (London: Blond and Briggs, 1976); Andrew R. Muldoon, “Recusants, Church-Papists, and Comfortable Missionaries: Assessing the Post-Reformation English Catholic Community,” The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 86, No. 2 (April, 2000), pp. 242–257; Norman, Roman Catholicism in England from the Elizabethan Settlement to the Second Vatican Council (1985), pp. 1–5. 16 Margaret Fletcher, Christian Feminism (London: P.S. King & Sons, 1915). 17 Margaret Fletcher, Catholic Women, The Ideals They Stand for: An Address Delivered by Margaret Fletcher, President of the CWL at the Canadian Camp, Bramshott, Hants, March 10, 1918 (Bexhill: Bexhill Printing co., 1918), pp. 12–13. 18 Ibid. 19 Rosemary Radford Ruether, “The Emergence of Christian Feminist Theology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology, Susan Frank Parsons, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 3. 20 Emma Liggins, Odd Women? Spinsters, Lesbians and Widows in British Women’s Fiction, 1850–1930 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014). 21 Martha Vicinus, Intimate Friends (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 1. 22 Jenny Daggers, The British Christian Women’s Movement (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), p. 7. 23 Kathleen Sprows Cummings, New Women of the Old Faith (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009). 24 Ann Heilmann, New Woman Fiction: Women Writing First-Wave Feminism (London: Macmillan Press, 2000), p. 1. 25 Barbara Caine, English Feminism, 1780–1980 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 134–135.

Terminology xxi 26 Frederick S. Roden, Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 2; Florence Tamagne, A History of Homosexuality in Europe (New York,: Algora, 2006); Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (London: Allen Lane, 1978). 27 Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds, Sexual Inversion, 1897; Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex. Vol. 1 (London: Wilson & Macmillan, 1897). 28 Dr. J. Chevalier, L’inversion sexuelle (Paris: G. Masson, 1893), pp. v–vi. 29 Ibid., pp. vii–viii. 30 Marc-Andre Raffalovich, Uranisme et unisexualité (Paris: G. Masson, 1895). 31 Roden, Same-Sex Desire in Victorian and Religious Culture (2002), p. 1; Op cit. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985); Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991). 32 Ibid. 33 Vicinus, Intimate Friends (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. xxiii-xxiv. 34 Sharon Marcus, Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in England (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 2.

Introduction

On June 26, 1914, a grand fête was held at the home of the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, adjacent to Westminster Cathedral. The event was in celebration of the newly created English Cardinal-deacon, Francis A. Gasquet (1846–1929), on his triumphal return to London for a short visit.1 Only ten other Englishmen had been granted the honor of being created a cardinal-deacon over the preceding three centuries. The reception, of more than 1600 guests, was a crowded affair. The Manchester Guardian reported that “the ascent of the staircase from the hall to the throne-room was almost as arduous as that to the Gallery on a Caruso night.”2 The newspaper also noted that the building was filled with “ladies flashing with diamonds and hung out with ropes of pearls…at the side of others in the plainest dresses or in nurses’ uniforms.”3 Among the invited guests were the lovers Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall, who shared both a calling card and invitation to the event.4 They were joined by representatives of the middle classes; Margaret Fletcher’s Catholic Women’s League (CWL) had ordered over 100 tickets for the event. Scions of both old and new Catholicism were present for the revelries, including members of various Catholic European royal families such as the Count and Countess Blücher among others.5 The Duke of Norfolk and Lord Bute – from famous Catholic recusant families connected to Catholic Modernist Maude Petre’s family – were also there, along with Bishop Peter Amigo, who had, by contrast, had a long-standing feud with Petre. In many respects, the Catholic Church in England dynamically transformed between c.1880 and c.1930. Gasquet’s party is evidence of the increased public presence of a variety of lay women in Church activities. Besides the inclusion of controversial women such as Petre and the lesbian couple Batten and Hall, the list of organizations and groups that petitioned for tickets to Gasquet’s event reveals further moves toward the integration of the middle classes into English Catholic life which Fletcher had worked so hard to achieve. Furthermore, women who lived independently from men were a large part of the crowd – both at this party and in Catholic life. The Cardinal’s party, populated with women who might usually be thought of as existing on the margins of Catholic society or as actively challenging the status quo, highlights tremendous societal and religious shifts. DOI: 10.4324/9781003300861-1

2  Introduction In this book, I will show how some exceptional devout lay English Catholic women rethought aspects of Catholic womanhood, traditional gender roles, and domestic patterns. This seemingly patriarchal religion became a source of agency and autonomy for some women, where they could revise some perceived aspects of Catholic Womanhood and domesticity while actively participating in the practice of their faith. Further, that these changes originated with the laity breaks with past accounts that privileged the hierarchy and Catholic religious. Margaret Fletcher, Maude Petre, Mabel Batten, and Radclyffe Hall articulated the flexibility of Catholic Womanhood in practice. This was due to the conjunction of modernity, class, and demonstrative piety; all played out against the background of an ongoing women’s movement and societal changes. There was a spirit of “unconventional religiosity” or “pious transgressions” among these Catholic women, and by presenting these women together my intention is to contribute to the reading and discussion of lay Catholic women through an examination of unpublished diaries, letters, contemporary accounts, various church documents, diocesan archival materials, and the writings of each woman. These women and their lives are situated at a convergence point of multiple interrelated narratives in the 50-year period from 1880 to 1930. There are four distinct lines of inquiry knitting together the lives of these four contemporaries and their understanding of themselves as lay Catholic women. The first asks what some general perceptions/misconceptions about Catholicism were and, further, what were these in England particularly. How Catholics practice Catholicism and understand their faith is a large part of this question. The study of “lived faith” that Nancy Ammerman pioneered is integral to examining faith and piety across the case studies.6 Secondly, what constitutes a “traditional Catholic” viewpoint? Did this exist, and if so, who promulgated these ideas? In effect, how does one rectify perceived slippages from their faith to lived experience? Thirdly, can a minority experience (i.e. that of a privileged lay white woman or even a convert) shed light on what may be a larger, shared experience in a universal “catholic” faith? What is exceptional and what is typical? Why lay women and not nuns? Finally, building on these other lines of inquiry, it seemed the Catholic Church in England could be a forward-thinking space but that, possibly, some female converts/members of the upper classes were given greater latitude in their behaviors and attitudes than others – making for typically atypical expressions of their faith. In this book, I grapple with these questions by showing the ways in which the Church provided a place for unconventional religiosity and reinterpretations of femininity and the family in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As Cardinal Gasquet’s celebration suggests, I claim that Catholicism was, in many ways, much more accepting or tolerant of alternative interpretations of lay Catholic womanhood as commonly supposed. There were, of course, some English Catholics disinclined toward liberal, changeable thought or lay women’s greater involvement in the Church.7 A disinclination for change was seen most sharply in the case of the Modernist movement from Ultramontanists. However, even in the Modernist movement there were moments of

Introduction 3 toleration from ecclesiastical powers. Individual members of the hierarchy also exercised considerable amounts of latitude in their dioceses, allowing greater room for personal interpretations of matters of faith. Catholic True Womanhood, as described by Father Bernard O’Reilly in The Mirror of True Womanhood (1877), found its greatest expression in the home, where angels watched over the blessed and sanctified Marian mother and wife, who, in her existence, ensured happiness for the Catholic family.8 Likewise, convert Coventry Patmore, famously advocated for women to be selflessly devoted to the family in the poem “Angel of the House (1854–62),” while also delicate and submissive.9 Likewise, convert Coventry Patmore famously advocated in the poem “Angel in the House (1854–62)” for women to be selflessly devoted to the family while also delicate and submissive. The ideas of “True Womanhood”’ and the “New Woman” were oppositional tropes of the feminine in England. “True Womanhood” was the idea that the sacred position of the woman in the family and national life was fulfilled through pious, selfless motherhood and family life.10 Evidence of “Catholic Womanhood” was seen in other writing from Lady Herbert’s “Wives, Mothers and Sisters in the Olden Times” (1885) but also in the contemporary works of others – convert Francesca Steele and Olga Hartley – that demonstrate woman’s moral role in the home and the family.11 Anxiety existed in some corners over women accessing education, or, likewise, other “individual” pursuits that could lead them away from family life. In many ways secular modern society with its clamor for women’s suffrage and rights created tensions around perceptions of gender and position. Consequently, anti-suffrage movements pushed on these tropes by portraying women as the lead householder with men at home (poorly) minding the children. A matriarchal household – or one without male guidance at all – would, therefore, have been theoretically antithetical to the Catholic home across the faith. A lesser, but nonetheless respectable, lay equivalent to mothering as the greatest expression of God’s love was the “noble-minded” choice of a virgin daughter who would “labor untiringly” for her family as an example of filial piety.12 By contrast, the “New Woman” of the 1890s rejected family life and marriage in favor of work, and the freedom of a single life to pursue individual goals. In its essence, Catholic womanhood was about a distinct female sacrifice for the good of the community, and this was an expression of God’s gifts as exemplified by the Blessed Virgin Mary, as both Mary Heimann and Carol Engelhardt Herringer have shown.13 This sacrificial aspect of Catholic womanhood existed across the lives of each woman as they sincerely and devoutly lived their faith. They differed in their individual expressions of Catholicism, but the idea of individual sacrifice and transgressing boundaries connect all the women as a lived practice of their religion. Historiography In 1986, Gail Malmgreen wrote: “the historiography of Roman Catholic laywomen … is all but non-existent.”14 Not surprisingly, given the scarcity of historical religious writing, nearly 40 years later the state of that historiography

4  Introduction has changed, especially with regard to American Catholic Women, but not as much for their English sisters.15 This absence of their voices is problematic, but improving as materials are found and sourced from private homes, under-utilized sections of English diocesan archives, and manuscript collections at the British Library. It was in a mislabeled box at the WDA that I found the calling card of Radclyffe Hall and her lover Mabel Batten, which first fueled my research. Given the dearth of secondary materials available on lay Catholic women in England during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I have thus drawn on a range of literatures related to my case studies. These areas include queer history, literature, Catholic social thought and theology, the history of religious sisters in England, imperial history, and gender history. Recently, there has been a significant increase in writing by gender historians about religion and English women.16 However, this increase has not found a parallel in the case of lay Catholic women with the notable exceptions of Mary Heimann’s essay on the mystic Teresa Higginson, or Alana Harris’s ongoing scholarship on 1960s Catholic birth control advocate Dr Anne Bieżanek or life in Manchester; it has been difficult to locate any in-depth case studies of particular lay women.17 An absence of individual case studies makes further inquiry and locating overarching movements very difficult. However, it must be stated that these women are all exceptional women. This book is meant to be recuperative, but also acknowledges the privilege of my case studies. I am very sensitive to the limitations of what these women can tell us, but as there are so few studies of Catholic lay women in this time period we do need to start somewhere. The intersections of gender and faith do put these women in minority positions at times, but also their areas of privilege provide an important opportunity to expose the historically marginalized position of lay female Roman Catholics. They have left a record of their lives in a time when many women were silent. Their experiences provide a view into the capaciousness of the Catholic Church but, so, too how intersections of race, class, and geography play into this narrative. The few works on groups of lay women during this time are important initial steps in creating a fuller understanding of the female Catholic experience. However, again given the dearth of research, it is nearly impossible at this early stage to make any wider assertions on lay Catholic women in England. Yet, beginnings have been made in this area, again by Mary Heimann, in her writings on devotional methods, as well as by Elaine Clark and Francis Mason in their pieces on suffrage and Catholic women.18 In the early 1990s, Paula Kane published the first journal article of the CWL, positing that the CWL was formed by the hierarchy as a function of control over women.19 I argue against this particular interpretation of the CWL’s founding, but her writing is nevertheless an important place to begin when creating a narrative around Catholic women, especially as it includes many cogent observations on class and the CWL. Clark is one of the few who have written about the female lay Catholic experience and suffrage.20 She argues that the English understanding of Catholics as a “people apart … obscured Catholic

Introduction 5 participation in social causes” outside the remit of traditional women’s issues such as education or helping the poor.21 Here, Catholic women remain peripheral to mainstream English culture. Francis Mason’s article from the 1980s also focuses on suffrage and lay Catholic women, but specifically on the institution of the Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society (CWSS).22 It should be noted that, while the suffrage movement is one of the most dramatic crusades for reform in history, I have purposely chosen women who were pushing other, less well-known boundaries for their gender. This book might be viewed as a complementary, parallel expression of examples of lay Catholic womanhood during the same time frame as the historic push for women’s involvement in the public sphere.23 Contrasted with the case of American and Irish lay women, whose history has been looked at in depth by scholars such as James K. Kenneally, Paula Kane, and Kathleen Sprows Cummings, the absence of a longer historiography of lay English Catholic women from the past century is even more striking.24 Sprows Cummings in particular argues for a broader interpretation of Catholic womanhood and social work within the context of Progressivism and immigration in America.25 I have employed Sprows Cummings’ methodology by using, as she did, four case studies to “examine” and “challenge the widespread assumption that women who were faithful members of a patriarchal church” could show “the articulation of Catholic identity and the redefinition of gender roles.”26 I owe much to her in terms of thinking about lay women in this era. Closer to the English context, scholars of the Irish Catholic woman, such as Cara Delay, Mary Cullen, and Maria Luddy, have produced a stunning canon of material on Irish lay women.27 Delay’s recent book on Irish Catholic women that was developed concurrently with my own has proven to offer many links and arguments that echo my own in the English instance.28 Delay powerfully develops a case for female autonomy in the Church particularly via examples of Lived Catholicism. However, given the Catholic identity of Ireland, or for example France, I have chosen to compare, when necessary, my Catholic case studies to other English women. In this way, gender, sexuality, and a particularly national context are considered as a measure of shared experience in marginality. In France and Ireland, Catholic lay women did not experience a minority status, as English Catholic women did, which I believe is important in terms of recounting “contested identities.”29 In terms of English Catholic women, scholars such as Carmen Mangion, Barbara Walsh, and Susan O’Brien are continuing to do most important work on religious nuns and sisters.30 Female religious have had a large sphere of cultural influence, but their numbers were far less than those of lay women. Mangion contends that there was great power circulating in Britain’s convents.31 Mangion’s work, particularly 2008’s Contested Identities: Catholic Women Religious in Nineteenth-Century England and Wales, builds upon Barbara Walsh’s earlier, socioeconomic study of nuns in Britain.32 Susan O’Brien shows that the growing number of Catholic congregations of nuns in the Victorian era led

6  Introduction to “a profound shift” in the “Catholic conception” of nuns as “an active apostolate.”33 Throughout European and North American historiography, the nun is especially energized. It is evident that English Catholic women of the cloth were often able to live public, autonomous lives, but it remains to be seen how widespread this was in England for lay women. This absence of the lay story is dangerous in that, as Kenneally puts it, this “jeopardizes the relationship of contemporary women with their Church” and, likewise, larger society.34 In a way, it seems the marginalized status of lay Catholic women in overwhelmingly Protestant countries in the 19th century has never quite disappeared in contemporary society. One way in which lay Catholic womanhood was negotiated was through discourse around the family. There are four very different interpretations of the family in this book. In this way, they reflected larger movements in English society, although, as members of the middle and upper classes it is evident that they had greater latitude in their behaviors and attitudes than other lay Catholic women. Likewise, historians like Sharon Marcus suggest that marriage and relationships in the 19th century may be interpreted as more “elastic” and “less proscribed” than previously understood in scholarship.35 This groundbreaking work on the actual types of domestic relationships being practiced during the “long” 19th century is vital. It demonstrates that Catholic women who remained “single” or “cohabitated” were acting in ways parallel to their non-Catholic English cohort. Building on Marcus’s premise, the Catholic women of this study, who engaged in non-traditional domesticity, acted unconventionally, and they too saw this as a rethinking of the family, the center of Catholic life, as more “elastic.”36 By rethinking the family, these women also broke away from traditional gender roles. In some cases, these women successfully assumed the role of the primary householder even when a male lived in the home. The example of Petre and her housemate Father George Tyrrell is especially useful when wrestling with these ideas of family outside of the traditional understanding of the term as a more nuclear idea. In same-sex couples, such as that of Batten and Hall, masculinized dominance became much more ambiguous in the home environment. Margaret Fletcher’s life of single celibacy fits Martha Vicinus’s assertion that middle-class single women were an important source of rethinking ideas of unchaperoned respectability outside of the traditional family.37 Class and gender figured as two of the most divisive elements in English Catholicism. Some scholars see gender as a more important indicator of commonalities. Sarah C. Williams and Sue Morgan both view gender, rather than class or ethnicity, as a more relevant category for characterizing religiosity (this is in contrast to the American Catholic scholarship which privileges discourses of ethnicity and urbanization). However, I contend that constructs of class underpin the experience of lay English Catholic women. In each of my case studies, class affected how each of the women reacted and asserted herself as a Catholic. However, class politics and history do not supersede the import of gender in my understanding of this period of English history. Through the

Introduction 7 examples of these women, it becomes clear that class and religion informed levels of agency for lay women.38 The idea of the lay Catholic woman should go beyond the constructs of recusants and converts, of Irish and English or Scottish and Welsh, and further into nuances in methods of practice with class overtones. While men were most closely associated with the management and power of the Catholic Church, it has generally been understood that women were the most active lay participants in their faith. Women were closely linked to actively engaging with religious behaviors and markers of piety in Victorian England as a whole. This idea of “feminine” private spaces in the church or pious home is contrasted to “masculine” spaces – the political and public – as iterated by Barbara Welter in 1966, was termed the “feminization of piety/ religion.”39 Welter argues that “The Cult of Domesticity” and religious belief were inseparably linked from the late 18th century and early Victorian period onwards and were “sanctioned by patriarchal Christian values.”40 “True Womanhood” and the trope of “The Angel in the House” were also part of this patriarchal Christianizing of the home as a form of gendered power. This is reinforced by Davidoff and Hall’s argument that despite Christian ideas of spiritual equality, the idea of the separate spheres was “created through belief and [its] practice.”41 That some English women chose to convert to Catholicism – which is often viewed as essentially and always patriarchal – continues to prove a stumbling point for scholars, and this may account for the absence of lay Catholic female converts as subjects of historical writing. There has been much published on male converts, but the case is very different in regard to women.42 In fact, in many ways, the examples of converts Fletcher, Batten, and Hall show that, in practice, the Catholic Church was much more flexible in understanding a multiplicity of forms of devotion, practice, and Catholic life than has been previously understood in scholarship on the English Church. The Church allowed for unconventional religiosity and reinterpretations of womanhood for converts. Patrick Allitt, in his 1997 study of Catholic converts in Britain and the United States, briefly mentions how some lay women converts did not conform to the stereotypes of Catholic True Womanhood.43 Lay female converts may have been “convinced” in finding their “true spiritual home in Catholicism,” but they did not necessarily “conform neatly to the Catholic ideal of submissive wife and mother.”44 This underpins my supposition that the Church was, in fact, an environment rich for certain women to stretch contemporary expectations of Catholic womanhood, and womanhood more broadly. Women that willingly left their own faiths, the traditional accepted faith of their country, were already transgressing accepted cultural expectations. Converting meant these women were pushing boundaries through a sense of personal autonomy and power. That this feminine power found its home in a Church most often viewed as innately patriarchal demonstrates the flexibility of thought and behavior present in the Roman Church in England as it rebuilt itself.

8  Introduction It seems that, in practice, conversion to Catholicism was attractive to women (and men) for numerous personal and private reasons, including, but not limited to liturgical practices, Church tenets, and traditions. There were other attractions. These included membership in a group that was not mainstream but could still provide an acceptable form of “othering.” It gave some converts an opportunity to retain their respectability while engaging with an “other,” more Continental expression of faith. Finally, Catholic conversion was attractive because it was radical and conventional – all at the same time. Jay Corrin states that writers like Hillaire Belloc, the Chestertons, Graham Greene, and Evelyn Waugh, among others, were “converts to the altar and embraced the faith because it was exotic and in opposition to the prevailing spirit of modern secularism and English Protestantism.”45 It seems evident that at the turn of the 20th century, a period of great change, many Britons felt a desire to “hold on to the past” to keep their foundations in some aspects of their lives. The Church was a place to push and pull on this idea of embracing both stasis and change simultaneously. Sexuality, Gender, and Catholicism Hall’s version of Catholic womanhood was informed by both her class and her intimate relationships. It involved a complex set of internal negotiations that may at first seem counterintuitive and contradictory.46 Hall, in particular, played upon her Christian religious belief as a marker of respectability, and one that eased societal anxieties over her sexuality. She saw no contradiction between sex and faith. Hall wrote of her understanding of the connections between inversion and faith, Congenital inversion is not unnatural. These congenital inverts are born not made. They are put into the world by God’s will alone – the God of infinite understanding, compassion and wisdom … [Inverts] are and always remain as God made them, and their sexual attractions will therefore be inverted as they were in the girl of whom I wrote – the unfortunate girl Stephen Gordon.47 Stephen Gordon, the inverted protagonist of Radclyffe Hall’s controversial 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness, was, in many ways, a vehicle for Hall’s “outing” of herself to the general public.48 The character Gordon has many of the characteristics of Hall, sharing her build, her trials and tribulations, her religious ideas, and her sexuality. In many ways, Hall made Gordon a more compassionate figure than Hall herself – imbuing Gordon with her best self. To Hall, as a deeply conservative Catholic, an omnipotent and omniscient God was implicitly sympathetic to her inversion and there was no inherent contradiction here. The Well of Loneliness is, in many ways, a synergy between a particularly Catholic Christological narrative and a plea for toleration of same-sex love.

Introduction 9 Hall’s desire to achieve “respectability” for other “inverts” was to a large degree connected with her “self-exceptionalism,” which was also a part of her Catholicism. It was “her absolute conviction” that only she could write The Well of Loneliness in order “to speak on behalf of a misunderstood and misjudged minority.”49 Havelock Ellis, the famous British authority on human sexuality, was persuaded to write the introduction to the novel by Hall who felt that this imbued the monograph with an air of scientific truth and authenticity. With Ellis providing scientific support and God providing spiritual proof, the underpinning of The Well of Loneliness illustrates how deeply complex and contradictory Hall was: she was both conformist and nonconformist, traditional and atypical, scientific and spiritual, Victorian and Modern. Hall’s Catholicism was highly sanctified, and while she tried to effect change in contemporary perceptions about lesbianism, she never sought to change the Church institutionally. Doctrinal considerations did not necessarily figure into her understanding of piety and salvation. Laura Doan showed that Hall was in many ways a deeply conservative woman who rejected feminist womanhood while championing the case of queer womanhood.50 Doan writes, that in many ways “Hall sought to affirm her purity at a time when lesbianism had been linked in parliamentary debate with cultural pollution.”51 Hall gave proof of her own purity through her Catholicism and femininity. For example, Hall wrote letters published in the press in which she reacted against the act of suffragettes who despite being “ladies” conducted themselves “disgracefully” and were worse than striking miners.52 In another case, she told reporter Evelyn Irons, a reporter and lesbian in Hall’s circle that she felt “woman’s place is in the home” even if it was “rather old fashioned.”53 Doan makes the case that Hall hoped to ease tensions over her sexuality during this interview by championing the traditional domestic role. Interestingly, as Hall tries to claim her femininity as a “housewife” in an effort to earn the public’s acceptance of her sexuality, she falls back into her more patriarchal, conservative stances despite her best efforts to appear as a housewife.54 These claims are evidenced in Hall’s statements that she was “a fussy housekeeper with a perfect mania for cleanliness” who enjoyed “polishing” which Irons felt jarred with her masculine attire.55 It also jars with her working for “12 hours a day” writing and seeing housework as a “hobby” rather than a necessity.56 Generally, Hall’s Catholicism and its implications have been underrepresented in the literature. Hall’s ostensibly patriarchal Catholicism is confusing and contradictory when not viewed as part of her understanding of her new self as a Catholic. In 1985, Michael Baker wrote the first appraisal of Hall by someone outside of her circle, and this work, Our Three Selves (1985), has been built upon and followed by later scholars.57 Baker contextualizes Hall’s writing primarily through biography, but holds back on deep religious analysis, as do Sally Cline and Diane Souhami. It is troublesome to reconcile the discrepancies of Hall without seeing her through the lens of Catholicism, itself simultaneously sacrificial and excessive, and to many so deeply patriarchal.

10  Introduction Richard Dellamora does a fantastic job of drawing together all the strands of Hall’s Catholic life, in his exceptional analytical study of Hall.58 He argues through an analysis of cultural history, literature, and to some extent, biography, that Hall was an ambiguous and dissident figure. Moreover, he makes the greatest attempt to link Hall’s faith and her writing outside of a short article by Joanne Glasgow in 1985 (which situates her alongside gay male converts and two lesbians who converted on their deathbeds).59 I have aimed to make careful and direct links between biographical interpretations of Hall’s work, her gender, and religion. Hall is usually mentioned in any work on Catholicism and sexuality in England. However, her life is considered most often in light of the lives of men such as Oscar Wilde, Marc-Andre Raffalovich, and John Gray, rather than for itself or alongside other Catholic women.60 Scholars such as Dellamora and Glasgow who have engaged with Hall’s Catholicism have not done so within the context of a wider lay English Catholic woman’s experience of devotional practice and faith.61 Glasgow argues that the Church’s stance on lesbianism was informed by misogyny; therefore women and their sexuality were invisible, so Hall’s sexuality did not raise doctrinal concerns merely through its being ignored.62 Glasgow, in 1990, was the first to situate Hall within her status as a Catholic convert in terms of other Catholic lesbian converts. This pioneering article was written around the critical and political contexts surrounding lesbianism in 1990s. However, her reading of Catholicism is anecdotal rather than doctrinal. She argues that there is a further semiotic disconnect between Catholicism and lesbianism: because Catholicism sees the sex act as innately male-female, then there is no sex between women, therefore there is no lesbianism, meaning, “lesbianism did not exist as a Catholic reality.”63 The politicization of Hall within the confines of feminist lesbianism is problematic, because, Hall was not necessarily a feminist. She was “modern,” but not an advocate for women’s rights in the manner of her friends such as Christopher St. John or Ethel Smyth. It may be more fruitful to look at how she fitted in culturally with other cohorts, such as other elite women and Catholics. As pointed out earlier, Doan advocates for this more nuanced study of Hall, thereby contextualizing the conservative lesbian experience. Doan shows Hall was not unique as a conservative lesbian: Lesbians from privileged backgrounds, voiced opinions for public consumption informed by a strange ideological amalgam: an idiosyncratic version of feminist ideals, filtered through conservative values, inflected by class prejudice, and, in the case of Hall, religious fervor.64 This summary is important for progressing Catholic historical scholarship of Hall, since it engages with the primacy of her religiosity in her thinking. Doan is arguing for a much more complicated and nuanced study of Hall that does not rest on easy assumptions. In fact, Hall’s ideas about women,

Introduction 11 suffrage, and feminism were changeable, but ultimately founded in traditional assumptions. I think this idea of her conservatism should be connected to Richard Dellamora’s argument of Hall’s anti-modernism (what Doan would term her “conservatism”). Case Studies In the chapters that follow, I examine the lives and works of four lay Catholic women who exemplify the myriad ways in which their faith became a tool to transcend and reject the conventional life of both Catholic and English womanhood. These women were: Margaret Fletcher (1862–1943), a convert and advocate for the inclusion and equality of lay Catholic middle-class women in the secular and religious world; Maude Petre (1863–1942), a stubborn aristocratic born-Catholic, leading member of the Modernist movement, and theologian; Mabel Batten (c.1856–1916), an upper-class convert, composer, mother, and diarist, who demonstrated a great amount of malleability in her interpretation of Catholicism; and Radclyffe Hall (1880–1943), an elite convert and author, who was especially interested in devotional practices and found acceptance for her sexuality in the Church. These women are not meant to be representative of all Catholic women, but their stories demonstrate that in interactions between Catholic women and the Catholic hierarchy, there was considerable space for negotiation and accommodation. Margaret Fletcher In 1906, Margaret Fletcher, an Oxford-born convert to Roman Catholicism, challenged the status quo in the English Roman Catholic Church by creating both an organization and a magazine, which aimed to unite Catholic women across class, region, and parish, for the first time.65 She was the driving force behind The Crucible, a quarterly publication advocating religious-based secondary and higher education for English Catholic young women. Her effort to form a League of Catholic Women Workers, later known as the Catholic Women’s League, was greeted with mixed opinions by some areas of the Church. Her strongest detractors were the aristocratic or “born” Catholic society women, the Ladies of Charity, whom Fletcher described as “distrust[ful] of initiative from the professional classes, classes of which they do not know very much.”66 Fletcher wanted English lay Catholic women to be inclusive and nationalized, rather than stratified by class and parochial. Fletcher illustrates the vital role that middle-class converts played in bringing widespread respectability to the Roman Catholic Church in Britain. Fletcher found in Catholicism a space to interpret her style of “Christian feminism” beyond the suffrage debate. Greatly influenced by Catholic social thought, Fletcher had her own “woman’s crusade,” as she termed it, which focused on advancing equal opportunities particularly for Catholic women.

12  Introduction As a lay Catholic convert, Fletcher created opportunities for a greater involvement by lay middle-class women in the Church as well as secular society. She adopted and commented on her celibate lifestyle as part of her rethinking of Catholic womanhood and reinterpreted what constituted a “modern” Catholic family. For Fletcher, the Catholic Church proved an environment rich for progressive thinking and a place in which to work for Catholic women’s equality of opportunity. Maude Petre One woman who was at the intersections of these intrusions into traditional Catholicism was Maude Petre. Born into an “old Catholic” (also known as “born-Catholic” or “recusant” since they resisted Henry VIII’s Reformation) family, Petre was the great-great granddaughter of Lord Petre, the first president of the Catholic Committee in England, which campaigned for Catholic Emancipation.67 Petre faced much more extreme battles within her faith than Fletcher, and on an international level. Her relationship with a convert-priest who championed Modernism, Fr. George Tyrrell, SJ, meant she was watched closely by the leadership of the Church.68 She was embroiled in a heated row with the Bishop of Southwark, Peter Amigo, as well as Pius X, and other ecclesiastical powers. Petre (for a time a member of an order, the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, where the women lived in the lay community) lived most of her life as a lay Catholic woman, powerfully asserted herself with members of the hierarchy. She did so as part of her efforts for the Church to reassess its stance on Modernism, Tyrrell, and herself – all while maintaining her faith life.69 She stated in her book, Catholicism and Independence (1907), that “the Catholic who dies to keep Her [the Church] as she is, and he who dies to make Her something else, are both loyal … the second with a spiritual loyalty.”70 Petre repeatedly makes it clear that spiritual loyalty is, to her, much more desirable than a blind acceptance of the decisions of clerics. For Petre, her faith and her version of the Catholic Church was founded in tradition and heritage, but this meant the rejection of the notion of an infallible Pope and a support for individual interpretations of the faith. Petre was a major proponent of Modernism from about 1900, which arose in reaction to Ultramontanism in the Church, when she became an integral part of the movement alongside Tyrrell, Baron Friedrich von Hügel, Henri Brémond, and Alfred Loisy. Petre’s path of earnest disagreement with some of the church hierarchy was not about patriarchy, but about two hierarchies – that of class and religious power. This disagreement with the Church lasted her entire life but she remained, to herself, a faithful Catholic. She left her religious order, was accused of having sexual relations with a priest, and had her writing on Tyrrell’s life listed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Forbidden Book Index) by the Vatican in 1913 but, through all this, remained true to her faith.71

Introduction 13 Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall In contrast to Petre, Mabel Batten’s choices regarding marriage and domestic life surprisingly did not put her at personal odds with the stern Pius X. On December 10, 1912, just after Petre’s disagreement with the Pope, the aristocratic Englishwoman and Catholic convert, was introduced to him by her friend Francis Neil Gasquet, the English bishop in Rome.72 All who were present claimed she charmed the Pope with her easy manner, and he affectionately inscribed his photograph to her, “Alla diletta figlia Veronica.”73 Batten was accompanied by another convert, who went by the name of “John,” on this meeting with the Holy See. John’s conversion in early 1912 was under the supervision of Father Sebastien Bowden at the fashionable, but conservative Brompton Oratory in wealthy Kensington, London.74 What makes this meeting unique is that “John” is better known to history as Marguerite Radclyffe Hall, who would go on to write The Well of Loneliness (1928), a book banned for its positive presentation of lesbianism.75 Hall was the lover of Mabel Batten. Batten and Hall understood Catholicism as a space for elaborate liturgical expressions and bolstered this by collections of reliquary and sacramental objects. The ideas of resurrection and the afterlife (combined with related sacramental objets) resonate through their interpretations of their adopted faith. The personal objects and outward expressions of the faith (rosaries, statues, prayer cards, home kneelers) are very much a part of their understanding of the Church. For Batten and Hall, the extended liturgical celebrations, “Europeaness,” and devotional rituals would prove to be the most attractive elements of Catholicism over Anglicanism. The men of the church found little to concern them about Batten and Hall, despite their open “unconventional” relationship, possibly due to their status as converts or due to an underlying tacit understanding of their status. There was a source of progressive thinking evidenced in the inferred acceptance of Batten and Hall’s “friendship” by the hierarchy, and both women relished the culture of deference and hierarchy. Unlike Petre, Batten and Hall enjoyed their interactions with ecclesiastical authorities. Batten in particular found in Catholicism a “moveable home,” a safe haven. Batten’s “traditional” family life before her time with Hall resulted in marriage and the birth of a child. She ensured her daughter was raised like other elite Catholic girls, complete with a convent education on the continent. For Hall, Catholicism brought respectability to an otherwise, outwardly transgressive life, but the same may be said for Batten in terms of her vibrant sex life. Demonstrating the flexibility of Catholicism as a space for practice, Batten and Hall both adhered to and rejected aspects of their new faith. Both women presented conservative ideas in regard to the home and practice of their religion. Conversely, they exhibited unconventionality in their rejection of ideals of submissive Catholic womanhood for themselves and, of course, their sexuality. Seemingly, their Queerness was outwardly rather transgressive to contemporary Catholic society. In reality, as I show, there was little pressure to conform to ideals of idealized Catholic womanhood.76 Their

14  Introduction convictions sustained them emotionally, spiritually, and aesthetically. Like other women of their time, their piety found its expression in devotional practices, both Marian and Christological. Both enjoyed the bombastic participatory elements of the faith, found especially on the Continent in Carnaval, processions, and iconography. Importantly, the “otherness” of Catholicism removed them from traditional expectations of secular English society. Reflecting scholarship from Frederick S. Roden and Philip Waller, Catholicism was for them, as well as other Queer converts, a haven for self-expression.77 In the following chapter, “Catholicism and Lay Womanhood,” I look more closely at Catholic history and gender studies in England. There is a lacuna of research on lay Catholic women in England – however scholarship has developed greatly in the past decade. I will show how the Catholic Church provided an important space for independence of thought and action for lay women. But first, I explain the foundational historical experiences of Catholic Britons, firmly placing them within the narrative of a marginalized people and as outsiders to mainstream Protestant society. I recount how forging an identity as a Catholic was fraught with difficulty due to major historical antecedents stemming originally from Henry VIII’s break with the Pope over issues of marriage rather than any larger theological differences. Over the Victorian era, there were moments of strain and strength when the Catholic Church reestablished its presence in 1850, which was followed by periods of resurgent anti-Catholicism, and repercussions from the Famine in Ireland. I link developments in English Catholicism with an explanation of how Catholic women were able to use this period of uncertainty positively to rethink the Church as a space for unconventional interpretations of the faith. Since three of the case studies involved were converts to Catholicism, the faith became a means of finding/forging a self-styled identity through the adoption of aspects of secular “New Womanhood” or “Christian feminism.” To try and come to terms with where Catholic lay women may fit into the larger context, I sketch out some of the wider trends and issues affecting women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I am particularly interested in the Cult of Domesticity as it relates to “True Catholic Womanhood” as defined by Irish Jesuit Bernard O’Reilly (1823–1907) and, likewise, Spiritual Womanhood. An understanding of the expectations faced by women in their navigation of marriage and domesticity in this period is vital. This is especially so when creating a narrative around how the case studies contradicted the long-assumed cultural assumptions about domestic womanhood. I do this by drawing attention to contemporary concerns for women such as marriage and domesticity, the “New Woman” in literature, social purity, women’s rights, the suffrage movement and conclude by touching on women and the First World War. Thus, I argue that an environment of “modernity” existed, which gave these Catholic women a distinctive opportunity to assert themselves in the private and public spheres. Catholicism, ultimately, had much to do with how lay Catholic women renegotiated these spaces with unorthodox practices.

Introduction 15 Notes 1 Father Gasquet became the cardinal-deacon of San Giorgio in Velabro in May 1914. This meant he was a member of the Papal Curia. The most famous English Catholic priest, John Henry Newman, had previously held this influential post. See “The New British Cardinals. Dom Gasquet’s Services,” The Times, April 28, 1914; “A Pageant of Faith. Medieval Ceremonial at Downside Abbey. Cardinal Gasquet Honoured,” The Times, July 11, 1914; “Cardinal Gasquet. Proposed Presentation,” The Times, May 28, 1914. 2 “Our London Correspondence,” The Manchester Guardian, June 27, 1914. 3 Ibid. 4 Correspondence to 1984. (B1801) BO/UR, Westminster Diocesan Archive (WDA). 5 “Liberalism in Religion,” The Times, June 27, 1914. “The Catholic Church,” The Sunday Times, July 5, 1914. “Liberalism in Religion. Cardinal Gasquet’s Fears. Importance of the Labour Problem.” The Times, June 27, 1914. Many of the laity were desperate for tickets to the reception, including continental royalty, ambassadors, and, of course, the Catholic gentry. Those vying for a ticket included those associated with the lay organizations of the Church such as the St Vincent De Paul Society, Fletcher’s CWL, the Catenian Society, the Catholic Reading Guild, and the Catholic Truth Society. See BO/Ur. WDA. 6 Nancy Ammerman, Studying Lived Religion (New York: New York University Press, 2021). 7 To further illustrate this freedom of thought, the Church never took an official position on women’s suffrage, implicitly allowing for individual choice in the matter. 8 Bernard O’Reilly, The Mirror of True Womanhood, 16th ed. (New York: P.J. Kenedy, Excelsior Catholic Pub. House, 1886), pp. 4, 6–13, 20–22, 57. 9 Coventry Patmore, The Angel in the House (London: Macmillan & co., 1863). 10 Class played a significant role in the English context, whereas lay women in the United States were able to overcome traditional ideas of “True Womanhood” thanks to Progressive politics and, as Kathleen Sprows Cummings has recently argued, by being “deft at mediating between the tradition of the Old Faith and the exigencies of a new, industrialized nation.” See Kathleen Sprows Cummings, New Women of the Old Faith (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), pp. 11–12. 11 Mary Elizabeth Herbert, Wives, Mothers and Sisters in the Olden Times (London: Bentley & Son, 1885); Francesca M. Steele, The Convents of Great Britain (London: Sands, 1902); Olga Hartley, Women and the Catholic Church Yesterday and Today (London: Burns, Oates, and Washbourne, 1935). 12 Ibid., p. 14. 13 Devotion to the Virgin Mary remains one of the major differences between Catholic and Protestant Womanhood. This is especially the case if one compares Roman Catholicism and Low Church Protestantism. Mary Heimann and Carol Engelhardt Herringer have written extensively on Marian devotional practices of Catholics. See Mary Heimann, “Catholic Revivalism in Worship and Devotion,” in Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 8, Sheridan Gilley and Brian Stanley, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Carol Engelhardt Herringer, Victorians and the Virgin Mary, 1st ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008). 14 Gail Malmgreen, ed. Religion in the Lives of English Women, 1760–1930 (London: Croom Helm, 1986), p. 2; Catholic Women Speak Networks, Catholic Women Speak: Bringing Our Gifts to the Table (New York: Paulist Press, 2015). 15 James K. Kenneally, The History of American Catholic Women (New York: Crossroad, 1990); Kathleen Sprows Cummings, New Women of the Old Faith (2009).

16  Introduction 16 There are also a growing number of books and articles on the topic of non-­ conformist women who were engaged in “women’s issues.” These works have all been helpful in situating the lay Catholic experience within a greater background of religious belief on the margins of Victorian Anglican society. See Kathryn Gleadle, The Early Feminists: Radical Unitarians and the Emergence of the Women’s Rights Movement, c1831–51 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998); Elaine Kaye, Janet Lees, and Kirsty Thorpe, Daughters of Dissent (London: United Reformed Church, 2004); Jennifer Lloyd, Women and the Shaping of British Methodism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009); Andrew Mark Eason, Women in God’s Army: Gender and Equality in the Early Salvation Army (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2003); Pamela Walker, Pulling the Devils Kingdom Down: The Salvation Army in Victorian Britain (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001). 17 Mary Heimann, “Mysticism in Bootle: Victorian Supernaturalism as an Historical Problem,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 64, No. 2 (2013), pp. 335–356; Alana Harris, “The Writings of Querulous Women’: Contraception, Conscience and Clerical Authority in 1960s Britain,” British Catholic History, Vol. 32, No. 4 (2015), pp. 557–585; Alana Harris, Faith in the Family (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014). 18 Mary Heimann, Catholic Devotion in Victorian England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Mary Heimann, “Catholic Revivalism in Worship and Devotion,” in Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 8, Sheridan Gilley and Brian Stanley, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Mary Heimann, “Christian Piety in Britain During the ‘Long’ Nineteenth Century, C 1780–1920,” in Piety and Modernity: The Dynamics of Religious Reform in Northern Europe, 1780–1920, Anders Jarlert, ed. (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2012), pp. 27–54; Elaine Clark, “Catholics and the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage in England,” Church History, Vol. 73, No. 2 (September 2004), pp. 635–665; Elaine Clark, “Catholic Men in Support of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in England,” The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 94, No. 1 (January 2008), pp. 22–44; Francis M. Mason, “The Newer Eve: The Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society in England, 1911–1923,” The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 72, No. 4 (October 1986), pp. 620–638. 19 Paula M. Kane, “The Willing Captive of Home?”: The English Catholic Women’s League, 1906–1920,” Church History, Vol. 60, No. 3 (September 1991), pp. 331–355. Kane’s articles focus on the CWL, not on Fletcher’s personal life or writings. 20 Elaine Clark, “Catholics and the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage in England” (2004), pp. 635–665. 21 Ibid., p. 635. 22 Mason, “The Newer Eve: The Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society in England, 1911–1923” (1986), pp. 620–638. 23 In addition, there is an unpublished dissertation that looks at Christian Feminism and its role in the suffrage movement in Britain. It has a few excellent references to the CWSS. See J.D.F. Inkpin, Combating the ‘sin of self-sacrifice’?: Christian Feminism in the Women’s Suffrage Struggle: 1903–18 (Durham: Unpub. PhD, 1996). 24 James J Kenneally, The History of American Catholic Women (New York: Crossroad, 1990); Karen Kennelly, American Catholic Women (New York: Macmillan, 1989); Karen M. Kennelly, “An Immigrant Drama: The College of St. Catherine and Phi Beta Kappa,” US Catholic Historian, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2010), pp. 43–63; Mary Ewens, The Role of the Nun in Nineteenth Century America (New York: Arno Press, 1978). 25 Sarah Mulhall Adelman, “Empowerment and Submission: The Political Culture of Catholic Women’s Religious Communities in Nineteenth-Century America,”

Introduction 17 Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2011), pp. 138–161; Kathleen Sprows Cummings, New Women of the Old Faith (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009). 26 Kathleen Sprows Cummings, New Women of the Old Faith, pp. 4–5. 27 For example, Mary Cullen and Maria Luddy, Women, Power and Consciousness in 19th-Century Ireland: Eight Biographical Studies (Dublin: Attic Press, 1995). 28 Cara Delay, Irish Women and the Creation of Modern Catholicism 1850–1950 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019). 29 I am borrowing this term from Carmen Mangion as I believe it so aptly describes the tension for English women as a “people apart” in terms of their religion in their nation. See Carmen M. Mangion, Contested Identities: Catholic Women Religious in Nineteenth-Century England and Wales (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008). 30 Mangion, Contested Identities, 2008; Barbara Walsh, Roman Catholic Nuns in England and Wales, 1800–1937 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2002); Susan O’Brien, “Terra Incognita: The Nun in Nineteenth-Century England.” Past and Present (1988): pp. 110–140. 3 1 Mangion, Contested Identities (2008); Laurence Lux-Sterritt and Carmen M. Mangion, Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality (2011). 32 Barbara Walsh, Roman Catholic Nuns in England and Wales, 1800–1937 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2002). 33 Susan O’Brien, “Terra Incognita,” p. 114; Susan O’Brien, “French Nuns in Nineteenth-­Century England,” Past and Present (1997), pp. 142–180. 34 Kenneally, The History of American Catholic Women, p. ix. 35 Sharon Marcus, Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007); Sheila Jeffreys, The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality, 1880–1930 (London: Pandora Press, 1985); Patricia Jalland, Women, Marriage, and Politics, 1860–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). 36 For feminism and sexual morality in the late Victorian and Edwardian period, see Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast: English Feminism and Sexual Morality, 1885–1914 (London: Penguin, 1995). 37 Martha Vicinus, Independent Women (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1985). 38 For an interesting example of women who rejected their religions due to this perceived oppression, see the case of the Ladies of Llangollen. These two women, one descended from the Catholic Butler Ormonds of Kilkenny Castle and the other of the squirearchy, fled Ireland and what they felt was its “impoverished and priestridden grandeur” in favor of a life together in Wales. But, in fact, it was Lady Eleanor Butler’s convent education in Enlightenment France that exposed her to the possibility of a different life. See Elizabeth Mavor, “Butler, Lady (Charlotte) Eleanor (1739–1829),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); online edn, May 2006. 39 Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820–1860,”American Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2, Part 1 (Summer, 1966), pp. 151–174. 40 Sue Morgan, ed., Women, Religion and Feminism, 1750–1900 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 9. 41 Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 107–108. 42 See, for example, Ellis Hanson, Decadence and Catholicism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997); Dominic Janes, Visions of Queer Martyrdom from John Henry Newman to Derek Jarman (London: University of Chicago Press, 2015); Philip Waller, “Philip Waller: Roman Candles: Literary Converts in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain,” in Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain Essays in

18  Introduction Memory of Colin Matthew, Peter Ghosh and Lawrence Goldman, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Roden, “Michael Field, John Gray, and MarcAndre Raffalovich: Reinventing Romantic Friendship in Modernity,” in Catholic Figures, Queer Narratives, Lowell Gallagher, Frederick S. Roden, and Patricia Juliana Smith, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 57–68. 43 Patrick Allitt, Catholic Converts (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 128. 44 Ibid. 45 Jay P. Corrin, Catholic Progressives in England after Vatican II (South Bend, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2013), p. 15. 46 Martha Vicinus and Jacqueline de Vries were some the first scholars to engage with this idea of lesbianism informing religious belief. See Sue Morgan and Jacqueline de Vries, Women, Gender and Religious Cultures in Britain, 1800–1940 (London: Routledge, 2010). Also Martha Vicinus, “The Gift of Love”: Nineteenth-­ Century Religion and Lesbian Passion,” Nineteenth Century Contexts, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2001), pp. 241–264. Vicinus argued for a widening the case of lay religious women and homoerotic desire via the case study of Mary Benson (1842–1916). For Benson, the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury, “religion and erotic love for women were to be ‘inextricably intertwined cords’” (p. 244). 47 Radclyffe Hall, handwritten notes for a lecture on the trial of The Well of Loneliness, January 25, 1929 to Southend Young Socialists, op cit. Diane Souhami, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall (1998), p. 155. “Inversion” was the contemporary term for homosexuality that Radclyffe Hall preferred to use when describing her sexuality. 48 The main character of The Well of Loneliness is a gendered female, yet named Stephen by her parents. Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (London: Virago, 1982). 49 Una Troubridge, The Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall (1961), p. 82. 50 Laura Doan, “Woman’s Place Is the Home: Conservative Sapphic Modernity,” in Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women and National Culture, Laura Doan and Jane Garrity, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 91–108. As this material on Hall’s conservatism has already been covered so successfully by Doan, I have chosen not to revisit in depth and would refer readers to Doan’s excellent work on this topic, which I am indebted to for its ideas and argument. 51 Ibid., p. 94. 52 “Letter,” Pall Mall Gazette, March 4, 1912. From “A Former Suffragist[Radclyffe Hall].” This letter is known to be from Hall as Mabel V. Batten [MVB] noted its date of publication in her diary. 53 Evelyn Irons, “A Woman’s Place is in the Home,” The Daily Mail, July 20, 1928. 54 Laura Doan, “Woman’s Place Is the Home: Conservative Sapphic Modernity,” in Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women and National Culture, Laura Doan and Jane Garrity, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 91–108. 55 Evelyn Irons, “A Woman’s Place is in the Home,” The Daily Mail, July 20, 1928. 56 Ibid. 57 Michael Baker, Our Three Selves (New York: Morrow, 1985). The two other major works on Hall before 1985 were written by Una Troubridge and Lovat Dickson. Una Troubridge, The Life and Times of Radclyffe Hall (1961); Lovat Dickson, Radclyffe Hall at The Well of Loneliness (New York: Scribner, 1975). Dickson, a literary friend, inherited from Troubridge the papers of Troubridge and Hall, which are now held in Ottawa at the National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. Troubridge’s other papers and ephemera of her life with Hall are kept at the Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin. 58 Richard Dellamora, Radclyffe Hall: A Life in the Writing (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), pp. 164–185. Much of this material

Introduction 19 is also found in Richard Dellamora, “The Well of Loneliness and the Catholic Rhetoric of Sexual Dissidence,” in Catholic Figures, Queer Narratives, Lowell Gallagher, Frederick S Roden and Patricia Juliana Smith, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 114–128. 59 Joanne Glasgow, “What’s a Nice Woman Like You Doing in The Church of Torquemada?,” pp. 241–-254. 60 Terry Castle, Noël Coward & Radclyffe Hall (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Roden, Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). 61 Dellamora, Radclyffe Hall (2011), pp. 164–185. 62 Glasgow, “What’s a Nice Woman Like You Doing in The Church of Torquemada?” (1990), p. 243. 63 Ibid., p. 242. 64 Laura Doan, “Woman’s Place Is the Home: Conservative Sapphic Modernity,” in Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women and National Culture, Laura Doan and Jane Garrity, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 91–108, p. 93. 65 Letter, M. Fletcher to Archbishop of Westminster, Francis Bourne, October 8, 1906. Bourne 1/30 1906–1912, WDA; The Times, “Catholic Women’s League – The First General,” December 21, 1907. 66 Letter, From MF to FB, Bourne, October 8, 1906. BO 1/30 1906–1912 (WDA). 67 Biographical information on Petre from Clyde F. Crews, English Catholic Modernism: Maud Petre’s Way of Faith (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984, p. 2). 68 By the mid-1890s Tyrrell was at Farm Street, Marylebone, a Jesuit-run church that unusually is/was known by its address, rather than its title, “The Church of the Immaculate Conception.” It was founded in 1849 and became a parish church of the Diocese of Westminster in 1966, although it is still served by Jesuits. Margaret Fletcher converted at Farm Street in 1897. For further biographical information on Tyrrell, there is a large body of work, but his hagiographic obituary by Maude Petre is most enlightening: M.D. Petre, “The Late Father Tyrrell,” The Times, August 19, 1909, p. 7; The Times, July 31, 1909. 69 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937); M.D. Petre, “The Pope and Modernism,” The Times, November 2, 1910. 70 Maude Petre, Catholicism and Independence: Being Studies in Spiritual Liberty (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907), p. 49. 71 J. Martinez de Bujanda and Marcella Richter, Index Librorum Prohibitorum 1600–1966 (Montréal: Médiaspaul, 2002). 72 Gasquet was one of only two English Cardinals from 1914 to 1919, but unlike Francis Bourne, who served as the Archbishop of Westminster from 1903 to 1935, he resided primarily in Rome where he served as the archivist at the Vatican. Shane Leslie and Francis Aidan Gasquet, Cardinal Gasquet, A Memoir (London: Burns Oates, 1953). 73 Una Troubridge, The Life and Times of Radclyffe Hall (London: Hammond & Hammond, 1961), p. 36. The note read, “To the beloved daughter Veronica.” 74 Father Henry Sebastian Bowden, who converted in 1852, had also allegedly conversed with Oscar Wilde in religious matters. Wilde and Radclyffe Hall are arguably the two best-known queer British authors of the past century. On his deathbed, Wilde was given last rites by a Catholic priest. 75 Patrick R. O’Malley, “Epistemology of the Cloister: Victorian England’s Queer Catholicism,” in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2009), pp. 535–564. O’Malley argues, quite rightly, that English Victorian Catholicism and Queer identity both articulate a sort of non-mainstream discourse for their time. Subsequently, this may yield “the experience of an inward self that may or may not correlate with the public persona” (p. 537) which seems

20  Introduction similar to what many of the New Women, lesbian or not, were experiencing. Furthermore, he argues “that nineteenth-century Roman or Anglo-Catholicism in England is deeply intertwined with notions of sexual nonconformity” (p. 541). 76 Sophie Stanes and Deborah Woodman have written about this same phenomenon in their own lives in the Catholic Church in England more recently. Sophie Stanes and Deborah Woodman, “Living Under the Radar, or Celebrating Family in all its forms?” in Catholic Women Speak: Bringing Our Gifts to the Tables, Catholic Women Speak Networks, ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2007), pp. 94–96.  7 Frederick S. Roden, Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture (Houndmills, 7 Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); Roden, “Michael Field, John Gray, and Marc-Andre Raffalovich: Reinventing Romantic Friendship in Modernity,” in Catholic Figures, Queer Narratives, Lowell Gallagher, Frederick S. Roden and Patricia Juliana Smith, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 57–68; Philip Waller, “Roman Candles: Literary Converts in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain,” in Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain Essays in Memory of Colin Matthew, Peter Ghosh and Lawrence Goldman, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 197–219.

1

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood

In 1918, a month after the Royal Assent to the Representation of the People Act and a mere few days after the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of BrestLitovsk with the Central Powers, Margaret Fletcher addressed a group of Canadian soldiers billeted in Hampshire. Fletcher, a Catholic convert and advocate for Catholic women, spoke to the servicemen about women’s rights. She attested to what she saw as the historically subordinate condition of women in her country: The assumption of the inferiority and the incapacity of women had almost grown to be an article of faith over here, held so unconsciously that the best of people did not recognize its unchristian character. This attitude of mind operating in industrial and civic life, led to so many real injustices and so many wrongs and miseries.1 Fletcher, a proponent of “Christian feminism,” believed women had long been faced with injustices which were inherently antithetical to Catholic womanhood. Contemporaries felt much the same way; that civic, secular, and religious life should represent the real contributions of women to English life. Fletcher was most concerned with the case of Catholic women, but “assumptions of inferiority” for all women continued to be contested. The landscape of womanhood was changing, and women were caught between societal expectations of the middle-class gentility and a growing sense of engagement with the public sphere and civic life. In comparison to Protestant women, Catholics were lagging far behind them in regard to social and moral philanthropy and engagement. This chapter first outlines the specific areas and moments where the experiences of Catholics and women in England were decided in both the public and private spheres. It develops how lay Catholic women faced a set of circumstances in their private and public lives that were, in practice, quite different from their Protestant cohort in many ways. Matters of domesticity and womanhood were grounds for complex set of social negotiations over the 19th and early 20th centuries, but also proved to be spaces of opportunity for some exceptional lay Catholic women to be both pious and transgressive in their own lives. DOI: 10.4324/9781003300861-2

22  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood Catholicism in England From the dissolution of the Catholic Church in England during Henry VIII’s reign (1509–1547) until 1829, with short exceptions under Queen Mary I (1553–1558) and James II & VII (1685–1688), Roman Catholics, on the whole, were effectively barred from public life in England. Catholics existed instead in a kind of middle space, neither wholly allowed nor disallowed from practicing their religion. Priests, especially Jesuits, as well as the laity, were subjected to persecution and martyred.2 The issue of a possible contradiction remained: how could a Catholic be pledged to both the monarch and the Pope? Despite the Emancipation Act of 1829, anti-Catholicism remained strong in Britain. The restoration of the hierarchy, the Oxford Movement, the Irish Famine, and an increase in conversions, all led to a higher profile for the Catholic Church, but with this came increased scrutiny and unrest. Throughout these changes, the vast majority of recusant Catholics, those who refused to attend the Church of England, were largely underground and secluded themselves. Some notable exceptions to this seclusion were families such as the Howards, Talbots, Arundells, and Petres whose ancestors all figured prominently in the English Roman Catholic Church. The greatest number of recusants was situated in the North, far from London and the Court of St. James. This meant that when Margaret Fletcher, Mabel Batten, and Radclyffe Hall converted around the turn of the 20th century, they found themselves in a community that was still not used to publicly discussing their beliefs. The recusants of old, like Maude Petre, were now termed “born” or “cradle” Catholics, to differentiate between them and the worldlier and often better educated converts.3 The primary reason for the marginalization of Catholics in English history can, of course, be traced back to the Reformation. The Reformation in England brought about a great number of rulings that led to widespread mistrust of the recusant Catholics. From this seminal moment, English Catholics came to be seen as separate and “other.” Further, five major events over the long 19th century were particularly significant for the Catholic laity in the Protestant, imperial nation. These moments include the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, the Tractarian Movement (1833–1845), the Irish Famine (1846–1851), the reintroduction of the hierarchy (1850–1851), and the Modernist movement (c.1899–c.1910). An additional consequence of these events was an increase in conversions from the professional classes and elites. Drawing from these moments, I conclude that Catholics still remained a “people apart” for much of the 19th and early 20th century. It is within this context that each of my subjects came to renegotiate elements of the Catholic faith as lay women. The English Reformation The English Reformation led to substantial cultural, religious, and political changes. In 1533, the marriage of two royal Catholics, Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII, was annulled by the clergy in England without the approval

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  23 of Pope Clement VII. The king went on to marry five more times over the next 14 years. With these marriages Henry VIII and some advisors, rather than submitting to the rulings of a foreign power, the Pope in Rome instigated a formal separation from the Catholic Church. In the years that followed Henry’s first divorce, there was a great struggle for power between those who sought to remain Catholic and those who supported the newly founded Church of England, with the monarch at its head. The lands, holdings, and properties of the Catholic Church were seized by Henry VIII. His daughters Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I dealt with their father’s religious decisions entirely differently. Mary I, the first of Henry’s daughters to inherit the throne, remained Catholic and martyred nearly 300 Protestants loyal to her father and their new Church.4 Upon gaining the crown, Elizabeth I, in an effort to consolidate her power, sought further reforms, collectively known as the Elizabethan Settlement, to ensure that Anglicanism remained the religion of the State. Simultaneously, staunch Roman Catholics were unwilling to accept the loss of their Church in England. A papal bull, Regnans in Excelsis (1570), excommunicated Elizabeth I and any who acknowledged her leadership: Elizabeth, the pretended queen of England and the servant of crime … oppressed the followers of the Catholic faith; … and has ordered that books of manifestly heretical content be propounded to the whole realm and that impious rites and institutions after the rule of Calvin, entertained and observed by herself, be also observed by her subjects … We charge and command all and singular the nobles, subjects, peoples and others afore said that they do not dare obey her orders, mandates and laws. Those who shall act to the contrary we include in the like sentence of excommunication.5 Elizabeth retaliated by making it a treasonable offense to be Catholic. Hundreds of men and women were martyred for their Catholic beliefs, most notably Jesuit Edmund Campion (d.1581) and lay woman Margaret Clitherow (d.1586). Fear of treasonous and traitorous Catholics remained a source of concern for Protestant Englishmen. Charles II’s Corporation Act of 1661 and Test Acts of 1673 both required oaths of allegiance to the Crown. Despite his Catholic sympathies and, later deathbed conversion, his renewed pledge of the supremacy of the Church of England penalized not only Catholics, but also non-Conformists and Jews. These religious groups, barred from political office, found themselves severed from positions of power. James II (r.1685–1688) inherited the throne from his brother and his work for religious toleration of Catholics continued to raise anxieties about the position of Catholics, especially a male (Catholic) heir. As part of the Glorious Revolution Protestant primacy was confirmed and codified. William III & II of Orange and Mary II “peacefully” came to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1688.

24  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood As condition to their crown, the government passed the Act of Toleration (1689) and Act of Settlement (1701).6 One part of the Act of Settlement expressly prohibited the accession of a Roman Catholic or anyone married to a Catholic to the throne. The Act of Toleration referenced toleration for some non-­ Conformist sects as part of the Protestant Communion. This formal toleration did not extend to Catholics. Those that recognized James II (and his son and heir) as the rightful sovereign termed Jacobites, became synonymous with Catholics as traitorous. Not surprisingly, at this point, few Catholic men publicly admitted to their faith, which is why the notion of a “born” or “cradle” Catholic becomes so vital later on in the late-19th century. Being a “born” Catholic, a recusant, marked one out as having been part of an exceptional generational commitment to the practice of what they believed to be the “one true faith.” However, the spirit of the Enlightenment, with its “reason” and “rationality,” created a logical argument for tolerance of Catholics and equality for other minority groups through the 18th century.7 Relief Acts were passed in 1778, 1782, and 1791. With these acts, Catholic Churches were allowed to reestablish themselves slowly under strict guidelines. Catholics were still not allowed to rebuild their organizational dioceses after these acts. Likewise, buildings owned by the Catholic Church before the Reformation were retained by the Church of England. Property ownership and inheritance rights for Catholics were reinstated providing a taking of an Oath, not against the Pope, but against any Stuarts trying to regain the succession. The setting up of some Catholic schools was allowed after years of English Catholic children being educated abroad, if at all. The Reformation caused a cultural, social, and economic schism, not to mention religious wars and divisions. During the Enlightenment, some philosophes attempted to attain religious equality for minority groups, but tensions remained. Later, for each woman, choosing “separate” Catholicism over “easy” Protestantism was a carefully considered conscious choice. It meant choosing a path of greater resistance, which, coupled with their sex, could have meant a life on the margins of society. However, these women rejected the limitations placed on them due to their gender, sexuality, or religion. Catholicism over the Long 19th Century The 19th century was, in many ways, a turning point for Catholicism; five main events of the 19th century greatly affected the development of Roman Catholicism and brought about the possibility of Catholics reasserting themselves in Britain. Eric G. Tenbus stated, “the timid identity of this [Catholic] community emerged into something much more assertive and militant” over the period of its 19th century.8 These events, in turn, made Catholicism more difficult to accept for some Britons, as I show in recounting outbreaks of antiCatholicism. Overall, over the 19th century the profile of the religion was raised to many Victorians and partially restored its respectability, although it remained an “other” and separate for much of this period.

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  25 The Catholic Relief Act, 1829 The Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829, more popularly known as the Emancipation Act, permitted Roman Catholic men to hold public office and vote if they met certain economic standards.9 It revoked major laws, such as the Test Acts, which prohibited Catholic life across Great Britain. Emancipation granted that Catholic, landowning men could hold public office without taking the Oath of Supremacy. The Relief Act passed in large part due to ongoing issues surrounding Catholic Ireland and its role after the Union of 1801. Irish politician Daniel O’Connell (1775–1847) was key in passing the act, which allowed him to sit in Parliament and agitate for Irish Catholic rights. The Emancipation Act of 1829 was meant to keep Catholics in Ireland “sweet” while fear remained over rebellions in the new Union. In England, emancipation for Catholics was viewed as indicative of widespread reforms in the early 19th century. The Emancipation Act, in its essence, served to invite Catholic men back into the public sphere. With this inclusion came an increased understanding of Catholicism, and it brought the faith back into the public consciousness. This led to some discrepancies in the Catholic position. Many Catholic men were able to better their reputations among the local and national populace in politics and business. Others, such as the most famous English Catholic convert, and now Saint, John Henry Newman, felt that most Catholics across society still seemed rather marginalized and solitary in their Catholicism: A mere handful of individuals, who might be counted, like the pebbles and detritus of the great deluge, and who, forsooth, merely happened to retain a creed which, in its day indeed, was the profession of a Church. Here a set of poor Irishmen, coming and going at harvest time, or a colony of them lodged in a miserable quarter of the vast metropolis. There, perhaps an elderly person, seen walking in the streets, grave and solitary, and strange, though noble in bearing, and said to be of good family, and a “Roman Catholic.” An old-fashioned house of gloomy appearance, closed in with high walls, with an iron gate, and yews, and the report attaching to it that “Roman Catholics” lived there; but who they were, or what they did, or what was meant by calling them Roman Catholics, no one could tell;–though it had an unpleasant sound, and told of form and superstition.10 Likewise, lay Catholic women (due to their sex and faith) were less able to benefit from reforms until much later in the century when educational provisions were made for the education of Catholic girls. Given this, Margaret Fletcher not surprisingly found English Catholic women to be in a rather marginalized condition compared to Protestant Victorian women of a similar class. In many ways, this new period of, albeit limited, toleration after the Emancipation Act, laid the groundwork for some Britons to investigate Catholicism as an alternative to other Christian denominations.

26  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood The Oxford Movement The Oxford Movement in Protestantism, also known as Tractarianism, had a profound effect on English Catholicism from 1833, a mere four years after the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act. It has been called a Catholic Revival and a time of political renewal. As Owen Chadwick notes, “it is safe to say that the Movement would not have taken the form which it took without the impetus of ecclesiastical and secular politics.”11 It emerged in earnest from the writings of religious tracts and sermons by John Henry Newman (1801–1890), John Keble (1792–1866), and Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–1882) at Oxford University. Newman, arguably the most well-known English Catholic and convert of the 19th century, believed, in the early days of Tractarianism that the High Anglican Church fulfilled an important role as a via media between the excesses of the Roman Church and more evangelical sects of Protestantism. Tractarians urged reforms of the Church of England, including a return to greater ceremony in the liturgy and a focus on the celebration of the Eucharist in High Church settings. They also advocated for the right to claim their place alongside the Roman and Orthodox Churches as the three principal branches of the catholic (universal), Christian and Apostolic Church. Major turning points for the Oxford Movement and Catholic England were Keble’s 1833 sermon on “National Apostasy,” and Newman’s “Tract 90” (1841).12 In addition to the sermons, an increasing number of conversions by prominent High Church Victorians to Roman Catholicism contributed to fears of “popish” influence by Catholics. These conversions by eminent High Church Protestants included the architect A.W.N. Pugin, poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, Anglican curate Henry Edward Manning and Newman himself in 1845. The Observer wrote in 1843 that Puseyism (another name for the movement, along with Anglo-­ Catholicism) was prevalent among much of the Anglican clergy and that “out of 12,000 clergymen fully 9000 or three-fourths of their whole number, are more or less tainted by this Popish heresy under a Protestant name.”13 Clearly, the ideas of the Oxford Movement caused great concern in mainstream English society. Newman’s conversion was incredibly important for the Roman Church in England, as it gave credence and respectability to the intellectual theology of the Roman Catholic faith. Newman himself in Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864) explained the extraordinary position of converting to Catholicism in Victorian England: It is both to head and heart an extreme trial, thus to analyze what has so long gone by, and to bring out the results of that examination. I have done various bold things in my life: this is the boldest: and, were I not sure I should after all succeed in my object, it would be madness to set about it.14

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  27 Newman’s conversion was not an overnight event, but one that involved nearly a lifetime of deep thought and writing. As a major figure in the Oxford Movement, his abandonment of Tractarianism proved a very public reproach to the Church of England, thereby bringing the Roman Church’s beliefs from the shadows of English life to the forefront of the early- and mid-Victorian middle-class mind.15 To some degree, this was also the case for Margaret Fletcher, raised by her Church of England vicar father in post-Tractarian Oxford. The academic, theological aspects of Tractarianism brought her into communion with the Church of Rome, rather than the Anglo-Catholic Church. For Fletcher, like Newman, Catholicism was a break with Anglicanism and the Thirty-nine Articles. With Newman’s conversion, the “loss” of such a distinguished figure from the national Church of England to the Roman Catholic Church underscored greater cultural tensions surrounding foreign intervention and power. Patrick Allitt summarizes this changing of “explicit allegiance[s]” as having, “immense consequences.”16 The consequences were private and public. The personal reality of conversion meant the new adherent was, in many ways, subjecting themselves to a real kind of marginalization and “otherness” socially.17 Publicly, for Catholics, conversions were a positive sign of increased levels of faith. The increase in numbers was thought to bring about revitalization and reduce secularism. This level of anxiety was greatly increased in after Pius IX (1846–1878) promulgated Universalis Ecclesiae (1850), which brought back the diocesan structure across Great Britain.18 But for some Britons, each conversion contributed to anxieties about the changing nature of the industrialized, urbanized Imperial nation. Matthew Arnold best captured this mood of religious loss in his 1867 poem “Dover Beach,” in which the Protestant faith, even faith itself, seemed to be slowly ebbing away.19 Reinstatement of the Catholic Hierarchy (1850–1851) Within five years of Newman’s conversion, the Catholic hierarchy in England was restored by papal decree in Universalis Ecclesiae after having been banished by the Elizabethan Settlement in 1559. From Elizabeth I’s reign onwards, Catholics were organized under districts rather than dioceses, and the districts were roughly administered as missions. Pope Pius IX reestablished the diocesan structure alongside building schools, to “give succor” to Catholics in England. He wrote of how important it was, To take care of Catholic interests in that country [England]; and also for the education of Catholic youths of good abilities on the Continent … so that, when subsequently promoted to holy orders, they might return to their native land and labor diligently to benefit their countrymen.20

28  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood Universalis Ecclesiae caused a furor throughout England and was effectively a climax of the growing tensions between Catholicism and Protestantism, since many believed this reflected an invasion of sorts by an outside power.21 Fear of “Papal aggression” could be described as a full-scale panic over “recent defections from the Protestant church to that of Rome.”22 Public meetings and demonstrations against the creation of the hierarchy were evident in places as disparate as Worcester, St. Pancras, the Inns of the Court in London, Dorset, Scotland, and Wales. In Liverpool, the meeting to discuss the reinstatement of the hierarchy was interrupted by a “large and angry looking body of Irish Roman Catholics.”23 “Orange demonstrations,” organized by Protestants, followed in Newton, Lancashire. Queen Victoria saw it as an “invasion by the Pope upon her authority” and told the Home Secretary Sir George Grey that, “I am Queen of England, and I will not bear this.”24 The Bishop of Exeter complained it was an “act of spiritual aggression,” which stemmed from the Pope’s, “ignorance of the real state of English feeling” about conversions.25 The Bishop felt that recent “occurrence(s) of so many cases of secession from our communion” coupled with the restoration of the hierarchy were simply too intrusive and provocative.26 Clearly, although the position of Catholics had improved with the Emancipation Act of 1829, anti-Catholicism was still a considerable element in mid-Victorian English Society. It should also come as no surprise that conversions caused a level of anxiety about identity with the heart of the nation itself at stake. The reinstatement of the hierarchy had enormous ramifications on the lives of Catholics. It was completely necessary to have the hierarchy in place, but many recusant families were rather used to being independent. Maude Petre in particular disagreed with the amount of power that some ecclesiasts could wield and was unabashed in attacking the Southwark Archbishop, Peter Amigo. Her recusant family, like most Catholics, had a high regard for the priests that associated with their families and protected them for generations, but this regard did not implicitly extend to the newly created Bishopric. Margaret Fletcher’s launch of the Catholic Women’s League (CWL) benefited from the support of the hierarchy. If the recusants remained in charge, Fletcher’s organization would never have gotten a foothold or have gained any widespread support. Finally, Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall seemed to have happily socialized with the hierarchy and especially enjoyed the company of the men who wielded the most power in the Church.27 All the women dealt with the clerical authorities in their daily life in both professional and private matters, with varying degrees of diplomacy. The reinstatement of the hierarchy was a critical moment in revitalization of the Catholic Church in England. Famine in Ireland Simultaneous to the reestablishment of the hierarchy was the Irish Famine (1846–1851). The Famine, caused by potato blight and exacerbated by the politics of the Corn Laws, brought thousands of struggling Irish Catholics to

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  29 England during the mid-Victorian era. The historiography of the famine alludes to a shared history of tension and interdependence for the English, the Anglo-Irish, and Irish Catholics. Some historians argue that the government and gentry did as much as possible to help the peasantry once the true impact of the blight was apparent. Others claim that private benevolent funds or Quakers provided the majority of philanthropic aid.28 The famine led to death, poverty, and emigration. Over a million died, and about two million emigrated, with the largest numbers fleeing to North America and England. Arriving at Liverpool, the numbers of poor Irish Catholics that poured into the country and down to London were tremendous, putting pressure on charity relief supplies. One Poor Law guardian in Staffordshire wrote to the Poor Law Commission in 1846 asking for the release of additional monies so that they could continue to help the great of influx of “Irish paupers” from the famine.29 The influx of poor, Irish-born Catholics, combined with the conversion of numerous Anglicans, swelled the English Catholic Church. However, these were very different types of Catholics. It has long been thought that the reinstitution of the hierarchy, along with an influx of converts, meant that the state of Catholicism strengthened after merely limping along for hundreds of years. This was not entirely the case however. The Catholic Church, with its new hierarchy, was expected to care for its own poor, but neither the hierarchy nor the upper-class Catholics (converts or born) were at all prepared to fully help these poverty-stricken emigrants. But, what is also of note is that upper-class “born” lay Catholic women’s efforts were limited in the amount of social help and support that they provided to the poor. This was tremendously less than witnessed in the aid efforts of Social Gospel Protestant women in the Victorian metropolis. The national absence of middle-class lay Catholic women from these kinds of reform efforts catalyzed Margaret Fletcher in particular to try and link together like-minded women through her women’s league. Whilst the role of the CWL was not primarily to nurture the poor, it was essentially an organization formed to promote social work for Catholic women of all classes. Anti-Catholicism The impression of poverty that Irish Catholics brought with them to England during the Famine aroused anti-Catholic tensions that were already existent around the reintroduction of the hierarchy. Protests against Catholics were especially vehement during the period around the 1850s and 1860s. This went hand in hand with the Catholic Church re-entering the public imagination due to the restoration of the hierarchy, the influx of poor Irish Catholics fleeing starvation during the Famine, and the Oxford Movement’s high-profile conversions.30 Riots and protests were not uncommon, and the public press was not entirely sympathetic to the position of minority groups. Unrest drove many born Catholics further underground, isolating

30  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood themselves as a form of protection of their way of life.31 Eric Tenbus states that, “[in the] mid-century, the Catholic community was still haunted by its recusant past, unwilling to trust.”32 A lack of trust was especially evident in the north of England in Yorkshire and Lancashire, traditional strongholds of recusancy. Another moment that further encouraged anti-Catholic sentiment was the Hull Convent Scandal or the Great Convent Case in 1869 when a Catholic nun accused her superiors of forcing her into menial labor that she felt below her status. The case is rather quite complicated, but in short, it served to reinforce stereotypes, fears, and anti-Catholic propaganda. This was especially the case in regard to the treatment of Catholic women. By focusing on the negative experience of one Catholic woman within the society of her own people the press manipulated the matter to demonstrate the “danger” posed by Catholics. What would happen if the country became full of Catholics? Would Protestant women become menial servants as well? Would they be forced to be the slaves of other women, or worse, Irish-born women? The spectacle of the case elevated fears of Protestant womanhood being treated “like” Catholic women and reinforced historical misconceptions of Popish plots. It also heightened conceptions of Catholic female submission to a powerful hierarchy.33 Equating Catholicism with menial labor for women was a common method of undermining notions of progressive thought in the Roman faith in the Anglo-Protestant world. Would-be female Catholic converts were warned of the drudgery brought upon Catholic women. Referencing the convent scandal, Punch published a cartoon lampooning the fashionable nature of Catholic conversion. The cartoon sought to remind the Protestant audience of the negative aspects of “Popery.”34 It pokes fun at the ideals of poverty and humility against the realities of the wealth of these new converts, while underlying that Protestant women converts may not truly understand this new faith that they were joining (and the drudgery of it derived from a male priest). The cartoon caption reads: Ritualistic priest: “There, my Child, observe the Example of Humility and Devotion. How sweet to change the vanities of the World for a Lot so Humble!” Fashionable convert. “Oh, but that is not at all what I expected!”35 Clearly, the case of Catholic womanhood was one that dominated the public imagination in the late 1860s on both sides of the Atlantic. This debate had an economic aspect and played into fears over immigration from nonProtestant countries. Sprows Cummings argues that American lay Catholic women, who were mostly of Irish parentage, were the deftest at shaking off the fears of the Protestant majority and anti-Catholic feelings, but it is unclear how this matter was dealt with in the English instance.36

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  31 Modernism Anti-Catholicism was an undercurrent throughout much of the Victorian era, but experienced resurgence after papal infallibility became a matter of dogma during the First Vatican Council (1869–1870). Even the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, spoke out against the idea of infallibility in 1874 and 1875.37 Gladstone and Cardinal Manning debated the relevance of papal infallibility and what it might mean for Catholics in England in both the press and pamphlets.38 The idea of infallibility also brought about discussion throughout the Catholic Church regarding the applicability of this dogma. It was in this environment that the seeds of the Modernist movement in the Church were planted. The Catholic Modernist movement in Continental Europe greatly affected the English Catholic Church. Modernists, in terms of the Catholic Church, advocated, in differing degrees, for a greater involvement and understanding of the secular world and its ways.39 Some in the Church saw this internal movement as a heresy, while others saw it as a necessary step in the development of the Church.40 For the Catholic Church, teachings, or dogma, are crucial and are determined by the hierarchy and led by the infallible Holy See, not by the individual Catholic. This last aspect was the issue that so troubled the Modernists. Petre wrote in her autobiography that Modernism was a clash over “the rights and limits” of “ecclesiastical authority,” but also “the position of the Pope in relation to bishops and faithful.”41 But, as noted earlier, the individual Catholic would and did contradict (or could be ignorant of) Church teachings in daily life. This very complex debate demonstrated the multiplicity of understandings of Roman Catholicism, which some in the hierarchy were unwilling to acknowledge. The Church took what it viewed as internal threats to its dogma and sovereignty from the Modernists very seriously indeed. Pius X (1903–1914) stressed the dangers of the Modernists in the fold in Pascendi, “the enemies of the cross of Christ … destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, [try] to overthrow utterly Christ’s kingdom itself.”42 Petre, along with Tyrrell, von Hügel, and Loisy were targeted by Pius X as the locus of Modernism and what was termed, “its heresies:” Many who belong to the Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church, lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious daring, they reduce to a simple, mere man.43

32  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood In spite of the Pope’s attack on Petre, she continued to follow through with her work for Modernism, until the official movement had petered out over the First World War. While the men around her alternately caved into papal demands (von Hügel) or faced excommunication bravely (Tyrrell), Petre avoided both of these fates. Instead, she used the Modernist movement to achieve a level of autonomy and independence in her expression of her faith. Conversion For some women, conversion was an empowering choice for oneself, rather than a path toward gaining institutionalized power. For lay converts like Hall, Fletcher, and Batten, these issues – Modernism, anti-Catholicism – meant they joined a Church that at times was not quite sure what to do with them. This ambiguity resulted in the women being brought more closely into the fold of the Church due to their perceived and actual privilege educationally or socioeconomically. The Church did this as a matter of necessity. A more educated or wealthy base could fund opportunities socially and economically for other Catholics. They found an atmosphere primed for the remolding and rethinking of old modes of True Catholic Womanhood, along the lines of New Womanhood. While the hierarchy was concerned with fighting Modernism, there were slippages in traditional conventions in other areas, such as gender norms. It seems certain from tracing the lives of Fletcher, Petre, Batten, and Hall that privileged lay women experienced a freedom of behavior and practice in the Church. In many respects Fletcher, Batten, and Hall fit the general construct of what a female convert “looked like” at the change of the century. They were “better educated than born Catholics, more articulate, wealthier, and better connected socially, intellectually, and politically.”44 Allitt argues that converts public work was “muted” by the “strongly patriarchal” nature of their Church.45 For the women who were converts, their conversion freed them from certain societal expectations because their Catholicism placed them outside of the mainstream. Catholicism allowed for individual interpretations of their new faith. Each of these women was already on the margins of society in some way – Fletcher could be considered an “odd woman,” a spinster rejecting marriage from the Home Counties; Batten was one of only a few female composers in England; and Hall’s sexuality and androgyny too placed her in a minority culture. These pious transgressors were prepared to practice their new faith and stretch its boundaries as they had already stretched expectations of femininity. Indeed, the converts of this study found a Church primed for unconventional expressions of religiosity and lay womanhood. Convert Margaret Fletcher chose a celibate single life as a method of subverting traditional domesticity and asserting a “woman’s crusade” as she called it. Catholicism also was another way of “choosing” one kind of life over another – a life of clear difference. Choosing their faith became, in effect, another way for

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  33 Fletcher and Hall to validate a personal interpretation of Christian feminism outside of traditional expectations of motherhood. As converts, Batten, Hall, and Fletcher expressed their piety very differently and privileged different aspects of the faith. For Fletcher, her virginity was a symbol of her ultimate Marian piety and devotion.46 Batten’s conversion experience details are unknown, but it can be inferred that her conversion may have given her a sense of belonging that she longed for after years of travel.47 For Batten, Catholicism empowered her and liberated her from “the expected.” As part of her conversion, Hall used Catholicism to prove that her sexuality was God-given rather than “transgressive.” Catholicism sustained Hall and Batten spiritually through practice and the promise of the after-life, both at home and abroad. There is evidence that this was the case with other elite converts such as Bessie Rayner Parkes Belloc (1829–1925), who converted in 1864 due to “Ireland,” but combined her faith with Continental travel as Geraldine Brassil has recently shown.48 The idea of “born” as opposed to “convert” Catholics in England created, for adherents, very different expectations. Differences included education, familial support, class, and engagement with the secular world. Petre, as a “born” or “cradle” Catholic, struggled with what she saw as the convert’s unquestioning acceptance of any statements from the hierarchy. Converts usually saw this matter rather differently. For example, Lady Georgina Fullerton (1812–1885) wrote that converts complained less because they appreciated the Church more than those raised into the faith.49 In 1910, Madame Cecilia, a nun from St. Andrew’s Convent in Streatham, South London wrote a primer for catechists on how to cope with teaching adult converts in the Faith. She was careful to allude to their differences to “born” Catholics: Hereditary Catholics have a deep, quiet appreciation of the blessings which the Church showers upon them. Converts, on the other hand, have had to struggle through the mists of doubt and the darkness of error … but this prolonged struggle has its advantages, since it renders the convert more capable of explaining the Faith to others.50 Cecelia went on to argue that as well as acknowledging the difference between converts and “born” English Catholics (who, she writes, were in a “depressed state”), when instructing converts one must consider their intelligence, age, upbringing, emotions, but also, tellingly, their social position.51 Fletcher struggled with this last aspect the most as a convert from the professional classes. She greatly missed the opportunities available to her through the Anglican Church, such as women’s clubs, talks, lectures, and the like. The numbers of “born” English Catholics rose during the latter part of the 19th century, but largely this was due to the migration of Irish Catholics to England for work and in the aftermath of the Famine.52 The Oxford Movement was what brought into the fold some members of the upper- and middle classes of English society. Therefore, there were very different types

34  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood of people changing the face of Catholicism in England from the mid-19th century. One group, those fleeing the Famine, was substantially larger, and many settled in urban centers such as Liverpool, Manchester, and London.53 However, the converts, especially those from the South of England around London and Oxford, would be either highly educated, middling gentry, from the upper- to middle classes or in other words, “respectable society.” The educated, genteel converts paled in comparison to the influx of poor Irish Catholics during the mid-Victorian period, but the overall effect of the converts on the real state of the Church was significantly greater in terms of cultural capital. Furthermore, in late-Victorian England, the majority of female religious houses were situated not in the traditional regions of the “born” Catholics such as Lancashire and Yorkshire, but in London and the south. Together, these developments meant the Roman Church in England was growing substantially, but that the traditionalists within the faith saw themselves as under attack from internal and external movements and also, to some degree, from its new members. By 1900, there were 1.5 million Catholics in England and a total of 5.5 million throughout Great Britain, with the vast majority in Ireland (it was not until 1922 that partition was recognized) and a total population of approximately 10.5 million throughout the Empire.54 In 1911, 2 million more Catholics lived across the Empire, but numbers had stabilized across the British Isles.55 Numbers of converts are hard to judge because the statistical information is sparse. For Catholics, little record keeping was done in this area, but some scholars, such as A.E.C.W. Spencer, Hugh McLeod, and D. Gwynn, speculated on the true numerical extent of conversion.56 Spencer believes that the number of Catholics in the 1912 Catholic Directory was underreported by about a million.57 Gwyn states that, despite secularization and the decline of church attendance in Protestant denominations, Catholic numbers changed little.58 McLeod discusses the number of conversions in his work, but again no actual numbers or research regarding class can be made, only estimated. Conversion was simply a private expression of faith and few records, if any, were made of adult baptisms.59 Despite the low number of statistical records available about conversion, there was literature written by male converts detailing their experiences that has survived from the era. It is not surprising that the converts have left such rich matter behind since they formed literary elite in their new Church. There were many notable converts to Catholicism from the mid-19th century to the post-war period many of whom, like Fletcher, had links to Oxford.60 It seems many converts knew each other in one way or another: Lord Alfred Douglas (1870–1945), converted in 1911 and his lover from his years at university, Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), converted on his deathbed in France in 1900. John Henry Gray (1866–1934), converted in 1890 and became a priest. Gray was also in Wilde’s circle and brought about the conversion of poet André Raffalovich in 1896. Gray and Raffalovich lived in Edinburgh from 1901when Gray was ordained and sent to Scotland.61 Indeed, a rich assortment of queer

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  35 male elite converts lives are recorded, but women do not figure greatly into this same historical writing of the Catholic convert experience.62 Given that so few women convert experiences have been studied, it seems plausible to draw on male convert lives as well as American lay female conversions to create a narrative within which to place Fletcher, Hall, and Batten. Drawing on cross-cultural conversion experiences helps to make claims about some commonality of experiences for these lay women across borders.63 In the case of Fletcher, Batten, and Hall, their motivations will be explored more thoroughly in the chapters specific to them, but there are some generalizations that can be made regarding conversions. According to Allitt, who has written extensively on conversion narratives and the seemingly contradictory matter of the Church as a space for “othering,” writes that “[t] his paradoxical antiquity and novelty of Catholicism was complemented by another paradox”: The converts’ sense that Catholicism was both different from their former faiths and yet also very similar. They accepted their new faith as adults … Intellectually, then, conversion was often incremental, but institutionally (as well as perceptually, to outside observers), the jump was immense from the establishment into the wilderness.64 The “entering the wilderness” narrative was common for male converts. This immense jump in experience provides an exciting opportunity to think about what kind of environment Catholicism provided for converts. The women of this study echo this experience.65 It should be safe to suggest, though, that conversion paved the way for other transgressions, such as rewriting the Victorian idea of femininity or what made a family. Provocatively, the “wilderness” of Catholicism removed the women from traditional expectations of English Protestant society. Within this “borderland” of Catholicism, the lay converts retained the basic tenets of Christian morality that they learned as Anglicans, but stretched convention in other ways. Lucy Bland asserts that Protestant religious women also had to balance differing concepts of womanhood – were they “agents of change” or Christian moralizers?66 To extend this further, Catholic convert women were acting as “agents of change” within their new faith and had a freedom of purpose since they were not restricted by many of the perceived conventions of “born” families. Their “otherness” to the faith brought a sense of flexibility since they were individually progressive enough to flout convention and convert. In many ways, conversion was another way of reconstructing a new image of English womanhood via religion and/or domestic choices and then opening up these private choices to the public sphere. This was indicative of wider changes for women, both at home and abroad. From the campaigns for Social Purity to the passing of Property Acts which gave women a right to ownership, Victorian women were legally entitled to control their fates to

36  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood a further degree than was previously possible.67 New Women and suffrage campaigners pushed these moments of historic change even further toward a hugely increased understanding of women’s equality in the public sphere. Non-conformist Protestant women such as the Quakers, the Salvation Army’s Hallelujah Lasses, and Unitarian women all made full use of these alterations to women’s position by linking religious faith to social action for women.68 Conversion was another site of a fundamental change wherein women could garner control over a very private aspect of their lives. For Roman Catholic women, born and converts, Catholicism proved to be a space for new perspectives. Women in the Private Sphere Christianity was strongly influential to the mid-century Victorian ideals of sentimental womanhood and domesticity. Scholars such as Dorothy Thompson, Barbara Taylor, and Jenny Daggers agree that, “in the years prior to the mid-nineteenth century, a sentimental middle-class ideal, of home and family under the control of a patriarchal male head of household, became the all-pervasive norm” alongside participatory Christianity.69 In (Protestant) Britain, the “Cult of Domesticity” and trope of True Womanhood were evident in artifacts as varied as Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861), writings of John Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies (1865), magazines such as Christian Miscellany and Family Visitor or Good Housekeeping, and the didactic artwork of George Elgar Hicks among others.70 The ideal attributes of “Catholic True Womanhood” were sketched out by various kinds of writers. Advice manuals were printed across the British Atlantic world suggesting modes of proper behavior for Catholic women particularly71 Irish priest Bernard O’Reilly, in his popular book of the same name from 1876.72 “Catholic True Womanhood” is a useful term for demonstrating how these ideals were culturally. In his guide, O’Reilly covered topics ranging from household management for Catholic women to leisure activities. He described the familial home as a wife’s own “Eden,” where she provided for the happiness of her husband and children, as the fulfillment of her “sacred nuptial obligation.”73 For the Victorians, domesticity or “married respectability” was linked to a concomitant concept of “spiritual” and, for many traditional Catholics, “true” womanhood.74 Likewise, rhetoric surrounding marriage informed female Victorian ideas of true womanhood. The most celebrated example and image of domestic and marital “bliss” in British history began with the betrothal of Albert to Victoria.75 To the public, their marriage provided a sociocultural example of how family life and domesticity should present itself in an industrialized, powerful, imperial society. Victorian women, Protestant and Catholic alike, were fed on a diet of respectability and morality through the arts, literature, and fear of being seen as a “fallen woman.”76 Indeed, it is true to say that marriage was generally privileged, over the state of singleness or a lasting spinsterhood.

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  37 Motivations for marriage were often quite simple, but the issues surrounding the institution of marriage and what it truly meant for women were incredibly complex.77 Impulses to choose something different for oneself or tweak the existing institution to suit oneself became more known, but not necessarily more commonplace, creating societal stresses. As the title of her most noted work Marriage as a Trade (1909) suggests, Cicely Hamilton believed marriage was, by necessity, the chosen “trade,” or “work,” for many women.78 She argues that, “woman, as we know her, is largely the product of the conditions imposed upon her by her staple industry.”79 Women’s place in private spaces, or as Hamilton would say, “the conditions imposed upon her,” were in flux.80 More broadly, gendered notions of behavior in the domestic sphere underpinned contemporary ideals of womanhood as passive and submissive. In her Book of Household Management (1859–1861), Mrs. Beeton repeated Milton’s anecdote that “nothing lovelier can be found In (sic) Woman, than to study household good.”81 But such assumptions of a Christian Cult of Domesticity already were attracting detractors in mid-century England. John Stuart Mill wrote The Subjection of Women (1869) and described the married woman in the home as an “actual bondservant of her husband; no less so, as far as the legal obligation goes, than slaves commonly so called.”82 Yet, some women still aspired to follow the trope of Catholic convert Coventry Patmore’s “Angel in the House.”83 Patmore’s version of perfect womanhood and domesticity included the begetting of at least three children and for the woman to be a patient, kind, and devoted helpmate who derived all her sense of self-worth from her husband: Man must be pleased; but him to please Is woman’s pleasure; … She casts her best, she flings herself. … She leans and weeps against his breast, And seems to think the sin was hers; Or any eye to see her charms, At any time, she’s still his wife, Dearly devoted to his arms; She loves with love that cannot tire; And when, ah woe, she loves alone, Through passionate duty love springs higher.84 While mid-Victorians popularized the image of the “Angel in the House,” it was the late Victorian and Edwardian women who rethought this ideal in increasing numbers through the idea of the New Woman, the women’s rights movement, and Social Purity campaigns. For many women it was a time of transgressing traditional expectations despite their pervasiveness.85 Historians such as Mary Poovey, Judith Walkowitz, Lynda Nead, and Seth Koven have all reconsidered the position of the Victorian female and their

38  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood once revisionist suggestions that Victorians were often sexually unorthodox or adventurous is now widely accepted. The exceptional lay Catholic women show a “rethinking” in their own lives through interpretations of their faith and other, more deeply controversial, actions. Indeed, even the most doctrinal documents of the Church, seemingly dogmatic about female subservience supported elastic or “less proscribed” understandings of the faith. Mangion and Lux-Sterritt show Catholic nuns and sisters contributed to broad interpretations of the Church’s mission and rethought “official boundaries” of piety.86 Mary Peckham Magray has made a similar contribution regarding the autonomy of Irish nuns.87 The position of institutionalized subservience of women in the roles of helpmeet and mother was found in Church documents and writings from the hierarchy but there was pushback. Evidencing slippage, these documents or religious figures advocating for women’s subservience often used language of equality as well. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1829) described marriage as where a wife was “to be subject to her husband.”88 However, in this same document, marriage was described as founded in mutuality. The husband is asked to “yield[s] the dominion of his person to the woman.”89 Father George Tyrrell, who lived with his close friend Maude Petre, judged New Women who rejected marriage/maternity as being “uncatholic.” He claimed the New Woman was an “abomination,” in their individualism and motivated by “British ideas” like the Protestant Reformation, the Utilitarian John Stuart Mill, and rationalism.90 But Tyrrell, in practice, lived with one of the most independent lay Catholic women of this era, Maude Petre, who yielded to neither man nor woman. On the position of suffrage, some in the Church like Cardinal Manning felt lay Catholic women’s place was firmly in the home.91 But, others, like Archbishop Vaughan, Manning’s successor, supported women’s enfranchisement, which he termed “just and beneficial” in 1896.92 Clearly, the late Victorian Church’s reactions to lay women’s activities in both spheres demonstrate a multiplicity of interpretations relating to women’s “place” by men. Why not by women? Catholic women, like many other Britons of the period, rethought gendered notions of behavior in the domestic and public sphere.93 Sue Morgan’s powerful supposition that for devout women, “religious discourses were never passively received … instead, they were constantly reinterpreted by women and invested with new meanings” is evidenced in my case studies.94 There is a real tension that develops for some of these women regarding the idealization of marriage and how they reject it for themselves. For example, Fletcher writes about Catholic female roles and argues for equality for them in British society. She also argues in favor of motherhood as the preeminent role for a woman to fulfill her “purpose” – both for the nation and as a Catholic. Yet for herself Fletcher rejected motherhood and marriage. Male ecclesiastical power, while outwardly monolithic and unbending, could be (and was) disregarded or adjusted by Catholic women in favor of individual interpretations of God’s will or Christ’s intervention.95

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  39 In theory, Catholic women accepted the image of the “Angel in the House,” yet in practice there was space for it to be contradicted by these same women. Catholicism, while outwardly dogmatic and completely patriarchal, was in practice open to interpretation by both men and women. For instance, via the vaunted example of the Marian celibate virgin, single Catholic women were afforded some level of exaltation in rejecting the “Angel” discourse. Consequently, contrary to the Cult of Domesticity and prevalent Victorian fears of spinsters and “odd women (single women),” the single Catholic woman was theologically valued by the Catholic Church, because “virginity is highly exalted and strongly recommended in Scripture as superior to marriage.”96 Singleness or spinsterhood was not only about sex, it was about personal autonomy, contemplative prayer, and forming other meaningful relationships through companionship. Most of the women in this book (with the exception of Batten, who was married until 1910) show this through their domestic relations. To the outside world, spinsters were “odd women” but many were actually living in a family constituted on their own terms.97 Philippa Levine labeled secular women who rejected marriage based on more theoretical ideas of freedom as making an “active choice” to distinguish them from those who were forced to remain unmarried despite seeking marriage for themselves as “a trade.”98 “Active choice” women, were concerned not simply with obtaining or guaranteeing personal freedoms and rights within the institution of marriage but with ensuring that the choice between marriage or single life, choice of partner, and choice about the form of marriage were decisions made actively by women, and therefore, these women navigated their lives outside of the bounds of patriarchal hegemony.99 All my subjects were “active choice” women. But as Levine states, this kind of “active choice” simply “does not correspond with our knowledge of the general pattern of marriage in this period,” which is what makes these Catholic women’s experiences even more fascinating.100 If a Catholic woman was expected to take one of two paths, convent or marriage, then an “active choice” regarding marriage links her with the non-Catholic world around her. It also indicates a strong level of autonomy not generally associated with Catholic women. This is particularly why the case of Hall and Fletcher as converts resonates. They had engaged fully with the Anglican world, therefore an “active choice” regarding marriage and domesticity seems plausible. These women chose their lives, rather than their lives being chosen for them. During the late-Victorian era, some women were rejecting marriage in growing numbers and it is possible that this rejection opened up a space to discard other strictures previously placed on these active, or “new,” women.101 With more research in the area of lay Catholic women, it may become increasingly possible to make greater claims about marriage, engagement with the secular world, and autonomy.

40  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood The Public Sphere Late Victorian Protestant and secular women were particularly successful in launching campaigns and founding groups thought to be of particular interest to women on matters such as purity, temperance, marriage, and education.102 Christian feminism created a space for women to band together over social concerns and create their own hierarchies of leadership and power, with their faiths providing a moral compass to follow. This change shows a transformation of female autonomy in the public sphere. The repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act (CDA) in 1886 marked an important moment in the political efficacy of activism by women. Passed in the 1860s, the CDA meant that women suspected of prostitution could be forcibly inspected for venereal disease. This Act exposed a double standard in society whereby women’s bodies were treated as public property, able to be searched upon demand in order to protect men from their harming influence. Its repeal in 1886 was due in large part to the campaigning of the liberal Christian feminist Josephine Butler and the popular press, and the CDA became a pivotal point in the reassertion of women’s rights.103 Jenny Daggers points to this moment in the Social Purity campaigns as important in reframing the Biblical ideas of womanhood.104 A new redemptive spirit came into popularity, with “fallen” women being termed “Magdalenes” after the New Testament’s Mary Magdalene (whose image has since been rehabilitated). Carol Herringer has shown that standards and interpretations of Biblical femininity could be, curiously, rather polarized between Catholic and Anglo-Catholic populations.105 Herringer argues Catholics saw Mary as exceptional and Protestants saw her as maternal. Could this Catholic view of Mary’s womanhood as “exceptional” indicate a shift from passive “True Catholic Womanhood” to active “Catholic New Womanhood” in the late Victorian mind? Further, Margaret Turnham states most recently that a culture of revivalism and redemption (usually associated with Protestant culture) in the Victorian English Catholic church contributed greatly to ongoing personal renewal and strengthening of the Church itself.106 It seems that across Christianity, many women were able to have a greater voice in how they lived their faith. A combination of ideas inherent to Catholics, alongside Protestant culture and progress in secular England, created a particular opportunity for personal autonomy for Catholic women. For many Protestant women moral philanthropy linked the middle-classes “superior moral qualities” with a desire to help downtrodden or fallen women improve their station.107 A middle- or upper-class woman’s place in society came to be defined, in part, by her ability to practice moral philanthropy in the public sphere. It was also one of the only parts of public life she was not excluded from.108 Protestant Women such as Octavia Hill, Josephine Butler, or Catherine Booth were fully engaged in this kind of moral philanthropy work in the late-Victorian era, one that was reinforced by religious belief. This does not of course mean that all women were working like Hill, Butler, or Booth

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  41 in such a public way to practice spiritual womanhood. Clearly though, these ideas of social purity and spiritual womanhood were widespread, especially among evangelical Protestant groups such as the Salvation Army. By the turn of the century spiritual womanhood had become, for many, an approved way of being both inside and outside the home, and it was no longer linked directly to family and marriage as in the mid-Victorian era. This allowed for a stronger version of the attitudes, beliefs, and implications of spiritual womanhood to evolve into Christian feminism. Their example was popularized in the press and undoubtedly encouraging to other religious middle-class women who sought a life outside of the domestic sphere. It is unclear how examples of philanthropic lay Catholic womanhood, if any, were visible to Catholic women, especially those outside the metropole before the turn of the century. Religious sisters and nuns were, in some areas, visible reminders of Catholic female philanthropic work. Some women may have been involved with small-scale missionizing, group work, or volunteerism. The aristocratic Ladies of Charity were engaged in piecemeal philanthropic work in London, but it seems the vast majority of lay Catholic women lacked any real examples of moral philanthropy in practice.109 Turnham, Kester Aspden, and Peter Doyle show that, in general, after Rerum Novarum “Catholic Action” never really caught on in England in the way it did elsewhere, focusing on funding (but not active volunteering), missionizing, benevolence, and sodalities.110 Margaret Fletcher saw this absence after her conversion and it was her work in particular that made lay Catholic female moral philanthropy more widespread in England. There was undoubtedly a fulfilling social aspect to taking part in Christian philanthropy. However, it seems for most middle-class Catholics, until the founding of the CWL, a space for socializing while helping co-religionists was limited to the aristocracy, or non-religious work if available.111 More research is needed in regard to lay Catholic women’s activities during this time period to flesh out possible connections between Catholicism and activism. The Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882 were pivotal in changing the status and role of, especially middle-class, women. These acts were considered elemental in raising the status of women above marriage chattel. The first Act allowed women the right to retain money they earned or inherited without ownership passing over to her husband. The second Act allowed women to own homes and property in their own right. During this same period Frances Power Cobbe, who famously rejected religious belief and traditional domestic life, campaigned for wives to retain custody of their children and for the protection of wives from violence within marriage. These changes in governmental sanctions on women’s marriage rights helped to change perceptions of women as chattel and modernize many women’s perceptions of themselves as individuals. Male domination was not shattered, but cracks were beginning to show in the walls of power, especially after the Reform Acts. Yet, there was still distrust among some Catholic men about the impact of contemporary society on Catholic women.

42  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood One English Jesuit, William Humphrey, writing just after the passage of the 1882 Act, lamented the effect of the Divorce Acts. He felt that Catholics were at the mercy of English (Protestant laws) that supported “adultery” and heralded “the idea of Christian marriage … fading from the English mind.”112 Humphrey stressed that God’s sanctifying of marriage was also the sanctifying of society and women: To restore woman to her rightful place in the economy of the human race, to make man acknowledge her and treat her as his equal – with a personal dignity as perfect as his own – was part of the mission of the Redeemer of mankind. To this end He restored matrimony … Sanctifying matrimony, He sanctified the family; and, sanctifying the family, He sanctified society … The result was Christendom; and in Christendom, the dignity of woman.113 Humphrey’s attitude was that Catholicism alone provided a space for women’s equality and dignity. The passing of the Divorce Acts proved that Protestant sects lacked respect for the family. He wrote: The Catholic and Roman Church which restored the position of woman, clearly asserts and unflinchingly maintains her rights; and with the Catholic religion her position and her rights are bound up. Within the Catholic Church her dignity is assured; outside that Church she is at the mercy of her master.114 To protect Catholic women from the “mercy of her master,” she should be kept from secular society. But, as I have illustrated already, the “fortress Church” was not as solid as has been previously thought, and there were Catholic women trespassing those boundaries.115 Fear of Catholic women being subject to Protestant ideology remained a concern into even the post-war period. Consequently, Catholics were often uncomfortable with exposing their daughters to similarly secularizing influences in higher education. Margaret Fletcher believed this lack of educational opportunities to be highly problematic, as Catholics, especially middle-class women, were out of “touch with the life of their age and country.”116 There were huge disparities between the educations afforded to middle-class Catholic girls versus that of Protestant young ladies: Those coming into the Church as converts, who have been previously associated with the non-Catholic educational movement, and also such Catholics by right of birth as have done any abstract thinking on the subject, cannot fail to be struck by the weakness … that must necessarily arise from the mental isolation.117 Upon discovering how great the divide was between Catholic and nonCatholic women, Fletcher, along with Dowager Duchess of Denbigh, FM

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  43 Stourton, and others began to work in earnest to help improve the status of lay Catholic women by drawing attention to educational deficiencies.118 These deficiencies were rather quite clear when compared to the great steps made in the field of the education of Protestant women. Medical schools were open to Protestant women from the 1880s and residential colleges were established at Oxbridge for women to attend, although women were not allowed to take degrees until much later.119 It was only from 1895 that Catholic men were allowed by the Church to attend the Protestant-affiliated colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. At Oxford, Roman Catholic colleges were established by the Jesuits and Benedictines to allow Catholic men the opportunity of studying with others of their faith. Catholic women did not officially earn the right to attend Oxford until over a decade later. New Women who pursued higher education, or in other ways transgressed the Victorian assumptions of domestic servility through rejecting marriage or otherwise pushing social boundaries, provided a contemporary example of the power unconventionality could hold for women. The Idea of the New Woman “New Women” of the late 19th century were interested in “pondering social problems/which appeal to heart and brain … [and] flouting social fictions,” in both their spiritual and secular lives.120 They pushed on the traditional markers of respectability and femininity. These women were so influential that there was a large body of fiction writing from the 1890s that focused on these women, the “marriage question,” and its repercussions societally called “New Woman fiction.”121 Ann Heilmann, a scholar of New Woman fiction, claims that the New Woman “personified the turn of the century crisis of category precisely because of the polymorphous nature of the categories and meaning that could be ascribed to her.”122 The incongruity of the definition of the New Woman, as well as the multiplicity of expressions of this style of womanhood, was a symbol of renegotiation of mid- and lateVictorian gender ideals in the late 19th century. Sprows Cummings has made the helpful distinction that while many American Catholic women of this same time were not New Women per se, they clearly drew from that Progressive spirit and “emulated” the New Woman in practice.123 Petre and Batten, both practicing Catholics in the New Woman era, were certainly increasingly active in the public sphere. Fletcher, who did not convert until the end of the 1890s, exhibited New Women characteristics. Radclyffe Hall, a teenager in the 1890s, invariably drew from the transgressive freedoms of the age.124 The New Woman and the fiction surrounding her drew on the Catholic female perspective in its pages. However, as a genre, New Woman fiction did not depict Catholic women as particularly positive examples of New Womanhood. Instead, Catholic women were portrayed as examples of corrupt femininity.125 Heilmann states, “New Woman fiction was more than a literary response to the social changes brought about by the Victorian Women’s

44  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood Movement: it constituted and conceived of itself as, an agent of social and political transformation” and furthermore “underpinned by the active part many writers took in the turn-of-the-century women’s movement and related political causes.”126 The irony of this is that Catholic men like Tyrrell, a radical thinker in many ways, also rejected the New Woman (Catholic or not) as profane.127 Here we see two sides of the same coin, corruption being presented as both Catholic and related to the New Woman trope simultaneously. But women like Fletcher claimed their positivist versions of their own Catholic New Womanhood elsewhere: There is a need for the presence in the midst of society, not of an exact repetition of any previous type of woman, but of a ‘new woman’ who is new in Christ. Catholicism alone can produce her. The Catholic Church alone has the ideal pattern and the living grace which can breather the true spirit into expanding knowledge.128 Female Catholicism was “othered” even in the literature of the day. Mrs. Humphry Ward’s Daphne or Marriage à la Mode (1909), Grant Allen’s The Woman Who Did (1895), and Arnold Bennett’s Whom God Hath Joined (1906) were novels that explored modern women’s notions of courtship, a successful marriage, and, to varied extents, question the religious and cultural acceptability of divorce for women.129 The novels, like specialist magazines that promoted didactic but entertaining journalism such as the Pall Mall Gazette and Punch, were attractive to mass audiences and used spectacle to draw attention to contested spaces in Victorian society.130 These didactic and entertaining reading materials illustrated that women with religious ideals who acted transgressively were becoming a more common source of uncertainty in Catholic and Protestant society alike. Ward and Bennett’s texts were termed “anti-feminist” and pointedly demonstrated women’s errors and a cold-hearted rejection of diversity in lifestyle for women. Margaret Beetham argues that in the genre “deviant women … became the signifier of gender crisis,” but it was, of course, also about cracks in society where the tensions were developing around gender, sexuality, marriage, and religious difference.131 Some works on New Women, written in support of feminism, could be read as anti-Catholic, anti-hierarchical tracts.132 The protagonists of the novels are often American but of Spanish, French, or Irish ancestry, inferring Catholic belief. These Catholic New Women of the day were depicted as the fiery Daphne in Marriage à la Mode or the impure Phyllis in Whom God hath Joined. These women follow their convictions regarding marriage, much to the chagrin of middle-class and upper middle-class society. Furthermore, other female characters in each text point to the various authors’ theories that reforms for women’s rights were arbitrary and unwarranted given the “manic” and “hysterical” behavior of modern women. These ancillary characters were almost meant to provide counterpoints of staid Anglican (English)

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  45 behavior versus foreign, highly sexed (Catholic) behavior. For example, this is seen in The Woman Who Did, through the characters of Mrs. Verrier (“She moved with a languid step and looked absently about her. Roger could not make up his mind whether she was American or English”) and her counterpoint, Renée Souchon, an overly enchanting French-Catholic governess.133 A French Catholic woman was the scourge of Arnold Bennett’s Whom God Hath Joined.134 Mrs. Humphry Ward, the founder of the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League (and the daughter of famous Catholic convert Tom Arnold), significantly chose to use a Catholic woman to bear the brunt of her disapproval of modern women.135 Of all her writing, Daphne or Marriage à la Mode contains the most illustrative intersection of gender, faith, womanhood, and marriage.136 Ward’s protagonist, Daphne Floyd, is portrayed in caricature as a woman without care, she is loud, brash, and self-righteously assured, contrasting to the ideal demure English womanhood.137 These examples demonstrate that Catholic women were portrayed negatively by (a) those that sought to keep England “English” and (b) those that could not understand how Catholicism could fit into the contemporary world. It is helpful to look at these novels within the context of each other and the wider historical scene.138 These works and their author’s ideas about women, marriage, and religion were reflections of contemporary society whereby Catholics were portrayed as outsiders ethnically and culturally with “loose” ideas about marriage. However, it seems apparent that in daily life, Catholic New Women did not see themselves as either New Women or unrespectable. Certainly, there is a great disconnect between how these women saw themselves and how others saw them, which is highlighted by the New Woman literature. The New Woman was an image that remained with the British public long after the 1890s. In this instance, it might be argued it was the New Women movement that contributed to the more dramatic militant campaign for rights – the Suffrage movement. Enfranchisement It was during this period around the turn of the 20th century that women increased their work for the enfranchisement of their sex. In the early 1870s, the campaign for women’s suffrage was launched following on the successes of the Reform Acts to increase the electorate. In 1897, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) was formed from a merger of two older organizations advocating woman’s suffrage.139 The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) broke off from the NUWSS in 1903 and within two years began a militant campaign for suffrage. Militancy was not advocated by all women who valued the vote, and many rejected the hunger strikes, brick throwing, and later more extreme acts such as the now contested moment of Emily Davison and the King’s horse at Epsom in 1913. A split in the WSPU in 1907 led to the founding of the Women’s Freedom League (WFL). When the First World War broke out in 1914, it challenged the way the suffragettes/ists saw themselves within

46  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood the nation. The majority of women, including the Pankhurst family who were the most well-known advocates for suffrage, supported the war. The Catholic Women’s Suffrage movement was, not surprisingly, progressing along a parallel but rather more delicate course. Elaine Clark has shown that for Catholic women, the real disparity in cultural and social capital meant there was a difference in method from the English suffrage campaigns.140 This was due to what female Catholic suffragist Christopher St. John termed as the “double prejudice” experienced by Catholic women, “that of certain Catholics against feminism, and that of certain feminists against the Church.”141 The Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society (CWSS) was the first of its kind in the world and founded in 1910 by Catholic members of the WSPU.142 The CWSS board counted among its numbers women whose names were also present in the rolls of the CWL such as Alice Abadam, Alice Meynell, and Virginia Crawford. Crawford advocated for the enfranchisement of women along both feminist and Catholic lines.143 Irish-born Catholic Charlotte Despard marched on Parliament to campaign for suffrage and was arrested on Ash Wednesday, 1907 after receiving her ashes.144 The CWSS was aligned with other religious suffrage movements in advocating for Christian feminism, while engaging with larger issues of Catholicism and women’s rights.145 The CWSS became the St. Joan’s Alliance after the franchise was given to women, taking as its patron saint, Joan of Arc. In many ways the CWSS indicated, along with the CWL, a much greater inclusion of lay Catholic women in secular society. Indeed, during the First World War, much of the “people apart” ideology seems to fall by the wayside. Wartime Women During the war, Catholic women, like other Britons, not only worked very near to the Front as WRNs (Women’s Royal Navy Service) and VADs (Voluntary Aid Detachment), but also on the Home Front in helping with war work, keeping the national economy going in mills among other occupations. The CWL was at the forefront of activities to help in the war effort which included providing places for all the families of the Belgian Catholic Women’s League with food and shelter.146 The CWL also launched a “huts” campaign where women worked on the Front providing places of rest and solidarity for Catholic soldiers.147 Under the leadership of Mabel Hope, they also endeavored to do the same in London: It is the experience of those who have recently worked among Catholic soldiers in London that the need for a Soldiers’ Club is very pressing. Catholic soldiers come from all parts of the world—Australia, Canada, Ireland, and many parts of England, Scotland, and Wales—and have no place in London in which to meet each other or make themselves known to our clergy, who are keen to make friends with them and to help them spiritually before they go, or return, to the front.148

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  47 Unexpectedly, these huts became “unwittingly” vital as a “means of evangelical action” and conversion of soldiers.149 Outside of the CWL, Catholics, called on as Britons, aided those that they shared a religious connection with as well as political, national networks. The position of lay Catholics during the war deserves further study as it brings up questions about loyalty to nation over religion. For their part, Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall were involved with helping the Catholic Belgian refugees once in England.150 They attended a Mass and procession in honor of the refugees along with 8,000 other Catholics at Westminster Cathedral. The procession was lauded for its internationality and evidence of an English Catholic strength of spirit: Its cosmopolitan character was shown by the English, Irish, French, Belgian and Polish contingents each carrying their own national colours and singing hymns and litanies in their mother tongue. This varied and international gathering was a living testimony to the catholicity of the One Church of God.151 This idea of Roman Catholicism openly celebrated in the streets of Westminster, next to Buckingham Palace, seems to be a fitting example of the change in the position of Catholic society, especially Catholic women over the period from c.1880 to c.1930. In 1880, such a procession would have been unthinkable, from this example and the example of Gasquet’s party, which I began this section with, it seems that Catholics were becoming a greater part of English society by 1914. It was in this environment that the case of Catholic womanhood became aligned more closely with secular womanhood. Conclusion Many of these women’s causes in the late 19th century highlight a larger moment of Protestant, secular women’s ever-increasing engagement in the public sphere through social work. There were examples of lay Catholic women taking part in women’s campaigns in continental Europe and North America during the 1880s and 1890s, but without more research it is impossible to claim numbers of lay Catholic social and philanthropic involvement. It is possible to infer that Catholic women were influenced by the tolerant environment of late Victorian society, even if they did not support all reforms. In popular culture, the idea of the New Woman gained traction in the 1890s, and this seems to have coincided with larger Catholic concerns toward secular society. Around this period of the New Woman, there is a marked increase in the activities of some lay Catholic women in reformative and sometimes, radical, behaviors. The environment of greater rights and work for Catholic women was delayed in comparison to the Protestant examples of engagement in various public areas of work. However, it seems possible to suggest that Catholic women witnessed the changes in opportunities for

48  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood Protestant women over the late Victorian period, which, in turn, slowly influenced Catholic women’s greater expressions of autonomy. Creating a Catholic identity was fraught with difficulty after the English Reformation until toleration began in earnest in 1829. Levels of marginalization were still palpable over the long 19th century, and Catholicism has remained a minority faith. However, due to the conversion of members of the middle, intellectual, and upper classes, the position of Catholics as a people was slowly changing from extreme moments of Anti-Catholicism that typified much of the mid-Victorian period after the revitalization of the hierarchy. For some Catholic women, this seemingly patriarchal religion became a locus of empowerment, in which one was able to reject some aspects of Catholic True Womanhood and domesticity while developing strong views on their faith. As lay Catholic women, Fletcher, Batten, Hall, and Petre – converts and “born” Catholics – were all able to transform the rhetoric of religion into new perspectives of Catholic womanhood for themselves. Notes 1 Margaret Fletcher, Catholic Women, The Ideals They Stand for: An Address Delivered by Margaret Fletcher, President of the CWL at the Canadian Camp, Bramshott, Hants, March 10, 1918 (Bexhill: Bexhill Printing co., 1918), pp. 12–13. 2 For a traditional interpretation of the import of the Jesuit Mission, see John Bossy, The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976); William V. Bangert, SJ, A History of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1972); Adrian Morey, The Catholic Subjects of Elizabeth I (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1978). 3 Roland Connelly, The Women of the Catholic Resistance in England, 1540–1680 (Cambridge: The Pentland Press, 1997). 4 John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: A History of the Lives, Sufferings and Triumphant Deaths of the Early Christian and the Protestant Martyrs, ed., William Byron Forbush (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004). 5 Pius V, Regnans in Excelsis (1570). 6 John Bossy, Peace in the Post-Reformation: The Birkbeck Lectures [1995] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 73–100. 7 David Hempton, The Church in the Long Eighteenth Century (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), pp. 109–112. 8 Eric G. Tenbus, ““We Fight for the Cause of God”: English Catholics, the Education of the Poor, and the Transformation of Catholic Identity in Victorian Britain,” Journal of British Studies, Vol. 46, No. 4 (October 2007), pp. 861–883. 9 An Act for the Relief of His Majesty’s Roman Catholic Subjects. April 13, 1829. HL/PO/PU/1/1829/10G4n13 – Public General Act (10 Geo. 4 c. 7). The National Archives (TNA), Public Record Office (PRO). 10 John Henry Newman, “The Second Spring: A Sermon delivered to the First Provincial Council of Westminster, 1852,” in Sermon Notes of John Henry Cardinal Newman, 1849–1878, Newman, John H., ed. (London: Longmans, Green, 1913).  11 Owen Chadwick, The Spirit of the Oxford Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990 [repr. 1995]), pp. 2, 136. 12 John Keble, “National Apostasy,” Preached at St Mary’s, Oxford, 14 July 1833 (London: AR Mowbray, 1931). Keble suggested that England was in a period of

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  49 Apostasy and that it was the duty of Christians to demonstrate their faith but also to acknowledge that the Church of England was “endangered.” In Tract 90, Newman argued that the Roman Church’s dogma was not actually inconsistent with Luther’s Thirty-nine Articles (1563) defining the Anglican Communion. Newman wrote: “it is often urged, and sometimes felt and granted, that there are in the Articles propositions or terms inconsistent with the Catholic faith; or, at least, when persons do not go so far as to feel the objection as of force, they are perplexed how best to reply to it, or how most simply to explain the passages on which it is made to rest … nothing more.” See John H. Newman, E.B. Pusey, and John Keble, Tract 90: On Certain Passages in the 39 Articles (London: Walter Smith and Innes, 1890). 13 “Dr Pusey’s Sermon, 1843,” The Observer, July 10, 1843. The heresy in question being a belief in transubstantiation and atonement via the celebration of the Eucharist. 14 Henry Frowde, Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1913), p. 224. 15 See the final chapter in Erik Sidenvall, After anti-Catholicism? John Henry Newman and Protestant Britain, 1845–c.1890 (London: AT&T Clark International, 2005). 16 Patrick Allitt, Catholic Converts (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 3. 17 Ibid. 18 Pius IX, Universalis Ecclesiae (1850). 19 Matthew Arnold, The Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (London: Macmillan and co., 1891), p. 226. 20 Sir Travers Twiss, The Letters Apostolic of Pope Pius IX: Considered, with Reference to the Laws of England the Law of Europe (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1851), p. vii in the Appendix. 21 “The Roman Catholic View of ‘The Papal Aggression,’” Illustrated London News, November 16, 1850; “The Papal Aggression,” Illustrated London News, November 30, 1850; “Anti-Papal Demonstration at Salisbury,” Illustrated London News, November 30, 1850. 22 H. Exeter et al., “Who is to Rule England,” The Sunday Times, November 24, 1850. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 London proper is divided into two separate governing areas. There is the Archdiocese of Westminster and the Archdiocese of Southwark, although both are usually referred to as a Diocese, although in fact both hold the canonical prefix of “arch.” Westminster extends North up into Hertfordshire and Southwark, South from London and East to Cornwall. 28 Christine Kinealy, This Great Calamity: The Irish famine, 1845–52 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1994). Colm Tóibín and Diarmaid Ferriter, The Irish famine: A Documentary (London: Profile Books, London Review of Books, 2001); D. George Boyce and Alan O’Day, eds., The Making of Modern Irish History: Revisionism and the Revisionist Controversy (London: Routledge, 1996); James S. Donnelly, Jr., The Great Irish Potato Famine (Gloucestershire: Sutton, 2001); Paul Bew, Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789–2006 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 29 Letter from W Beech, Guardian, to the Poor Law Commission, June 8, 1847. National Archives. MH 12/11364/165. Folio 2010. 30 For information on the rise of anti-Catholicism in England following these developments, please see D.G. Paz, “Popular Anti-Catholicism in England, 1850– 1851,” Albion, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Winter 1979), pp. 331–359.

50  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood 31 For more on why many Catholics were uncomfortable with being public about their faith, please see Eleanor McNees, “Punch and the Pope: Three Decades of Anti-Catholicism Caricature,” Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Spring 2004), pp. 18–45. 32 Eric G. Tenbus, ““We Fight for the Cause of God”: English Catholics, the Education of the Poor, and the Transformation of Catholic Identity in Victorian Britain,” Journal of British Studies, Vol. 46, No. 4 (October 2007)pp. 861–883 (p. 862). 33 See, Leeds Diocesan Archives, Saurin v. Starr MSS; op cit. National Archives, C 16/600/S56 –Saurin v. Starr, 1869; Rene Kollar, Foreign and Wicked Institution?: The Campaign against Convents in Victorian England (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Pub., 2011).; publication of cases in the UK was historically erratic, see also the compilation of speeches from the case published by the lawyer for the defense: John Duke Coleridge, Speeches Delivered in the Court of the Queen’s Bench, in the Case of Saurin v. Starr & Another (London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1869). 34 “Ritual Priest.” Punch, Vol. LVI, February 20, 1869, p. 72. 35 Ibid. 36 Kathleen Sprows Cummings, New Women of The Old Faith (2009). 37 W.E. Gladstone and Philip Schaff, The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance: A Political Expostulation (New York: Harper, 1875). 38 “Latest News by Cable,” New York Times, February 25, 1875; “Mr. Gladstone and the Roman Catholics,” New York Times, November 20, 1874; “English Gossip,” New York Times, March 12, 1875. 39 For a full list of exactly which Modernist beliefs were condemned by Pius X, see his syllabus, Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), the Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), and the Oath against Modernism (1910) which was required by the Church hierarchy from 1910 to 1967. The encyclicals are most commonly referred to by the first word in the title. 40 Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1910). 41 Petre, My Way of Faith, p. 212. 42 Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Pius X (1910). 43 Ibid. 44 Allitt, Catholic Converts (2000), p. 127. 45 Ibid., p. 127. 46 For more on the import of virginity in Catholicism, see Bernard O’Reilly, The Mirror of True Womanhood, 16th ed. (New York: P.J. Kenedy, Excelsior Catholic Pub. House, 1886). 47 Unfortunately, I have not been able to unearth the narrative or circumstances of Batten’s conversion. Although, there are a great amount of materials available on Batten in the private collection of Cara Lancaster, not all are accessible. Lancaster herself has not seen many of these materials in many years due to the sheer mass and their inaccessibility. Also, Batten’s early diaries were destroyed at her death according to her wishes. 48 Geraldine Brassil, “Feminist Networks Connecting Dublin and London: Sarah Atkinson, Bessie Rayner Parkes, and the Power of the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press,” Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 55, No. 1 (2022), pp. 27–50. 49 Mrs. Augustus Craven, Life of Georgiana Fullerton (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1888), p. 286. 50 [Madame Cecilia], Hints for Catechists on Instructing Converts (London: R & T Washbourne, Ltd., 1910). 51 Ibid., pp. 14–34. 52 Barbara Walsh, Roman Catholic Nuns in England and Wales, 1800–1937: A Social History (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2002), p. 12.

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  51 53 Roger Swift and Sheridan Gilley, eds., The Irish in Victorian Britain: The Local Dimension (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999), p. 278. 54 Catholic Directory: Ecclesiastical Register and Almanac, 1900 (Cincinnati: Burns and Oates, 1900). 55 Catholic Directory: Ecclesiastical Register and Almanac, 1911 (London: Burns and Oates, 1911). 56 A.E.C.W. Spencer, “The Demography and Sociography of the Roman Catholic Community of England and Wales,” in The Committed Church, L. Bright and S. Clements, eds. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1966); Hugh McLeod, Religion and Society in England 1850–1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996); D. Gwynn, “Growth of the English Catholic Community,” in The English Catholics 1850–1950, G.A. Beck, ed. (London: Burns, Oates, 1950). 57 The Catholic Directory, 1912 (London: Burns and Oates, 1912), p. 55. The number of Catholics reported in the 1912 Directory was unchanged from 1911 at 5,590,010. This number was estimated at about 2,269,000 in Great Britain and Ireland (as yet, undivided) at 3,321,010. Both these numbers seem rather low, given that the population of Southern Ireland was at roughly that number. Possibly Northern Irish numbers were not considered? 58 D. Gwyn, “Growth of the English Catholic Community,” in The English Catholics 1850–1950, G.A. Beck, ed. (London: Burns, Oates, 1950), 422. 59 This is an area that could also benefit from more research. The lack of hard numbers on conversions has proved to be an ongoing stumbling block for Catholic historians in Britain. 60 Robert Hugh Benson, Confession of a Convert (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1913); Maurice Leahy, ed. Conversions to the Catholic Church: A Symposium (London: Burns Oates and Washbourne, 1933). 61 Karl Beckson, “Gray, John Henry (1866–1934),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 62 A fascinating Catholic convert from the 1850s, Lady Georgina Fullerton, was an elite lay woman who fits into this pattern. See Craven, Life of Georgiana Fullerton (1888). 63 Allitt, Catholic Converts (2000), p. 134. 64 Ibid., p. 3. 65 There is much more work done on American Catholic lay women. See, for example, James J. Kenneally, The History of American Catholic Women (New York: Crossroad, 1990). 66 Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast: English Feminism and Sexual Morality, 1885– 1914 (London: Penguin, 1995), p. 48. 67 On social purity, see Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1992), pp. 132–134. 68 Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast (1995), pp. 48–51; Kathryn Gleadle, Borderline Citizens: Women, Gender and Political Culture in Britain, 1815–1867 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 69 Barbara Taylor, Eve and the New Jerusalem: Socialism and Feminism in the 19th Century (London: Virago, 1983), p. 262. 70 Mrs [Isabella] Beeton, Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (London: SO Beeton, 1861); John Ruskin and Deborah Epstein Nord, Sesame and Lilies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), 2002. 71 Paula M Kane, Separatism and Subculture (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), p. 176. 72 Bernard O’Reilly, The Mirror of True Womanhood (1886). 73 Bernard O’Reilly, The Mirror of True Womanhood, pp. 30–32.

52  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood 74 Jenny Daggers, The British Christian Women's Movement (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2002), p. 7. 75 Arianne Chernock, The Right to Rule and the Rights of Woman: Queen Victoria and the Women’s Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Margaret Homans, Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and British Culture, 1837–1876 (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1998), p. 7; Helen Rappaport, Queen Victoria (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003), p. 426. 76 In art, for depictions of the woman fallen from “True Womanhood,” see the works of George Elgar Hicks, Woman’s Mission: Companion of Manhood, Oil on canvas (London, 1863), Tate Britain; William Holman Hunt, The Awakening Conscience, Oil on canvas (London, 1853), Tate Britain; Augustus Leopold Egg, Past and Present, Nos. 1–3, Oil on canvas (London, 1858), Tate Britain. 77 Virginia Nicolson, Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900–1939 (London: Harper Perennial, 2005); Katie Roiphe, Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles, 1910–1939 (New York: Dial Press, 2007); Phyllis Rose, Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages (London: Vintage, 1984); Gertrude Himmelfarb, Marriage and Morals among the Victorians (New York: Knopf, 1986), pp. xiii–xiv. 78 As an aside, Hamilton lived in Malvern where Radclyffe Hall resided with Mabel Batten. In addition, she wrote and worked with other women in their circle such as Ethel Smyth, Christopher St. John, and Edith Craig. 79 Cicely Hamilton, Marriage as a Trade (London, UK: Women’s Press, 1981[1909]), p. 17. 80 Ibid. 81 Beeton, p. iii. Mrs Beeton felt it important to give a husband the same service at home he received out of the home at his club. 82 John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (London: Longmans, 1869), p. 55. 83 Coventry Patmore, The Angel in the House (London: Macmillan & co., 1863). 84 Ibid., pp. 109–110. 85 F.M.L. Thompson, The Rise of Respectable Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Poovey, Uneven Developments (London: Virago Press, 1989); Lynda Nead, Victorian Babylon (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000); Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Seth Koven, Slumming (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). 86 Laurence Lux-Sterritt and Carmen Mangion, eds. Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality: Women and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain and Europe, 1200– 1900 (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 1–15, esp. p. 2. 87 Mary Peckham Magray, The Transforming Power of the Nuns: Women, Religion, and Cultural Change in Ireland, 1750–1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 88 Pius V and J Donovan, The Catechism of The Council of Trent, 1st ed. (Dublin: W. Folds and Son, 1829), p. 325. 89 Ibid., p. 326. 90 George Tyrrell, “The Old Faith and The New Woman. II,” The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. 22, No. 87 (1897), pp. 630–645. Tyrrell met Petre in 1897, but their relationship did not develop until 1900. This seems to have been his only time writing about New Women in particular, but it seems likely that perhaps his views on this matter changed over the Modernist controversy. 9 1 Arthur Wollaston Hutton, Cardinal Manning (London: Methuen, 1892), p. 247. 92 Augustin Rössler and William Fanning. “Woman,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 15 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912).

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  53  93 For Catholic nuns: Laurence Lux-Sterritt and Carmen M Mangion, Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality: Women and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain and Europe, 1200–1900 (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Carmen M. Mangion, Contested Identities: Catholic Women Religious in Nineteenthcentury England and Wales (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008); Jo Ann McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996); Barbara Walsh, Roman Catholic Nuns in England and Wales, 1800–1937 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2002). On women and religion in Britain, see Sue Morgan and Jacqueline deVries, eds., Women, Gender, and Religious Cultures in Britain, 1800–1940 (London: Routledge, 2010); Sarah C. Williams, “Is there a Bible in the House? Gender, Religion and Family Culture,” in Women, Gender, and Religious Cultures in Britain, 1800–1940, Sue Morgan and Jacqueline DeVries, eds. (London: Routledge, 2010); Jessica Cox, Mark Llewellyn and Nadine Muller, Women and Belief, 1852–1928 (Oxon: Routledge, 2013).  94 Sue Morgan and Jacqueline deVries, eds., Women, Gender, and Religious Cultures in Britain, 1800–1940 (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 2–3.  95 This idea of Catholic women acting outside the boundaries of male clerical modes is argued by Mangion, Lux- Sterrit, and Elaine Clark, as well as in the Irish context by Cara Delay. SeeGender, Catholicism and Spirituality, Laurence Lux-Sterritt and Carmen Mangion, eds. (2011), pp. 1–15, esp. p. 11; Elaine Clark, “Catholics and the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage in England,” Church History, Vol. 73, No. 3 (2004), pp. 635–665, esp. p. 644; Cara Delay, “Language Which Will Move Their Hearts”: Speaking Power, Performance, and the Lay-Clerical Relationship in Modern Catholic Ireland,’ Journal of British Studies, Vol. 53 (April 2014), pp. 426–452.  96 Pius V and J Donovan, The Catechism of The Council of Trent (Dublin: W. Folds and Son, 1829), p. 328.  97 Emma Liggins, Odd Women? Spinsters, Lesbians and Widows in British Women’s Fiction, 1850–1930 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014); Martha Vicinus, Intimate Friends (2004).  98 Philippa Levine, “So Few Prizes and So Many Blanks:’ Marriage and Feminism in Later Nineteenth-Century England,” Journal of British Studies, Vol.28, No. 2 (April 1989), pp. 150–174, 159. Civil marriages have been legal in Britain since the Act for Marriages in England was passed in 1836; however, they were still usually solemnized in Anglican churches.  99 Ibid. 100 Ibid. 101 Patrick Allitt, Catholic Converts, p. 141. Allitt refers to a number of American Catholic women – Agnes Repplier (1855–1950), Louise Imogen Guiney (1861–1920), Katherine Bregy (1882–1967), Katherine Burton (1890–1969) – who converted to Catholicism and “described single life as a positive vocation, providing an opportunity for work that would otherwise have been impossible.” This same motivation seems to have been present in British Catholic society as well. See pp. 133–142, pp. 152–153. 102 Barbara Caine, English Feminism, 1780–1980 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 93. 103 Butler, while not part of any particular Christian sect, was intensely religious and linked her activities in the public sphere closely with her understanding of her beliefs. See J.E. Butler, Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade ([S.l.]: Horace Marshall, 1910); Barbara Caine, English Feminism, 1780–1980 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 108–110, p. 103. 104 Jenny Daggers, The British Christian Women’s Movement (2002), p. 6.

54  Catholicism and Lay Womanhood 105 Carol Engelhardt Herringer, Victorians and The Virgin Mary (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008). 106 Margaret H. Turnham, Catholic Faith and Practice in England, 1779–1992: The Role of Revivalism and Renewal (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2015), pp. 1–5. 107 Jenny Daggers, The British Christian Women's Movement (2002), p. 9. 108 Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast (London: Penguin, 1995), pp. 50–51. 109 Devotional sodalities for lay Catholic women existed, but philanthropic work is an area in which there is little research. This is in stark contrast to the robust body of work on Protestant social work by women in the same time period. 110 Turnham, pp. 112–113; Kester Aspden, “The English Roman Catholic Bishops and the Social Order, 1918–26,” Recusant History, Vol. 25, No. 3 (2001), pp. 543–564; Peter Doyle, “Charles Plater S.J. and Origins of the Catholic Social Guild. Recusant History,” Recusant History, Vol. 21, No. 3 (1993), pp. 401–417. 111 Yaffa Claire Draznin, Victorian London's Middle-Class Housewife: What She Did All Day (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), pp. 143–145. 112 William Humphrey, SJ, “Christian Marriage,” The Month, October 49:232, pp. 254–276. 113 Ibid., pp. 274–275. 114 Ibid., p. 275. 115 Kester Aspden, Fortress Church: The English Roman Catholic Bishops and Politics, 1903–63 (Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2002). 116 Fletcher, Margaret. “Proposal …” p. 2, BO 1/30 CWL Heading, 1906–1912, WDA. 117 Ibid. 118 “Catholic Secondary Education for Women,” The Tablet, December 21, 1895. 119 Oxford, 1921; Cambridge, 1948. 120 Juliet Gardiner, The New Woman (London: Collins & Brown, 1993), p. 15. 121 Gail Cunningham in The New Woman and the Victorian Novel (1978) describes the late-Victorian novelists who, “ruthlessly hack[ed] away the foundations of idealized femininity on which much of the Victorian moral structure was built” (p. 19) and “exposed [the family and marriage] as a nest of seething frustrations, discontent, and deception” (pp. 2–3) through the protagonist New Woman. Gail Cunningham, The New Woman and the Victorian Novel (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1978), pp. 20–44, 19, 2–3. 122 Ann Heilmann, Feminist Forerunners (London: Pandora, 2003), p. 1 123 Sprows Cummings, New Women of The Old Faith, pp. 5–13. 124 Esther Newton, “Le mythe de la lesbienne masculine: Radclyffe Hall et la Nouvelle Femme,” Cahiers du Genre, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2008), pp. 15–42. 125 Ann Heilmann, New Woman Fiction: Women Writing First-wave Feminism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000) p. 4. 126 Ibid. 127 George Tyrrell, “The Old Faith and The New Woman. II,” The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. 22, No. 87 (1897), pp. 630–645. 128 Margaret Fletcher, “Come O’er and Help us,” The Catholic World (December 1, 1905). 129 Grant Allen, The Woman Who Did (London: John Lane; Boston: Roberts Bros, 1895); Arnold Bennett, Whom God Hath Joined (London: David Nutt, 1906); Mrs. Humphry Ward, Daphne or Marriage a la Mode (London: Cassell & Co., 1909) repr. in Anti-Feminism in Edwardian Literature, Vol 1, Lucy Delap and Ann Heilmann, eds. (London: Thoemmes Continuum; Tokyo: Edition Synapse, 2006). 130 The Pall Mall Gazette’s “Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon (1885).” 131 Margaret Beetham, A Magazine of her Own? (London: Routledge, 1996).

Catholicism and Lay Womanhood  55 132 Victoria Cross’s The Woman Who Didn’t (1895) was written in angered response to Allen’s work which scandalized contemporary society. Cross was the pseudonym for Annie Sophie Cory. Also published the same year was Lucas Cleeve’s The Woman Who Wouldn’t (1895). See Victoria Cross, The Woman Who Didn’t (London: J. Lane, 1895); Lucas Cleeve, The Woman Who Wouldn’t, 1st ed. (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1895). 133 Grant Allen, The Woman Who Did (Boston, MA: Roberts Bros, 1895). 134 Arnold Bennett, Whom God Hath Joined (London: David Nutt, 1906). 135 Mrs. Humphry Ward was the daughter of Tom Arnold, and granddaughter of Thomas Arnold of Rugby. Tom Arnold converted back and forth to Catholicism twice during his life due to career restraints placed upon Catholics and his questioning of the validity of his faith. Margaret Fletcher, the Catholic convert and women’s rights advocate, was a child in Oxford at the time and recounts in her autobiography, O, Call Back Yesterday the effect of his conversion on Oxford’s academic society, so great was its mark. See Margaret Fletcher O, Call Back Yesterday (Oxford: Shakespeare Head Press, Basil Blackwell, 1939). 136 In an article from the New York Times, she was compared to Edith Wharton for her readability and popularity. “An English Tale of our Divorces …,” The New York Times, June 19, 1909; Mrs. Humphry Ward, Daphne or Marriage à la Mode (London: Cassell & Co., 1909) repr. in Anti-Feminism in Edwardian Literature (2006). 137 “An English Tale of our Divorces …” The New York Times, June 19, 1909. 138 Angelique Richardson and Chris Willis, eds. The New Woman in Fiction and in Fact: Fin-de-siècle Feminisms (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001); Vanessa Warne and Colette Colligan. “The Man Who Wrote a New Woman Novel: Grant Allen’s ‘The Woman Who Did’ and the Gendering of New Woman Authorship,” Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol.33, No. 1 (2005) pp. 21–46. 139 See, for example: Barbara Caine, English Feminism, 1780–1980 (1997); Angela K Smith, Suffrage Discourse in Britain During the First World War (Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2005). On citizenship and suffrage, see Nicoletta Gullace, “The Blood of our Sons:” Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship during the Great War (London: Palgrave, 2002); Laura E. Nym Mayhall, The Militant Suffrage Movement: Citizenship and Resistance in Britain, 1860–1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 140 Elaine Clark, “Catholics and The Campaign for Women’s Suffrage in England,” Church History, Vol. 73, No. 3 (2004), pp. 635–665. 141 Ibid., p. 665. 142 Francis M. Mason, “The Newer Eve: The Catholic Women's Suffrage Society in England, 1911–1923,” The Catholic Historical Review, Vol.72, No. 4 (October, 1986), pp. 620–638, 620–621. 143 Clark, “Catholics and The Campaign For Women’s Suffrage in England” (2004), p. 645. 144 Ibid., 646. 145 JDF Inkpin, Combating the ‘sin of self-sacrifice’?: Christian Feminism in the Women’s Suffrage Struggle: 1903–18 (Durham: Unpub. PhD, 1996). 146 Fletcher O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), pp. 134–136. 147 “Catholic Club Huts,” The Tablet, September 23, 1916. 148 Mabel Hope, “C.W.L. Recreation Hut in London for Catholic Soldiers,” The Tablet, January 1, 1916. 149 Turnham, pp. 113–114. 150 Mabel V. Batten, ‘The Diary of Mabel V. Batten, 1910–1914,’ (MVB1). Entry September 26, 1914. 151 “Public Procession to Westminster Cathedral,” The Tablet, September 26, 1914.

2

Margaret Fletcher A Middle-Class Convert

Catholic convert Margaret Fletcher (1862–1943) founded the Catholic Women’s League (CWL) and its paper The Crucible in 1905/1906 to raise the status of middle-class English Catholic women in both the secular world and the Church. In this, Fletcher demonstrated the potential of Catholicism in the Edwardian era to provide a space in which non-elite lay women could assert agency and autonomy through the founding and management of women’s groups and publications. Fletcher worked to provide various supports for “born” English Roman Catholic middle-class lay women, who were raised apart for fear of persecution and therefore lacked a connection with the secular world.1 A generation earlier, Cardinal Manning had lamented this absence of the Catholic laity from public life, stating that the “social exile in which they had lived, and their exclusion … from public and private employment, have seriously diminished our capacity for usefulness.”2 Fletcher sought to create an organization wherein lay middle-class professional Catholic women in particular could be “useful” to their broader communities and each other. Middle-class lay Catholic women were largely invisible in the late 19th century and Margaret Fletcher was crucially important in making a radical change to their position on the margins of society. This invisibility was due to their lingering status as a “people apart,” and lack of opportunities to engage with other women from the same background. Margaret Fletcher worked to achieve the widespread inclusion of lay middle-class Catholic women in the social work of the Church, most notably in forming networks between like-minded women across the country. Through this work, she made her own “women’s crusade.”3 For herself, Fletcher rejected many aspects of Victorian gender ideology such as servility, obedience, and motherhood. Influenced by her father and the culture of Tractarian Oxford, she was inclined to sympathize with the ideas of Christian feminism and publicly advocated for the rights of women.4 Her piety and her reinterpretation of notions of Catholic womanhood were shaped against a background of an ongoing women’s movement, Catholic social thought, and the creation of national Catholic women’s clubs in Europe. Consequently, her work for middle-class born Catholic women was a form of charitable work through which she aided these much-marginalized women toward attaining a greater, united, and more powerful voice in the Church. DOI: 10.4324/9781003300861-3

Margaret Fletcher  57 No part of the English Catholic Church had yet offered, nay considered, to give a voice to middle-class lay women on national social issues. As part of this opportunity to help other Catholic women, Fletcher wanted to provide lay women with more agency through participating more fully in public life as Catholics and was tacitly supported in her work by the Church after the turn of the century.5 Through this work, she sought for an extension of the definition of “True Catholic Womanhood” into the areas of social action for women, working for women’s rights, and better educational opportunities for girls.6 She also wished to create a space in which women’s rights could be advocated for within an English Catholic context. Most importantly of all, she wanted to create an organization through which like-minded women could connect with each other on a wider scale.7 She articulated these desires through The Crucible and her books.8 Fletcher used Catholicism as an empowering tool to unite lay women across differences in class, education, and geography but also how she understood herself as in both the public and private spheres. As a convert, Fletcher was largely free from preconceived ideas about how Catholic women should act. Fletcher was able to use this freedom as a tool for gaining agency for herself and others, although her attempts were not always received positively by born-Catholics, upper-class women, or the hierarchy. Despite setbacks, Fletcher worked for the case of Catholic women first through her paper, The Crucible (1905–1913), and soon after, and more steadily through the founding of the CWL (1906). In this work, Fletcher engaged with contemporary ideas about women’s rights but importantly remained neutral on the role of suffrage as the primary instigator of equality for men and women. As a woman, her style of public Catholicism was unconventional for its time, but her work to place Catholic womanhood squarely on the national stage had much larger implications for Catholics finding societal acceptance. Accordingly, women’s groups like the CWL were vital to raising the profile of women’s issues because the contribution of “middle-class women who accepted domesticity…has tended to be overlooked or even dismissed as antifeminist. It is now time to consider a more dynamic and inclusive history of the women’s movement in England.”9 Fletcher was able to demonstrate how lay Catholic middle-class women could marshal power and self-govern within the auspices of the Church. She also displays ways in which women could be both conservative and broadminded simultaneously, hence, pious transgressors.10 Crafting an Idea of Catholic Womanhood In 1871, when Margaret Fletcher was ten years old, an Oxford woman, Miss Eleanor Smith, was elected to the local school board. John Burgon, the Anglican vicar of St. Mary’s, Oxford, responded to this election with outrage. Besides objecting to the election of women to school boards, he was also opposed to women entering higher education and was against both

58  Margaret Fletcher non-conformists and Catholics being admitted to universities.11 Burgon stated in his sermons that “Home is clearly and emphatically woman’s place” and that she must “obey” her husband and superiors as such obeisance was, he maintained, the woman’s “strength.”12 He felt women should never desire “publicity” over “rejoicing in the sacred retirement of her home and the strict privacy of her domestic duties.”13 As the vicar at one of the largest and most important of the churches associated with Oxford (and the Oxford movement), this traditionalist minister preached to undergraduates as well as members of the establishment. Within a month Margaret’s father, Carteret Fletcher, then the vicar at St. Mary Magdalene, Oxford, responded with his sermon entitled, “Woman’s Equality with Man in Christ.”14 Carteret Fletcher’s preaching was a direct rebuttal of Burgon’s ideas and he challenged the curate’s assertions about women’s role in society: “the Bible has not prejudged the matter [of women’s place], that it does not say that Home is Woman’s only place or that her true relation to man is one of subjection or submission.”15 Furthermore, the elder Fletcher argued that in the Bible there “is not one word subordinating the one to the other or limiting the province of either.”16 Undoubtedly, the young Margaret was greatly influenced through growing up in a home where her father was passionate about the necessity of rights for women. Furthermore, she would have believed that this principle of equality was derived from Christian ethics. She found travel enthralling and believed herself to be part of “a ferment” which was “at work in all European countries” led by a youth that was “emerging from the past.”17 Unlike other young people who equated modernity and fin de siècle culture with secularism, Fletcher’s “ferment” “involved no irreparable break with Christian belief.”18 Guided by a firm sense of morality, she began to push gender boundaries and test her understanding of her identity. In Paris, she was confronted with continental, Catholic expressions of piety and religion and, unusually, American ideas of liberty and equality. Fletcher’s time on the continent made her increasingly aware of other ways of life and their possibility for providing her with agency. She grew increasingly uncomfortable with masculine exceptionalist expressions of British Protestantism and Empire, which she felt to be oppressive and therefore immoral. After a short period of reflection over 1896, during which she began a friendship with the Irish Anglican convert Father Basil W. Maturin, Fletcher converted to Catholicism at the Jesuit stronghold of Farm Street on September 9, 1897.19 The day after her conversion she celebrated her First Communion at Pugin’s Southwark Cathedral, followed by Mass at St. Aloysius Church in Oxford, mere steps from the home she shared with her Anglican-vicar father and siblings. Catholicism seems to have provided Fletcher with a deeper sense of connection to the foundations of Christianity, which she felt Anglicanism was missing.20 Fletcher brought these beliefs with her to the Catholic Church, where it was expressed through her work in The Crucible, books, and at the CWL.

Margaret Fletcher  59 In the Catholic Church, she nurtured these ideas about women’s rights and found a place for expressing her ideas about equality, with religion at its core. There were links between her experience and that of her Protestant cohort (which she was herself born into), but she did not see these connections. She believed that imperial, Protestant England had played a large part in the loss of an “elementary Christian right,” namely, women’s equality: For more than fifty years, women in this country have been struggling to recover an elementary Christian right, that such a struggle in a country which had lost its moral bearings should keep together on right lines was an impossibility.21 Fletcher was fully in support of women’s equality, but many of her arguments reflect rather conservative thinking. At face value, this seems to be contradictory thinking, but in the case of Fletcher, she herself found no evidence of slippage in her views as they were all underpinned by Magisterium. Barbara Caine offers that a mix of conservatism and liberalism was evident for some Victorian Protestant women as well, “It was ironic that this should be so because it meant that Victorian feminism was imbued through and through with the values of its conservative opponents.”22 In the case of Fletcher, this chapter will discuss slippage between her more conservative ideas as they applied to marriage and birth control against her more liberal ideas about women’s rights. Her support of women’s education, work, autonomy, and engagement in the public sphere demonstrates that Fletcher wanted to articulate a concept of women’s rights and religiosity. She emphasized that Catholicism was, in its essence, not hostile to women having rights and agency.23 In fact, Catholicism provided an opportunity for Fletcher and other women to engage in individual opportunities for emancipation. Fletcher, like many Catholic women, was willing to widely expand the borders of Catholic womanhood. But, it is true to say that Fletcher’s open-mindedness had some definite parameters. For her, the family unit remained, ultimately, the immutable ideal. Her writings on Catholic women’s issues as they applied to marriage and the family were generally more representative of traditional ideals than her work in other areas. I suggest that this reflects doctrinal adherence. Such doctrinal adherence reflects a conservatism of thought in some areas, especially those regarding the protections of the family, which Sprows Cummings has shown was evident in Catholic women in the United States of the same era.24 Davidoff and Hall contend family was “the primary form of social organization underpinned Christian thinking,” and this was quite true in the case of Fletcher.25 Fletcher was dedicated to ideas about the intrinsic importance of the family to Catholicism, but she elected to remain single. She devoted her life to helping the lay women of the Church become more connected to their place in secular society. When she founded The Crucible it was meant to provide a forum for the literary expression of Fletcher’s

60  Margaret Fletcher advocacy for middle-class lay Catholic women. She then began planning the foundation of a Catholic women’s club where like-minded women could come together for fellowship and discussion of social and academic issues. Fletcher persevered in creating the CWL, which would go on to be a successful organization that still has a presence in England. Without actively engaging in the woman’s suffrage movement, the CWL proved to unite middle-class Catholic women through shared interests rather than partisan motivations. During the First World War, the CWL spearheaded efforts to help refugees from the Continent.26 In her personal life, Fletcher lived with her father (and sister Philippa) until his death days before the conclusion of the First World War.27 Her single status gave her the flexibility to care for her father and maintain her own work. In the aftermath of the Great War, Fletcher traveled alone throughout Eastern Europe in her role as an influential religious woman visiting Catholics in areas still suffering the effects of war.28 At the behest of Bishop Keating in Liverpool, she founded a magazine, the Catholic Women’s Outlook (1922–1930), which was loosely based on The Crucible. This was designed as providing a space for lay women’s discourse on those “burning questions … which intimately concerned women” that Keating felt were being ignored by the vast majority of lay women.29 Fletcher also played an integral role in founding the Catholic Worker’s College in 1922, later known as Plater College, in Headington, Oxford, the same year that she went to Rome to work on “women’s issues.”30 A few years after publishing her autobiography, she died in 1943.31 Creating Connections for Middle-Class Catholic Womanhood Fletcher was compelled to action by a friendship with two American Catholics in Oxford, lay Catholic writer Louise Imogen Guiney and Miss Mary Miller. She shared with them her ideas for creating a national forum for middle-class women to discuss ideas about educational methods, history, science, religion, and literature. Miller had spent time on the continent and was acquainted with the German Frauenbund, an umbrella organization over Catholic women’s groups to link lay Catholic women in that country that was set up by the diocesanal hierarchy. This model aided Fletcher in articulating the progressive image of Catholic Womanhood that was dedicated to bringing together middle-class Catholic women and increasing the opportunities available to Catholic women and girls.32 Not all members of the hierarchy were supportive of her ideas, but enough were, such as Archbishop Bourne and Bernard Vaughan, SJ, to make Fletcher’s ideas a success. Guiney and Miller helped to fund Fletcher’s initial outreach for the lay women in Catholic Britain: The Crucible. This magazine would prove to be integral to Fletcher being able to showcase her ideas for a yet unnamed women’s group. The Crucible pre-dated the CWL by a year and was first iterated publicly by a short pamphlet and talk called the Light for New Times given at a small, but well-received lecture at the Holy Child Convent, Cavendish Square in 1905.33

Margaret Fletcher  61 Consequently, Fletcher decided to trial a publication in which to write about Catholic women and girls’ education and other matters of consequence.34 Its initial purpose was to be “A Catholic Magazine of Higher Education for Women.”35 This Catholic magazine was to be underpinned by a Catholic ideology that presumed shared a desire by its readers to promoting women’s issues. The final result was the quarterly publication, The Crucible. While Miller (also a convert) and Guiney provided the funds for this venture, Fletcher was soon left to her own devices when launching it.36 It was published from 1905 to 1913 and featured articles that were meant to create “Catholic” conversation among isolated Catholic communities in England, both with each other and on the Continent, but it branched out into discussions of morality and other issues. Greatly influenced by Catholic social thought, papal encyclicals, and later the women worker’s movement, The Crucible soon also began to have a voice on labor issues, the treatment of females at Oxford, and Catholic history. Over these years, Fletcher wrote a number of articles which discussed issues from her own past and problems within the Anglican Communion which she expanded upon in her autobiography.37 The founding of The Crucible seemed to confirm Fletcher’s suspicions that there was a need in the Catholic community for a women’s magazine concerned with timely issues of substance. Subscriptions were soon being sent to Catholic women all over the globe in places as disparate as Australia, India, and America. Fletcher contributed at least one article per issue, and as the editor, generally her ideas and points of view were primarily being disseminated globally. In 1906, a year after the first volume of the magazine was published it had accrued 314 annual subscribers worldwide, although nearly a third of those subscriptions were wholly subsidized by an anonymous American Catholic benefactress.38 The following year there were nearly 400 subscribers. It seems, however, from notices in the back of each edition that individual copies may have been passed around quite extensively (especially in institutional settings), making the true readership impossible to judge, but it was certainly much higher than the subscription figures suggest.39 Overall, the Church provided Fletcher with a space and context in which to flex her opinions and it granted her influence and agency from which to further her work for Catholic women. She found this experience empowering. Archbishop Bourne wholeheartedly approved of the production of the magazine, but “begged” Fletcher not to request the assistance of an official Church censor, “who would inevitably decide cautiously.”40 Bourne said lightly, “we will rap you over the knuckles if you go over the lines,” and his tacit approval gave Fletcher an amount of latitude to put across her ideas that may have been rather controversial.41 Despite such support from within the hierarchy, other priest friends, Were all against the attempt: they said I would fail, no one would read it, that I should make money and make enemies; and they surely felt, but were too kind to put into words, that I would be considered a great impertinence that I should rush in at all.42

62  Margaret Fletcher In this example, the parochialism of the parish priests might be noted. Perhaps they also were (to some extent unconsciously) acknowledging a shift that was heralding a loss of authority to another body. In this instance, Archbishop Bourne appears to have had a more open mind. Bourne’s flexibility in regard to The Crucible demonstrated that the Catholic Church was comprised of multiple interpretations of the faith practice. This mouthpiece for Catholic womanhood gave a voice, and with it implicit agency from the Church, to carry out its mission. From the start, the magazine contained articles on a variety of “women’s topics” and the articles were weighted and differentiated to women from every class, in order to achieve, on the pages of The Crucible, the class-mixing Fletcher desired. As a result, the articles and topics covered in The Crucible were very broad. They included issues such as nursing as a profession, salaries of women teachers, moral instruction, and the experiences of female students in higher education.43 Fletcher included articles designed to interest the non-professional workingwoman and her more left-leaning readers as well as middle-class and elite women who may have been interested in settlement work or conservative Catholicism.44 It was in the pages of The Crucible in 1906 that Fletcher first posited the idea for a “League of Women Workers,” and the seeds for the CWL were planted.45 The Crucible was the first forum in which ideas about women’s rights could be aired and discussed in the Catholic English context for a specifically female audience. In this way, Fletcher’s style of Christian feminism became a locus of empowerment within what was assumed to be a patriarchal religion. Importantly, however, it was a space apart from the contentious political debates for women’s suffrage. To be clear, The Crucible was a space to write about women’s rights and equality generally, apart from suffrage, which Fletcher felt was far too combative. Equality was an area all could agree on. Women with every kind of interest about issues applicable to Catholic womanhood were invited to contribute articles. But tellingly, most of the articles put forward the uncontested thesis of women’s rights. Some even told historic stories of women’s rights. Alice Abadam, a noted Catholic suffragist, wrote in The Crucible about women’s lives in medieval Britain as a means of connecting with influential Catholic women of the past.46 Abadam saw the Middle Ages as one of female power in Britain for Catholic women and used this example to encourage contemporary empowerment in the public sphere. CWL In the CWL, middle-class Catholic women were motivated to take part in community and educational work in larger numbers across the nation.47 The CWL ran social lectures and debates in its early days, as well as forming an Information Bureau in central London to circulate information to the national branches and individuals. One debate in May 1907 in Mayfair featured Maude Petre arguing in favor of “personal independence as the

Margaret Fletcher  63 highest form of freedom” and Dr. Alice Johnson arguing that “the monopoly of power by one sex is deteriorating to both.”48 Speeches were offered on a number of topics by the CWL chapters including cookery and cleaning as trades and the speeches targeted “working-class girls” that were associated with the Catholic settlement movement.49 The Manchester branch, led by Frances Zanetti, was especially liberal-minded, and advocated for lay women being naturally more inclined to help other working-class Catholic women rather than nuns.50 Through these speeches, debates, and the distribution of information Fletcher was able to achieve her dual goals for lay Catholic women to be in touch with education throughout their lives and the workings of the secular world. By 1908, committees had been set up in Manchester, Brighton and Worthing, Bournemouth, Boscombe, and Oxford. Branches in the Southwest followed in Clifton and Bath. In 1908 there was no question of the endurance of the CWL – over 1,000 women had joined and headquarters had been organized. As new women joined the organization, Fletcher stepped back from the fore, and the CWL became less an organization for agitation and more a social institution. A symptom of this shift was that the CWL distanced itself from The Crucible in 1910. The Crucible, reflecting Fletcher’s editorship, remained committed to working-class labor rights and more liberal expressions of Christian feminism, but folded in 1913. As the CWL gradually became less concerned with women’s rights, Fletcher relinquished a hands-on leadership role. The CWL focused more on issues that appealed to conservative middleclass women. After benefitting from the work of Fletcher to bring Catholic women to the forefront, women’s rights were no longer viewed as a primary concern and philanthropic interests came to the fore in post-war Britain. However, in the beginning tensions existed between aristocrat recusants and middle-class converts. Lady Mary Talbot and the Ladies of Charity reacted badly to the idea of the League, which they argued sounded “socialist” and irreligious. Talbot wrote to Bourne explaining her reticence over rumors of the new group for Catholic women based on class and geography: Great Promoters of the Proposed League have been tactless by talking and saying that the L.O.C. are too spiritual, not up to date, etc. etc. What I thought rather scurious (sic) at the Sub.Comtee (sic) meeting was that Miss Wyatt-Papworth [a founding member of the CWL] who is a Lady deal of feeling has been stirred up about the whole matter … I am afraid the of Charity + who attended the meeting as Miss Fletcher’s representative rather took the line of saying that the L.O.C Association could be forced to join the Proposed League …51 Membership in the CWL was “open to any Catholic woman possessed of a modicum of social spirit and alive to the duties of citizenship,” and further, to utilize “all the available power and influence of Catholic women in a nation, and opposing them to the de-Christening (sic) influences of non-Christian women.”52

64  Margaret Fletcher The Ladies of Charity were unaccustomed to the idea of having their social inferiors possibly having such power. Fletcher acknowledged the class issue that was raised by the Ladies and assured the CWL’s possible membership that unlike the Ladies, her group would have “no enemies, does not know the meaning of the word [socialism], has no class distinctions.”53 Talbot also warned Archbishop Bourne that many of the upper-classes were not prepared to join such a mixed organization, but, over time, many in fact did, which incidentally coincides with Fletcher leaving the day-to-day running of the group.54 The Victorian mentality of respectability still governed life in 1906, so, despite her ideals, it was still vital for Fletcher to have the support of women of status to give consequence to the group: Although the main support of the League will at present come from the professional classes, we shall not be altogether without recognition from the class represented by the committee of the Ladies of Charity … It seems to be generally agreed that ordinary members of the Ladies of Charity would be free to belong to the League.55 “Ordinary members” of the Ladies of Charity did indeed join the CWL such as Ada Streeter and Miss Wyatt-Papworth. Some aristocratic women, the Viscountess Enscombe and Dowager Lady Bute, also joined the CWL, demonstrating that Talbot’s image of elite women as wanting to remain apart was not truly representative of what other Catholic women felt. Choosing Celibacy: Religious Conviction and Secular Purpose By choosing a single, celibate life Fletcher was engaging with an older, virginal Marian conception of Catholicism as well as informally rejecting the procreative, marital conception of motherhood for herself, as the proper culmination of lay Catholic womanhood.56 Through this rejection of certain aspects of Catholic womanhood she gave herself the freedom to pursue her professional paths (which was “higher work”) and her work for Catholic women. Her individual rejection of the sacrament of marriage cannot be seen apart from a greater idealistic secular New Woman ideal, but it is also evidence of a strong engagement with the catechesis of the Church. For Fletcher, there were often multiple strands that motivated personal and domestic decisions: religious and secular, necessity and theory. From the secular, worldly, New Woman point of view, her reluctance to marry was in line with an individual rebellion against cultural conformity to marry. Reflecting on this era, she believed she was “lucky to be among the first swallows which precede a summer.”57 Socialist Karl Pearson wrote in 1894 that “cultured women of the middle-class … were restless at the old restrictions, eager for self-development, and a more intellectually active life,” and it is evident Fletcher was of this same New Woman-style belief.58 She mentions other women who worked before losing their promising careers

Margaret Fletcher  65 due to the demands of children, husbands, and managing the home staff.59 Fletcher felt the call of the family, but sought to avoid the pressures of domestic management that accompanied family life for women in the late Victorian era. She reworked the idea of the family to exclude the conjugal. For many single women, their sense of agency was not derived from the “conjugal,” but through a reworking of “the familial” to give women “a place and voice.”60 Fletcher, like the New Women of this era, did so in order to follow her “woman’s crusade.”61 The choice of celibate singlehood historically contained a highly symbolic, sacrificial, and sanctified element for Catholic women. For example, many of the female saints were virgins such as Joan of Arc, the martyred companions of St. Ursula, and Catherine of Alexandria. The innate value of the celibate life for Catholic women was something that Fletcher discussed in print. In Christian Feminism (1915), Fletcher drew a distinction between involuntary and chosen celibacy.62 The following passage demonstrates the importance of celibacy as part of the concept of Christian sacrifice for a “higher good” or toward spiritual development. She wrote: Voluntary Christian celibacy, the deliberate choice of the single state from a supernatural motive, is neither negative nor sterile, but spiritually fruitful. It must not be confused with the involuntary single state to which so many women are relegated in modern life by accidental conditions.63 Here Fletcher seeks to reevaluate sexual abstention in the popular imagination. The choice of celibacy represented a higher calling or the more purposeful choice of connecting with God. In some cases, it seems that Marian-styled virginity provided Catholic women like Fletcher, but also some religious sisters, with an opportunity to transcend suppositions of gender-based limitations on their sex. Their chastity separated them from carnal objectification and perhaps both freed these women from gender constructs and imbued the women with a level of explicit sanctity to other Catholics.64 This explicit sanctity then gave celibate women the freedom to transgress the borders of cultural norms of gendered behavior within the domestic sphere. In The Christian Family, Fletcher wrote, The Church, while on the one hand insisting that those who enter into the married state shall observe its obligations, on the other has produced women who practicing virginity have attained a self-realisation which soars above anything achieved outside her borders … It is only the society which preserves Christian marriage intact which can produce women with the devotion and courage to give themselves wholly and permanently to another vocation.65 Celibacy placed them outside of the boundaries of sexualized patriarchal relations and on a higher plane. However, Fletcher was careful not to

66  Margaret Fletcher over-glorify the virgin. Fletcher argued that all Catholic women were dependent on each other to achieve their fullest expression of themselves. For example, lay women benefited from the prayers of cloistered nuns, or of sisters working in education or nursing. In many ways, Catholicism allowed lay women to express myriad versions of sanctified womanhood inside and outside of marriage. There were also secular concerns around choosing a celibate, single life. New Women ideals about singleness and rejecting marriage were often regarded as a sign of “modern” thinking.66 As Emma Liggins has so powerfully shown, to deter women from life outside marriage, in fiction, the unmarried New Woman image was often juxtaposed with the image of the crone-like spinster by traditionalists to create fear and anxiety in single women.67 Fletcher was very much aware of this spinster trope, the “odd woman” who was unmarried and viewed suspiciously. Such stereotyping led spinsters of Fletcher’s acquaintance to being “cruelly” pitied and thought of as “sour.”68 These popular conceptions heightened the desire to marry for many women who may otherwise have been more empowered in the single life. Fletcher was especially empathetic toward women who were thwarted in following their careers by these fears and chose marriage instead. These women were, “young and full of hope in the eighties, a few had brief successes, flashes of what might be … [but] were engulfed early in marriage.”69 Despite their (soon crushed) desires and dreams, these women failed to reach their full potential outside of motherhood.70 That singleness was at all a “choice” reflects Fletcher’s status as liberal, middle-class, and educated. Her own station, as a celibate single woman, was given credence in “Women of Leisure,” the final chapter of her 1904 book, The School of the Heart.71 Without directly admitting her position as a single woman in the parental home, Fletcher wrote of “children” who “remain living on into middle age or later, in the original parent home.”72 She inferred that remaining in the familial home, rather than being construed as infantilizing was, in actuality, empowering. Fletcher credited this empowerment as deriving from the family, due to the “growth of wealth among the middle-classes, an increasing number of girls are exempt from contributing at all to the work of the household.”73 By living with her father and her sister Philippa, Fletcher was able to abandon much of the drudgery of domesticity and household management and this allowed her to pursue her work for middle-class lay Catholic women’s rights.74 Economic and domestic freedom opened up the possibility that Fletcher, as well as other Catholic (or Anglican for that matter) women, might pursue valuable intellectual or social work. Fletcher’s own reasons for “choosing” singleness perhaps reveal both sides of what Vicinus described as a dichotomy for “odd women”: “Unmarried women often portrayed themselves either as asexual saints, a role the religious found particularly attractive or as strong women

Margaret Fletcher  67 whose sexuality was sublimated in a wider sphere of action.”75 In her autobiography, Fletcher also asserts a third way, which combines Vicinus’ aspects in explaining her unmarried status. She claims she sublimated herself as an act of filial piety and sacrificial necessity to the family, “my own personal life must squeeze in as it could; and squeeze was the word: there would not be much room left for it.”76 Indeed, she continues, she comforted herself with her sacrifice though her “heart sometimes aches.”77 But, she later also conflated her singleness as a necessity in order to achieve her aims for Catholic women. It is evident that throughout Fletcher’s life, her singleness gave her freedom, but also this freedom was not without “hard thinking” about morality, marriage, and her future.78 Articulating that unmarried virginity and singledom were valuable to secular society was not easy, but Fletcher leaned upon numerous strands of thought, both secular and religious, to justify her decision. Fletcher was part of a larger group of women who helped rethink women’s value beyond the home environment. She became part of a longer heritage in the Catholic Church of devotional chastity. Unmarried life allowed Fletcher to engage with her spirituality in a variety of ways and part of her sacrifice was undoubtedly a kind of sanctified atonement. More importantly, the sanctified single life allowed her to follow a path of devout spirituality that she felt she could not have enjoyed as a married woman, nor, as a religious sister. Later she wrote, “for those young women who do not marry opportunities now abound and opposition is no longer in the air.”79 Equality for Lay Catholic Women? Francis Power Cobbe, a women’s rights and celibacy campaigner, used the term “woman’s crusade” to indicate a single woman’s duty to “relieve the miseries of mankind.”80 The extension of women’s “work” into public spheres of action was advocated for by Cobbe, but also reformers in America of all religious backgrounds. In England, it is still unknown how many Catholic lay women felt the call to a “woman’s crusade” in the late 19th century, but Fletcher certainly did. She acknowledged there was an “urge in my nature … the lure of entering a woman’s ‘crusade,” as she became more aware of women’s position in society.81 This “crusade” first led her to travel, pursue a career, and convert. Her conversion to Catholicism crystallized the idea of a “woman’s crusade” from thought into action for Fletcher. Work outside the home was stressed as a way for single women to assert themselves independently as aspects of both self-sacrifice and self-­development.82 As one woman wrote in The Crucible, “Nothing helps more to counteract the narrow, prejudiced and altogether erroneous judgment too often noticeable in women than active work or interests outside as well as within the home.”83 Fletcher and her sisters were made aware from a young age that it would be

68  Margaret Fletcher necessary for them to work or marry to support themselves as a matter of financial necessity: There was stimulus to effort in our family over and above that great vague glorious crusade of showing what women could do. It had been explained to us that we must all look forward to doing something for ourselves. Girls must have some sort of career.84 She found work, and enjoyment, through publishing and art but she remained distressed about the widespread inequalities still facing many women. Societal injustices were evident to Fletcher in her own life though, especially in her work as an artist. As Fletcher tried to advance in her artistic education and career, she was struck by the inconsistencies in training available to female and male students regardless of artistic ability or drive. Whilst women were able to get their pictures in the juried annual exhibition of the Royal Academy since it was anonymous, they were not allowed to paint from nude models for fear it would infringe on their sensibilities.85 The Academy women protested at this injustice, by leaving the school for the more open environment of Paris.86 According to Fletcher, the women at the art school were left only the “crumbs.”87 Further, their protests were condemned as unfounded, which led the women to be criticized by male students as “atheists.”88 Any transgression of femininity was regarded, to use Laura Schwartz’s terminology, as a mark of a female “infidel’s” irreligious nature.89 The fact that female protesters were characterized as “atheists” is an interesting insight into the Victorian correlation of feminine propriety with religious belief.90 Fear of middle-class women losing one’s virtue (or, becoming unclean or unrespectable) was used as a means to protect women from their sexuality, in order to retain innocence and modesty as desirable traits of womanhood.91 In the 1880s and 1890s, this argument for protecting women’s purity was still evident in the actions at the Royal Academy (RA) as well as the CDA campaigns. While Fletcher felt that being a woman was a disadvantage at art school, after her conversion she saw there was a whole population of middle-class lay Catholic women who had experienced much more severe long-term marginalization. Fletcher lamented the fact that the majority of Catholic women were “excommunicated” from Victorian society. Had this not happened, might they too have lent their names to the great reform movements?92 Through harnessing her secular ideas about women’s rights and applying them to the Catholic situation, Fletcher was able to create an outlet for lay women within the Church. Fletcher was able to mold Catholic ideology to apply it to topical secular debates on womanhood through The Crucible. She now saw the Catholic Church as both an insider and an outsider, providing her with an exceptional insight into both its problems and possible solutions. She created a significant body of work that has been largely unexamined in terms of historic English Catholic interpretations of “feminism” and

Margaret Fletcher  69 women’s rights by a lay Catholic woman. This body of work takes the form of the magazine, but also books such as The School of the Heart (1904), Christian Feminism (1915), and The Christian Family (1920). These books were personal and did not necessarily reflect the CWL, which, as we have seen, soon forged an identity apart from its founder. Indeed, as the CWL rapidly became more national, Fletcher’s work as president became more about management and less about theory. Her writing casts a new perspective on individual Catholic opinion on these matters outside of official Church channels, but it was always strongly influenced by and rooted in Catholic social thought. In The School of the Heart (1904), one of Fletcher’s first works as a Catholic writer, she constructed an overview of some of the domestic choices Catholic women, in particular, may have had available to them in England.93 Prefiguring her later writing in which she would lament the sidelining of born-Catholic women, she advised lay women to take care in their actions. She felt this warning was necessary because she believed so many lay Catholic women were separate for much of their lives and were not sufficiently aware of the modern world.94 Fletcher posited that there were three paths women could take – celibacy, marriage, or the religious life, but she privileged marriage and convent life, despite not electing to take either of these paths for herself. Fletcher urged women to look at these last two paths as “great parallel roads that lead across life to Almighty God.”95 It seems that here is another moment of contradiction for Fletcher, she privileged Sacramental choices for Catholic women over her own choice of celibacy. Celibacy was just as valued in the Church, but it seems perhaps Fletcher advocated for the primacy of marriage or the nunnery. While both Holy Orders and Marriage are sacraments and are doctrinally equal, in practice Holy Orders are regarded as being an exceptional state of grace for the person called to them because of the implicit sacrifices entailed in entering the priesthood/sisterhood. Fletcher urged a rethink of the value of Holy Orders over Marriage for Catholic women, asking that they did not think of marriage as less important, as they both have to do with the generation of the church (moral and carnal): [Please do not] Drift imperceptibly into the attitude of regarding marriage as the vocation of less choice souls. Where a mental atmosphere of this kind prevails, even under cover of laudation of the religious state, it has a depressing effect upon the thoughts of the married regarding their own condition.96 This warning was designed to urge married Catholic women to continue their activity in the public sphere, even after marriage (contrary to contemporary mores). In The School of the Heart Fletcher asked for married women to understand how their familial sacrifices ensured their value within the Catholic community. She did not, however, seem fully convinced of her own

70  Margaret Fletcher argument at this stage. She expressly stated that a marriage can lead to “a very dull mental atmosphere in the home” and the “dullness, often the appalling dullness, of otherwise good homes” could be stultifying.97 Fletcher encouraged Catholic women to become aware of their vocation (whether it be single, married, with a career, in the sisterhood) and to acknowledge that each has a role as part of Christ’s divine plan.98 She felt Catholic women should find agency in their vocations because their vocations were inspired by divine grace. Fletcher wrote women must “ensure for ourselves a share in the realities of life and attain to the full dignity of womanhood.”99 Furthermore, Catholics should try to attain sanctification in the fabric of one’s daily life, whether it be working, mothering, or social work.100 She concludes the book by telling women to take advantage of women’s freedom to achieve their best self: “social changes have emancipated us from one form of labour, it is only that we may take up some other form, for which are powers are now ripe.”101 By supporting Catholic women’s vocational choices, Fletcher sought to further a vibrant Catholicism in which women’s contributions would form an essential core. Her ideology in these matters can be seen in the following quotation: “ultimately everything has to do with religion, and every question sends some root down till it touches a moral law.”102 In 1918, Fletcher extended this argument to include a suggestion that women use their religious faith to inform their voting habits. The Catholic Family: Protection and Procreation By 1910, married middle- and working-class lay Catholic women found support in Fletcher’s CWL and the Church. With this support they found religious outlets outside of the home and Mass for social work and fellowship. Still though, it remained a Catholic woman’s role to be a wife and mother in order to raise her children as Catholics.103 As Leo XIII wrote in Arcanum Divinae (1893), That Christian perfection and completeness of marriage … by the command of Christ … not only looks to the propagation of the human race, but to the bringing forth of children for the Church, ‘fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God’; so that ‘a people might be born and brought up for the worship and religion of the true God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.’104 Fletcher agreed wholeheartedly with Leo XIII. She wrote, “we know that the sanctity of the family and the permanence of the home are worth so much that we are ready to suffer and to make sacrifices to secure them.”105 Further, this never-married woman continued to say: “we marry to found a home, and, if it is necessary, we will suffer in our affections to secure that home.”106 Fletcher conflated the use of birth controls, or “preventions,” as she termed them, as an opportunity for women and men to engage in sexual

Margaret Fletcher  71 intercourse as a matter of leisure rather than procreation. She simply could not support such an idea on moral grounds. Fletcher believed that birth control in the form of artificial methods of preventing conception was not within the scope of a woman’s remit, or a man’s, because it violated divine intervention in conception. Again, we see the other side of Fletcher’s thinking, which favors Catholic teaching over liberal stances of women’s rights.107 In her autobiography she queried how women could have worked so hard for their rights, to waste it on “fornication.”108 Fletcher strictly followed Catholic teachings in the area of reproduction.109 A family would be comprised of as many children as God would saw fit to bring into a marriage: We stand for the rights of children to life – for a welcome to the children as they come, for willingness to make sacrifices for them, and we set ourselves utterly against the luxurious self-indulgent home, which is secured at the price of an only child.110 Family limitation was not the main problem – from 1853, the Catholic Church allowed abstaining from sex by married couples to avoid pregnancy. However, many Catholics continued to presume that sex was only acceptable if it had the aim of procreation. It was not until the 1930s, when Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Casti Connubli stated that within marriage sex could be for pleasure and not just procreation.111 Marie Stopes, the leader of the campaign for reproductive rights and modes of artificial sexual planning, whose name is synonymous with birth control even today, disagreed with the Catholic Church’s doctrine of the innate value of procreation within marriage. Stopes’ published Married Love in March 1918, and it seems as if Fletcher was forced to respond to Married Love due to its overwhelming popularity.112 Not surprisingly, Stopes’ Married Love went much further than any Church documents on sex as it advocated desire, pleasure, and equality in the marital bed, as well as the purposeful delay of having children.113 In the same way that Fletcher encouraged an ideal of marriage and many children to fulfill Catholic womanhood, despite not doing it herself; Stopes followed that work up with Wise Parenthood, 1922, before she was a parent.114 While their actions may have seemed hypocritical, both women’s work was underpinned and supported by a certain authority. For Stopes the authority was scientific reasoning and for Fletcher it was religious teaching and faith. Besides sex, Fletcher was concerned with married women working and offered up her opinions on how this may work in the post-First World War era. Fletcher wrote The Christian Family (1920) to further address some possible challenges posed by contemporary society for Catholic women.115 The position of the woman inside and outside had drastically changed in the post-war era given numerous civil and practical developments. Women were often barred from equality of opportunity in the workplace, and there were concerns about what type of work women may engage in, professional or manual.116 Catholic women, now much more imbedded in the fabric of England, had much

72  Margaret Fletcher of the same concerns. Fletcher believed women’s work outside the home was strengthened by official, state-sponsored equality for women in the form of suffrage. Perhaps overly optimistic about improvements in woman’s position, she believed equality was a given, “now that practically all artificial sex barriers are removed.”117 Regarding the question of whether a woman could maintain both a career and a family, Fletcher wrote that it would be difficult for her to support both at the highest level, but that it was not impossible to achieve. This thinking was influenced by her engagement with working-class students after the war. In the 1920s, she began taking in a number of working-class young women into her home while they attended Jesuit Charles Plater’s Catholic Workers’ College. She saw how these students were balancing the necessities of work, family, and education in order to better themselves. For the working-class women she met, there was simply no choice of stopping work if they married. A woman may be tempted to curtail either activity, but if she chose one over the other: She is not abandoning a higher destiny, or stepping down into any form of servitude. She is making the sacrifice of a good thing for what she feels to be a better, of her own choice, just as a man may do.118 This quote alludes to a wider change in Fletcher’s thinking, one that transitioned from solely individualist critiques of action to more nuanced readings of the various economic and social strains on women from a multiplicity of backgrounds. Twenty years before she wrote The Christian Family, Fletcher balanced her own desires against that of her family. She wrote “she had followed the lure of the ‘woman’s crusade.”119 As a young woman, Fletcher opted to act with the liberty of the individual through the support of her family. In the early 1900s, she modified this and decided to support her family as an integral part of a “single” vocation. The Christian Family, written in the post-war period, reflects a further refashioning of Fletcher’s attitude toward individual choice. She continued to encourage women to follow their particular, individual vocations, but tempered this with a suggestion that women be especially careful when contemplating which future they would now create for themselves. The breakdown of marriages after the First World War was a real concern for women, like Fletcher, who endorsed family life as central to the Church. Divorce was always, and still is, a sensitive topic for Catholics. It challenges the notion of honoring the sanctity of marriage, societal changes, and the Church’s duty to protect the individual from what may in fact be a dangerous situation. By “dangerous situation,” I mean the point at which the Church allows the annulment of a marriage because the marriage was not entered into honestly or is corrupt. Leo XIII wrote that divorce could “lay waste [to] families and … divorces are in the highest degree hostile to the prosperity of families.”120 Fletcher, as an advocate for the family and a Catholic, was very

Margaret Fletcher  73 concerned particularly with what divorce may mean for families. For Catholics, only an annulment could return one back to good standing within the Church and allow the person to take part in Sacraments such as the Eucharist. The fear was that if divorce was to become more common the effects of this would trickle down to the Catholic community with terrible consequence for society and increase “leakage” from the faith.121 Employing doctrinal arguments, Fletcher contended that an unhappy marriage (and sticking by it) was an opportunity for personal atonement and growth: And when it is urged that it is a hard thing not to let people undo a mistake and be happy in a fresh start, we urge – that what suffering there may be among ourselves, rightly borne, is not unfruitful, that it shapes characters, strengthens and purifies the soul, and brings happiness in the long run.122 Hurt children and broken families that resulted from divorce were to be avoided unless the circumstances were extreme: And when it is urged that it is a hard thing not to let people undo a mistake and be happy in a fresh start, we urge – and that the pain caused by renunciation, or from the loneliness of not remarrying, is outweighed a thousand times by the misery caused by the break up of families and above all by the bitter injury to children – and to their whole conception of life – that through divorce, the very virtues of honour, loyalty, purity, when the child comes to learn of them, are for him cankered at the heart.123 This quotation may seem to the modern thinker as the promotion of a kind of self-flagellation, as Fletcher seems to almost encourage suffering as a form of purification. In fact, Fletcher was significantly stricter about this matter than the Church, perhaps underpinning how strong her feelings were toward the family. Conceivably, this also reflects the conservatism she sometimes exhibited, and which made her, in some ways, ambivalent. Or, it could be the zeal of the convert in attempting to prove oneself in their new faith as doctrinally orthodox. The Pope argued that divorce lessened the “dignity of womanhood,” but for Fletcher, provocatively, lessening of dignity was not as important or dangerous than the breakup of the family.124 Both attitudes seem to miss another important aspect of divorce as it relates to the Church. Throughout the Gospels, and particularly the Beatitudes, ideas of mercy and forgiveness are strongly put forth. By taking this belligerent, unforgiving approach to divorce, Fletcher missed a key opportunity to expand on how perceived negatives, such as divorce, may indeed hold restorative moments of reconciliation at their core. However, it seems evident that for Fletcher, family was always at the heart of daily life. Her own middle-classness possibly prevented her from seeing the true suffering that many women could

74  Margaret Fletcher experience in unloving, or, even violent marriages. Fletcher’s work with primarily middle-class women would have furthered her away from the grim realities of a bad marriage and, as a never-married woman, she would not have been a likely sounding board for middle-class women grappling with the possibility of divorce. Christian Feminism and The Christian Family In 1915, Fletcher penned Christian Feminism, a text which provided an analysis of womanhood, class, and domesticity.125 It begins with an expression of her sadness about secularism and what it meant for the morals of the country: The average non-Catholic in this country, even if a Christian, has drifted a long way from the clear and logical thought embodied in the mature traditional philosophy of the Church.126 Fletcher argued that a modern Catholic woman should not refrain from following her path and she reasoned that, “a woman has an inalienable right to all that makes up her personality, including the free exercise of her religion as part of her spiritual existence.”127 Fletcher regarded Christian feminism as a method for ensuring the existence of moral, middle-class Christian homes. Christian feminism countered charges of excessive patriarchal controls in the Church and refuted accusations that the Church was repressive In The Christian Family (1920), Fletcher claimed that there was power and place in Catholicism for women. She nullified accusations of oppression in the Catholic Church by reminding her readers that the Catholic Church had indeed given women a space to transcend the conventional limitations placed on their sex. She indicated how in Catholicism, women became, Doctors of Mystical Theology, installed as rulers over large communities … they have been encouraged to undertake the highest studies, and have filled professorial chairs in Papal Universities. It would be an easy matter to cite the names of Catholic women eminent for learning and distinguished in the arts.128 Catholicism provided an environment for some women to overcome the cultural limits placed on their sex, but to do so within a culture of deference and hierarchy, not necessarily, patriarchy. Fletcher blamed the Reformation, and implicitly Protestantism, for removing such opportunities from Catholic women.129 Further, she indicated that the Catholic Church continued to provide an environment for women to engage with their faith and rethink its meanings on an individualized basis. This was not necessarily a popular stance, as other Christian women like Marie Corelli (nee Mary Mackay,1855–1924) vehemently argued just the opposite in The Master Christian (1900).130

Margaret Fletcher  75 Scholars have argued that in Catholicism patriarchy subordinates the role of women to outlying positions. Further to this, Helen Ebaugh writes that the convent system in particular represents a bargain between Catholic women within the system of patriarchy to gain status.131 This is echoed by Mary Jo Weaver who offers, “official Catholic teaching about women is … sex-role stereotyping.”132 Weaver argues that “complementary” or, similar but lesser roles for women, proves gender stereotyping as part of a patriarchal religion. On the contrary to this reading of lay Catholic womanhood, Fletcher argued that women were equal to men and always had been in the eyes of the church: Among the truths which I told you we Catholics stood for were, “Every man and woman has an equal claim to justice;” “There is one moral law for men and for women;” We were to think in terms of the family. Now for 300 years two of these principles have been violated in this country, women’s equal claim to justice has not been recognized in the family, and there have been two moral laws, even there, one for man and one for woman.133 Fletcher argued that it was the State and not the Church, which oppressed women. That the Catholic Church was an institution that provided a liberating environment for women (and other marginalized groups), was vital to Fletcher. It represented, for her, an antidote to the Empire as an immoral symptom of English [Protestant] society. She thought that the reason that free will was not always able to be exercised was because there were “two moral laws” at play in society, one for men and one for women, and this was an inherent failure the contemporary nation. Men and women both had free will, which guided them, through their religious beliefs, to act morally or immorally.134 To know how to act morally is “is the work of Religion,” rather than part of a Benthamite philosophical urge to use reason to act morally.135 Jeremy Bentham, the father of Utilitarianism, argued that people acted for the greatest pleasure, but for Fletcher the action was innately tied to religious belief. Free will for Fletcher was the ability to choose an action based on her personal interpretation of her faith. The Catholic Church set out a series of guidelines, the Magisterium, which was derived from the Bible, and Fletcher applied them to her own moral actions. The principles of Christian feminism for Fletcher meant that she could not agree to certain aspects of the Sacrament of Marriage, if it followed any language that did not embrace equality. Free will was a cornerstone of marriage for men and women. She rejected, for example, any oath “to obey” in wedding vows.136 She regarded this as purely an Anglican construct, which was why it was not present in the Catholic ceremony.137 Philosophically, this played into Fletcher’s larger theories about Britain, Empire, and Anglicanism as being guilty for so many perceived wrongs that affected Catholics. It showed a further deprecation of the Protestant woman, that by proxy, fell as well to the Catholic woman. Catholic marriage for Fletcher meant that,

76  Margaret Fletcher “a woman is not at the mercy of a man’s errors of judgment in the moral sphere” because it “would breach her moral liberty.”138 Therefore, the Catholic woman would only answer for herself, challenging the idea that she was bound to any patriarchal powers of oppression. Suffrage Like some other religious women of the time, Fletcher feared that the suffrage movement had atheistic and anarchist tendencies. In The Crucible, Fletcher wrote how she disagreed with the militancy with which “some suffrage societies have allied themselves.”139 Fletcher assured the CWL membership that in light of this possible association with atheistic principles “the CWL has maintained a neutral attitude in the face of active controversy on Woman’s Suffrage.”140 Personally, she supported the suffrage movement, but militancy was not something she could countenance – her role was to create a space for the “many pens work[ing] away at extricating a Christian feminism according to the mind of the Church.”141 In regard to suffrage, Fletcher was primarily interested in keeping both sides engaged in larger issues of Catholic women’s equality, rather than focusing on the area of the vote. It seems she followed the route of silence in order to avoid conflict and alienate as few women as possible. This may have seemed especially wise in her case, as she had already offended so many of the aristocratic women with the founding of the CWL. Fletcher, like many other contemporary lay Catholic women, was deeply concerned with the future of Catholic womanhood during the battle for enfranchisement. She proposed that Catholic women work tenfold to “bring the women’s movement within the influence of the Church.”142 She stated Catholic women were, not surprisingly, late to join the battle for women’s rights because they had faced the more pressing concerns of gaining “fundamental rights” such as being accepted after hundreds of years of political exclusion and persecution.143 Fletcher’s ideas about women’s contributions to the secular and religious world did not extend to the suffrage question through much of the pre-war period, but she publicly supported women’s rights in other areas. Fletcher’s reluctance to use the CWL as a forum to promote the franchise greatly frustrated some born Catholic women like Leonora de Alberti, the head of the St. Joan’s Alliance which encouraged women’s suffrage. Fletcher was more than happy to support Christian feminism as a method for achieving women’s equality, but after having fought so hard to create the CWL, she was unwilling to bring such a contentious topic to the fore. De Alberti found this incredibly disconcerting, especially given Fletcher’s previously forward-thinking stands for lay Catholic women. Elaine Clark writes of de Alberti’s dismay over what she saw as a lack of politicization by the CWL, saying that de Alberti “criticiz[ed] the ‘narrow views’

Margaret Fletcher  77 of Margaret Fletcher.”144 De Alberti even penned a book, Woman Suffrage and Pious Opponents (1913), that refuted the “false piety” of some Catholic women who did not support the vote.145 De Alberti claimed that these women (like Fletcher) were missing a significant opportunity to put forward Catholic social thought by avoiding political debate. She said, “there are reforms which will be never more than played with until women are a power, a voting power in the land,” some of these reforms being directly related to motherhood, protecting one’s children, and the family in the face of an increasingly secular society.146 That de Alberti and Fletcher had different definitions of Christian feminism is clear. However, it is important to acknowledge that these debates were going on across Catholic groups. The Catholic Church took no official stance on suffrage for women, leaving individuals to decide for themselves in matters of suffrage. The hierarchy was widely divided over the issue. For example, Cardinal Herbert Vaughan stated in 1896, “I believe that the extension of the Parliamentary Franchise to women upon the same conditions as it is held by men would be a just and beneficial measure, tending to raise rather than to lower the course of national legislation.”147 However, Edward O’Dwyer, the Bishop of Limerick, felt in 1912 that giving women the vote would cause discord in the family if the wife voted in opposition to her husband.148 There were competing ideologies at play here between freedom of action and domestic obedience. Lay Catholic women Charlotte Despard, the founder of the Women’s Freedom League, Alice Abadam, and Christopher St. John were all strong supporters of suffrage, along with the founders of the Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society (CWSS).149 Conversely, novelist Josephine Ward, the wife of thinker Wilfrid Ward, a prolific Catholic writer, and friend of Maude Petre, wrote to The Tablet in 1912 expressing dismay that suffrage was even a point of debate: “No one could pretend for a moment that the majority of Catholic women in England and still less in Ireland, or in Catholic countries on the Continent, are on the side of the Suffrage.”150 It seems clear that tensions over the suffrage movement in secular society were replicated in the Catholic context.151 Once the franchise was granted, Fletcher advocated that women should use the vote as a method of promoting Catholic values in the political sphere. When Fletcher addressed the group of Canadian servicemen in Hampshire just a month after a limited franchise was extended to some women in 1918 she spoke strongly in favor of Catholic womanhood as exemplifying a fulfillment of moral duty.152 Given that suffrage was now a matter of fact, Fletcher argued that women, in their roles as wives and mothers, played the most essential role in the transference of morality in creating a family and that the family was the building block of communities and nations.153 Fletcher turned to employing an older citizenship model from the 1890s to justify enfranchisement to her Catholic audience, one that was linked with morality and duty.154 This speech is one of the most

78  Margaret Fletcher crucial moments in tracing Fletcher’s attitudes about Catholicism, women, and rights. She stated: I am not going to put before you any woman’s case or man’s case as such; I am not going to maintain that the ills of society are going to be cured by the political action of women, although the political action of intelligent women will undoubtedly do much to promote social welfare, although some veils would not have reached the proportions they have if women had taken their right place in human life.155 Fletcher points out that religious and gender bias had excluded Catholic women from the public sphere before 1914. Furthermore, the inclusion of these moral women (note: not of any particular class) would ultimately be beneficial to society. Education for Catholic Women Educational equality was regarded by Fletcher as essential for providing a robust future for Catholic womanhood and the family. To briefly reiterate: Fletcher felt that education was the best means of empowering women and enabling them to take part in the secular world; it also provided increased opportunities for Catholic women. Fletcher believed that the longtime absence of Catholic women within the affairs of the secular world had contributed to larger the problems in England. She did not think that this absence had in any way protected either women or the family as had probably been intended when recusants began separating themselves from secular society. Fletcher still believed in 1918 that equal education for Catholic women was still lacking. Further, she felt inequality had created issues in many families, “This injustice in the very heart of the family life has poisoned society at its source – the girl has been systematically sacrificed to the boy, in education.”156 Fletcher wrote in 1918 that falsities abounded about Catholic women and that these stemmed, in part from their lack of secular education. Furthermore, this led to misconceptions about the intelligence of Catholic women. Fletcher calls attention to this misunderstanding through an example of the attitudes of women who should have been united by a shared nationality during the First World War: We were working side by side with those who were striving for social progress. To many of them we [Catholic women] seemed an illiberal, pigheaded sort of people, not moving with the times. To us, they seemed to be beating the air, rebelling and striving without a plan of action.157 There was, before the war especially, remaining misconceptions about Catholics. One of these misconceptions was that Catholics lacked free will.

Margaret Fletcher  79 It was thought that, as a sign of oppression and ignorance, Catholics were unable to think for themselves and needed their faith to be interpreted for them by priests.158 Fletcher felt that CWL and Roman Catholic women proved themselves to be fully part of secular England because of their volunteerism over the war. Due in a large part to the work of the CWL, Catholic women’s education was progressing, but clearly from the quote above it seems that there was still a need for further work in this area. Fletcher, like others before her, stalwartly maintained that educated women could best be used to create Christian families, and in turn, a better society. That all women had for so long been treated as second class citizens was a matter of shame for Fletcher: The assumption of the inferiority and the incapacity of women had almost grown to be an article of faith over here, held so unconsciously that the best of people did not recognize its unchristian character. This attitude of mind operating in industrial and civic life, led to so many real injustices and so many wrongs and miseries that reaction was bound to come.159 After regular secular schooling, the weapon of Fletcher’s CWL was to be religious education, or catechism, to immerse young girls in Christian social thought.160 The young ladies would then be armed as individuals equipped to fight off anti-Christian teachings in any guise.161 Education could also be accessed through vocational training for working-class Catholic girls.162 This example underlines the idea that social work, education, and gender were all issues intrinsically linked in helping lay Catholic women find further empowerment through the new faith-based secular organizations. The CWL, for its part, organized educational lectures across England to rein force lifelong learning as a source of strength for older middle-class Catholic women. These women particularly had not been able to benefit from increased opportunities for Catholic female education as young women.163 One debate in May 1907 in Mayfair featured Maude Petre arguing in favor of “personal independence as the highest form of freedom” and Dr. Alice Johnson (the lover of Abadam) claiming “the monopoly of power by one sex is deteriorating to both.”164 Besides providing edification and enlightenment, education for Catholic women also had a defensive purpose. Education was needed to ensure that socialism or “false religions” would not takeover religious belief. Agnosticism, Spiritualism, and Theosophy were seen as antithetical to Catholicism.165 These popular spiritual beliefs were viewed as quasi-scientific methods of refuting monotheistic religion. “Anti-religious attacks” were “rapidly popularized” in English society, and it was necessary for the CWL to redouble its efforts so Catholic working women did not fall into the trap of Socialist or Anarchist propaganda.166 Reiterating her writing on women’s inner strength, Fletcher stated protection against immorality no longer

80  Margaret Fletcher came from outside sources like fathers, brothers, or the isolation, but by a woman’s inner principles.167 Those principles were conferred by “intellectual life.”168 Further, Fletcher renewed her theory that “there is a special wing in the battle that Christianity must wage against her enemies reserved for women.”169 Conclusion Fletcher used both the rhetoric of the traditional Catholic family and women’s equality as foundational ideologies in her writing and work. Her doctrinal adherence to Catholic belief in the matters of marriage and divorce show a conservatism of thought. However, her advocacy for women’s equality, married women working, and equal opportunities for women are much more liberal expressions of Catholicism. These examples serve to highlight that lay Catholic women’s beliefs were open to a wide range of ideologies and interpretations of matters affecting contemporary society. Fletcher’s decision to live celibate singledom while advocating for marriage and the family for other women demonstrates a renegotiation of expectations of womanhood in secular life that was supported by older Church teachings. Fletcher subverted expectations of what lay Catholic womanhood should ostensibly be but found in Catholicism an environment open to her interpretations of the faith. In the next chapter, I turn to a discussion and analysis of the life of Maude Petre, a woman whose faith led her to rework Catholic life in the public and private spheres. Petre represents a higher level of revolutionary behavior by pious Catholic women. Fletcher’s liberalism paled in comparison to Petre’s combative stances on Church doctrine and her subsequent disagreements with the Church hierarchy. In fact, Petre’s antagonistic Catholicism led Fletcher herself to ask Petre to leave the CWL board after only a short period. Both Fletcher and Petre found in the Catholic Church a space to exercise their interpretations of what Catholicism could be like, albeit in very different ways. Catholicism provided both these lay Catholic women an opportunity for pious transgressions and an opportunity for engagement in theological and social debates. Notes 1 Mary G. Segar, Margaret Fletcher, 1862–1943 (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1945), pp. 13–14; Margaret Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (Oxford: Shakespeare Head Press, Basil Blackwell, 1939), pp. 128–129. 2 James Pereiro, “Who Are the Laity?,” in From without The Flaminian Gate, Michael Hodgetts and V. A McClelland, eds. (London: Darton Longman & Todd, 1999), pp. 167–191, p. 169. 3 Margaret Fletcher O, Call Back Yesterday (Oxford: Shakespeare Head Press, Basil Blackwell, 1939), p. 89. 4 She says she and other young women were “caught up in the stream of contemporary feminism and anxious to play their part.” Ibid., p. 56.

Margaret Fletcher  81 5 For further discussion of the founding of the CWL, please see my chapter in the forthcoming monograph, Kathryn G. Lamontagne, “A Middle-Class Convert’s Crucible: Margaret Fletcher & the Origins of the Catholic Women’s League,” in Twentieth-Century Lay Catholic Action and Spirituality in Britain, Maria Power and Jonathan Bush, eds. (Cardiff: Catholic Record Society). 6 Ibid, pp. 103–104. 7 Ibid. 8 For Fletcher’s papers please see the Southwark Diocesan Archives as well as the Westminster Diocesan Archives. Both archives have materials relating to the CWL and Fletcher including letters in her own hand. For her opinions on matters pertaining to women and faith, see Margaret Fletcher, Light for New Times (New York: Benziger Bros., 1905); Margaret Fletcher, Catholic Women: The Ideals They Stand for. An Address, Etc. (Bexhill: The Library, 1918); Margaret Fletcher, Christian Feminism (London: P.S. King & Sons, 1915); Margaret Fletcher, The Christian Family (Oxford: Catholic Social Guild, 1920); Margaret Fletcher, The School of The Heart (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1904); Margaret Fletcher, “Letters from the Editor,” The Crucible, 1905–1913. Her autobiography is also a rich source of primary materials, see Fletcher, O Call Back Yesterday (1939). 9 Catriona Beaumont, Women and Citizenship: A Study of Non-Feminist Women’s Societies and the Women’s Movement in England, 1928–1950, unpublished PhD Thesis, Centre for Social History, University of Warwick, April 1996, pp. 74–75. Caitríona Beaumont, “Fletcher, Margaret (1862–1943), founder of the Catholic Women’s League.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. August 8, 2019; accessed February 19, 2020. https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-71353. 10 Margaret Fletcher, “Come o’er and help us,” The Catholic World, A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science (1865–1906),  December 1, 1905. This article expertly shows the tensions in Fletcher’s thought. She argues, “For the truth is, when woman is in touch with God, her spirituality is a great force and she is capable of leading man … there is a need for the presence in the midst of society, not of an exact repetition of any previous type of woman, but of a ‘new woman’ who is new in Christ” (p. 311). 11 Dale A. Johnson, Women in English Religion, 1700–1925 (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1983), p. 139. 12 John W. Burgon “Woman’s Place. A sermon … February 12, 1871 (Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1871), pp. 3, 6–10 in Dale A. Johnson, Women in English Religion, 1700–1925 (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1983), pp. 140–141. 13 Ibid., pp. 141–142. 14 JCH Fletcher, “Woman’s Equality with Man in Christ: A sermon [on Galatians. iii. 28], etc.” (London: Rivingtons, 1871) in Dale A. Johnson, Women in English Religion, 1700–1925 (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1983), pp. 142–147. 15 Ibid., p. 143. Italics from the original. 16 Ibid., p. 144. Fletcher specifically referenced the Bible in regard to women’s place because Burgon was noted for his belief in absolute, literal Biblical truth. 17 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 80. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., p. 100. 20 Fletcher felt that Anglicanism was intrinsically connected to the immoralities of Empire. A purer form of Christianity was therefore to be found in Catholicism. 21 Margaret Fletcher, Catholic Women, The Ideals They Stand for: An Address Delivered by Margaret Fletcher, President of the CWL at the Canadian Camp, Bramshott, Hants, March 10, 1918 (Bexhill: Bexhill Printing co., 1918), pp. 12–13. 22 Barbara Caine, English Feminism, 1780–1980 (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 115.

82  Margaret Fletcher 23 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 137; Margaret Fletcher, “The CWL and Contemporary Feminism,” The Crucible, December 29, 1909, pp. 135–147. 24 Kathleen Sprows Cummings, New Women of the Old Faith (2009). 25 Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes, Rev. ed. (Hoboken: Taylor & Francis, 2013), p. 109. 26 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 134. 27 England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1966 for Carteret John Halford Fletcher. 28 After the war, Fletcher traveled to the newly created country of Czechoslovakia to help the resident Catholic population and later to Krakow, Poland for a conference of Catholic Women’s Leagues. Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), pp. 140–160. 29 Ibid., pp. 173–175. 30 Ibid., p. 177; Segar, Margaret Fletcher (1945), p. 18. 31 England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1966 for Margaret Fletcher. 32 Helena Dawes, Catholic Women’s Movements in Liberal and Fascist Italy (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Mary M. Macken, “The German Catholic Women’s League,” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 20, No. 80 (December 1931), pp. 555–569; L. McKenna, “An Irish Catholic Women’s League,” The Irish Monthly, Vol. 45, No. 528 (June 1917), pp. 353–368. 33 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 133; Margaret Fletcher, “The Catholic Women’s League,” The Crucible, June 25, 1907 (1905–1913), pp. 3–11, p. 4. 34 Margaret Fletcher, “Proposal: to start a small magazine devoted to the interests of Secondary Education in Catholic Girls’ Schools, to consist both of contributions from the Religious Educational Orders, and from minds in the secular world best fitted for the work by experience and mental gifts.” BO 1/30 CWL Heading, 1906–1912, Westminster Diocesan Archives (WDA). 35 Margaret Fletcher, “The Catholic Women’s League,” The Crucible, June 25, 1907 (1905–1913), pp. 3–11, p. 4. 36 Ibid. Guiney and Miller did not help run the magazine as they both had busy writing careers at the time. 37 Fletcher felt High and Low Church Anglican women had lost the connection between suffrage and Christianity and it was necessary for Catholic women to reconnect freedom with religious belief. See The Crucible, September 20, 1905 (London: 1905–1913), pp. 65–66.; Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939). 38 Fletcher, “Birthday Notes,” The Crucible, June 20, 1906, pp. 5–6. It would be safe to assume the anonymous American was Guiney. 39 Mary Salomé, IM, “The Catholic Women’s League,” The Crucible, June 25, 1907, pp. 3–11, p. 3. 40 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), pp. 109. 41 Ibid., p. 110. 42 Ibid., p. 109. 43 For example, the December 20, 1906 edition of The Crucible included articles by a Dominican priest on “Impersonal Teaching” and Alice Gruner on “Salaries of Women Teachers,” The Crucible, September 20, 1906 (London: 1905–1913), pp. 138–142. 44 Isabel Clarke, “The Work of the Girls Protection Society,” The Crucible, September 20, 1906, pp. 87–92. 45 Fletcher, “Proposal for League of Catholic Women Workers,” The Crucible, September 20, 1906, pp. 67–73. 46 Alice Abadam, “Medieval Women and the Women’s Movement,” The Crucible, Vol. 2, No. 8, 1907, pp. 216–225. 47 Ibid., p. 3.

Margaret Fletcher  83 48 Margaret Fletcher, “The Catholic Women’s League,” The Crucible, June 25, 1907 (1905–1913), pp. 3–11, 10–11. 49 Margaret Fletcher, “The Catholic Women’s League,” The Crucible, March 25, 1908 (1905–1913), pp. 191–201. 50 Frances Zanetti, “Helping Hands,” The Crucible, September 25, 1907, pp. 157–160. 51 Letter, Lady Edmund Talbot to The Archbishop of Westminster, later Cardinal Bourne. November 19 [1906]. BO 1/30 CWL Heading, 1906–1912, WDA. Please note the capitalization was Talbot’s own. 52 Letter, Margaret Fletcher to Bourne, October 8, 1906. Bourne 1/30 1906–1912, WDA. 53 Fletcher, “The Catholic Women’s League,” The Crucible, June 25, 1907 (1905–1913), pp. 3–11, p. 7. 54 Letter, Lady Edmund Talbot to The Archbishop of Westminster, later Cardinal Bourne. November 19 [1906]. BO 1/30 CWL Heading, 1906–1912, WDA; Margaret Fletcher, “Notes,” The Crucible, December 20, 1906 (1905–1913), pp. 180–184, p. 180; Margaret Fletcher, “The Catholic Women’s League,” The Crucible, March 25, 1907 (1905–1913), pp. 189–191, p. 190. She writes, “a study of the state of things in this country led to the conclusion that there were practically no Catholic associations of women eligible for affiliation” (p. 190). 55 Letter, Margaret Fletcher to The Bishop of Westminster, later Cardinal Bourne. November 21, 1906. BO 1/30 CWL Heading, 1906–1912, WDA. 56 Fletcher was a woman of will and action. If she had wanted to get married, I am sure she would have invariably made this happen in the way that she made so much happen in her life. I am of the opinion that as a young woman, she feared singlehood but as a New Woman she understood the import of her work. She understood the role of wife and mother to be so great that she would have felt that she sacrificed her own preferences for marriage and motherhood for the “greater work” of providing access to cultural capital for Catholic women. 57 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 93. 58 Karl Pearson, “Woman and Labour,” Fortnightly Review, Vol. 55, 1894, pp. 561, 567 in Rosemary Auchmuty, “Spinsters and Trade Unions in Victorian Britain,” Labour History, No. 29, 1975, pp. 109–122, p. 109. 59 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), pp. 107–109. 60 Katherine Holden, The Shadow of Marriage (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 16. 61 Ibid., p. 89. 62 Margaret Fletcher, Christian Feminism: A Charter of Rights and Duties. Series: Catholic Studies in Social Reform (London: P.S. King & son, Ltd., 1915), p. 12. 63 Ibid., p. 12. 64 What I mean by this phrase “explicit sanctity” is that their sacrifice was so great that Catholics would implicitly understand the level of sacrifice exemplified by that particular person. 65 Margaret Fletcher, The Christian Family (Oxford: Catholic Social Guild, 1920), p. 62. 66 Martha Vicinus, Independent Women (1985). 67 Emma Liggins, Odd Women? Spinsters, Lesbians and Widows in British Women’s Fiction, 1850–1930s (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014). 68 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), pp. 65–67. 69 Ibid., p. 92. 70 Ibid. 71 Margaret Fletcher, The School of The Heart (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1904), pp. 77–79. 72 Ibid., pp. 82–83.

84  Margaret Fletcher 73 Ibid. 74 It is, however, true that Fletcher largely disengaged herself from the management of the domestic sphere, and it seems that perhaps this was left to her younger sister Philippa. Later, when the family housekeeper was no longer able to work due to advanced age, Fletcher cared for her until her death. In any case, the proliferation of maids, house servants, under servants, nannies, and cooks discouraged middle-class women from learning any of the basics of “practical housewifery.” Fletcher enjoyed family life, but she rejected how middle-class women of her era were raised in girlhood to be ignorant of the true running of their homes and indeed the basic foundations of daily life such as cooking for oneself or running a bath. Margaret Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 65. 75 Martha Vicinus, Independent Women (1985), p. 17. 76 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 90. 77 Ibid., p. 90. 78 Ibid., p. 82. 79 Ibid., p. 186. 80 Frances Power Cobbe, Essays on The Pursuits of Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 105. 81 Ibid., p. 110. 82 Martha Vicinus, Independent Women (1985), p. 16. 83 Frances Zanetti, “A Phase of Women’s Work,” The Crucible, 1905, pp. 136–143, p. 137. Zanetti was a member of the Chorlton, Manchester branch of the CWL. 84 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 42. 85 Jane Marcus and Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006), p. 183. 86 “Lady Students at The Royal Academy,” The Times, December 23, 1881. 87 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 72, pp. 62–72. 88 Ibid. 89 Laura Schwartz, Infidel Feminism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). 90 The linking of respectability with womanhood in regard to the nudes at the Royal Academy was a continuing matter of fear and anxiety over the 1880s. See: H. [pseudonym] “Letter to the Editor: Nude Studies,” The Times, May 25, 1885. 91 Mary Poovey, The Proper Lady and The Woman Writer (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 26. 92 Fletcher, The Christian Family (1920), p. 136. 93 Margaret Fletcher, The School of The Heart (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1904). 94 Ibid., pp. 5–6, 9–10, 14–19, 23–25, 28–30, 33–40, 42–44. 95 Ibid., p. 51. 96 Margaret Fletcher, The School of the Heart (1904), pp. 49–50. Thank you to Deeana Klepper for reminding me of this valuable connection about the carnal and moral (re)generation. 97 Ibid., p. 66. 98 Ibid., pp. 77–79. 99 Ibid., p. 87. 100 Ibid., p. 81. 101 Ibid., p. 109. 102 Margaret Fletcher, “The Evolution of the Christian Woman,” The Crucible, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1905, p. 48. 103 The encyclical Ne Temere, Pius X (1908) provides that if a Catholic marries a non-Catholic, the non-Catholic must adhere to the baptism and raising the child as a Catholic.

Margaret Fletcher  85 04 Arcanum Divinae, Leo XIII (1880). 1 105 Fletcher, Catholic Women, The Ideals They Stand for (1918), pp. 8–9. 106 Ibid., pp. 8–9. 107 Fletcher concerned herself most usually with the case of middle-class lay Catholic womanhood and seems not to have engaged with procreation in terms of limiting the development of poor or working-class women. Fletcher’s Protestant contemporaries engaged in the settlement movement struggled with rectifying ideas about family limitation in terms of poverty, sexuality, and alcohol abuse with Christian teachings about reproduction. However, for themselves, many middle-class women engaged with procreation in terms of eugenics, power, and empire (such as Marie Corelli). More work is needed in this area of Catholic lay women, class, and family limitation in Britain. See Daniel Patrick Shea, “Going into Labor: Production and Reproduction in Fin De Siècle British Literature.” PhD Thesis, University of Oregon, 2006. 108 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 74. 109 Paul VI, Humanae Vitae (1968). Much later Humanae Vitae more formally outlined these ideas. 110 Fletcher, Catholic Women, The Ideals They Stand for (1918), p. 10. 111 Pius XI, Casti Connubli (1930). 112 Marie Stopes, Married Love: A New Contribution to The Solution of Sex Difficulties, Etc (London: A.C. Fifield, 1918). To underline how popular Married Love was, it was already in its fourth printing by October 1918, see “Married Love.” Times Literary Supplement [London]. October 10, 1918, p. 483. 113 Stopes, Married Love (London: A.C. Fifield, 1918). 114 Marie Stopes, Wise Parenthood (London: Putnam, 1922). 115 Margaret Fletcher, The Christian Family (1920). 116 Barbara Caine, English Feminism, 1780–1980 (1997), pp. 192–193. 117 Fletcher, The Christian Family (1920), p. 55. 118 Ibid., pp. 60–61. 119 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 110. 120 Leo XIII, Arcanum Divinae (1880). 121 Fletcher, The Christian Family (1920), pp. 65–75. 122 Fletcher, Catholic Women, The Ideals They Stand for (Bexhill: Bexhill Printing co., 1918), pp. 8–9. 123 Ibid., pp. 8–9. 124 Leo XIII, Arcanum divinae, 1880. 125 Margaret Fletcher, Christian Feminism (London: P.S. King & son, Ltd., 1915). 126 Ibid., p. 5. 127 Ibid., pp. 7, 9. 128 Ibid., p. 17. 129 Ibid. 130 Marie Corelli, The Master-Christian (London: Methuen, 1900). Corelli was raised Catholic but wrote this vitriolic work against Catholicism in 1900. She, like, Fletcher did not marry, but Corelli strongly believed in Empire, power, and a Christian England. See Sharon Crozier-De Rosa, “Marie Corelli’s British New Woman: A Threat to Empire?” The History of the Family, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2009), pp. 416–429. 131 Helen Rose Ebaugh, “Patriarchal Bargains and Latent Avenues of Social Mobility: Nuns in the Roman Catholic Church,” Gender and Society, Vol. 7, No. 3 (September 1993), pp. 400–414 (p. 400). 132 Mary Jo Weaver, New Catholic Women (San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row, 1985) p. xiv.

86  Margaret Fletcher 33 Fletcher, Catholic Women, The Ideals They Stand for (1918), pp. 12–13. 1 134 Fletcher, Christian Feminism (1915), pp. 10–12. 135 Ibid., p. 11. 136 Ibid., p. 13. 137 Ibid. 138 Ibid., p. 14. 139 Margaret Fletcher, “The CWL and Contemporary Feminism,” The Crucible, December 29, 1909, p. 136. 140 Margaret Fletcher, “Reconstruction,” Catholic Women’s League Magazine, September 1917, p. 2. 141 Fletcher, O, Call Back Yesterday (1939), p. 162, p. 136. 142 Margaret Fletcher, “The Catholic and the Feminist Movement,” The Crucible, December 28, 1907 (London: 1905–1913), p. 171. 143 Ibid., p.171. 144 Elaine Clark, “Catholics and the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage in England,” Church History, Vol. 73, No. 03 (2004), pp. 635–665, p. 658. Francis Mason writes, “De Alberti complained of Fletcher’s dogmatism and the dismissing of her opponents as ‘revolutionary feminists.’ She objected to the cavalier suggestions that married women should not work and that Fletcher only now seemed to have discovered that unmarried professional women had no rights (p. 627).” I believe this is a misinterpretation of Fletcher by De Alberti. Fletcher fully supported women working, in fact the Information Bureau of the CWL was set up to help Catholic women find work. Francis M Mason, “The Newer Eve: The Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society in England, 1911–1923,” Catholic Historical Review (1986), pp. 620–638. 145 Leonora de Alberti, Woman Suffrage and Pious Opponents (London Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society, [1913]); “Feminism to Catholics Catholicism to Feminists,” The Catholic Herald, January 19, 1940. 146 Leonara de Alberti, Woman Suffrage and Pious Opponents (Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society: London, 1913), p. 4. 147 “Notes,” The Tablet, June 15, 1907. This quote of from Vaughan was cited in the 1907 article, although Vaughan made this comment in May 1896 in The Tablet. He died in 1903. 148 “The Bishop of Limerick and Woman Suffrage,” The Tablet, March 3, 1912. 149 “The Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society. Inaugural Meeting,” The Tablet, June 17, 1911. 150 Josephine Ward, “Catholics and Women’s Suffrage,” The Tablet, August 10, 1912. 151 There has not yet been enough work done on the anti-suffrage movement by Catholic women to counter that of the pro-suffrage factions. There is also an absence of writing on women, like Fletcher, who supported women’s rights but were cautious in taking a stand on suffrage as they felt it was outside the remit of religion. We do know that converts could be strongly in favor of suffrage as in the case of writer Alice Meynell and novelist Christopher St. John. 152 Margaret Fletcher, Catholic Women, The Ideals They Stand for (1918). 153 Ibid., p. 7. 154 For more information on this model of argument used in the suffrage movement, please see Laura E. Nym Mayhall, The Militant Suffrage Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 21. 155 Ibid., p. 6. 156 Fletcher, Catholic Women, The Ideals They Stand for (1918), pp. 12–13. 157 Ibid., p. 10. 158 Linda Colley, Britons (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), p. 42; D. G Paz, Popular Anti-Catholicism in Mid-Victorian England (Stanford, CA:

Margaret Fletcher  87 Stanford University Press, 1992); Edward R Norman, Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1968). 159 Fletcher, Catholic Women, The Ideals They Stand for (1918), pp. 12–13. 160 Margaret Fletcher, “The CWL and Contemporary Feminism,” The Crucible, December 29, 1909, p. 146. 161 Ibid., p. 146. 162 Frances Zanetti, “Helping Hands,” The Crucible, Vol. 3, No. 11 (1907), pp. 157–160. 163 See, for example, advertisements at the end of each issue of The Crucible. 164 Margaret Fletcher, “The Catholic Women’s League,” The Crucible, June 25, 1907 (1905–1913), pp. 10–11. 165 Margaret Fletcher, “The CWL and Contemporary Feminism,” The Crucible, December 29, 1909, p. 142. 166 Ibid., p. 144. 167 Ibid., p. 146. 168 Ibid., p. 147. 169 Ibid.

3

Maude Petre Modernism, Cohabitation, and Respectability

For some Catholic women, the Catholic Church’s stance on issues of modernity forced a renegotiation of personal interpretations of faith. Maude Petre (1863–1942) was greatly concerned with what she saw to be lapses and failures in Catholic teaching at the end of the 19th century. In her controversial 1907 book, Catholicism and Independence, Petre wrote of the dilemma faced by the individual Catholic: “then comes the conflict between the loyalty which they owe to the common cause, and the loyalty they owe to the light within.”1 Rather than tacitly accept these flawed changes imposed from above, Petre, along with other Modernists, fought to try to reclaim their Church from what they saw as failings and errors. Petre, like the other women in this book, rejected various aspects of modern Catholic manifestations of True Womanhood as well as Victorian domestic ideologies. She did so in favor of an intensely personal interpretation of her Catholic faith in which she rejected popular forms of piety, Church teachings on Papal infallibility, and contemporary notions of propriety surrounding friendships between men and women. Her strong religious belief never weakened despite disagreements and disavowals between herself and the clerical hierarchy of the Roman Church in England and further afield. In fact, these arguments prompted her to campaign even more strongly against what she perceived as internal attacks against the faith itself by Ultramontanists. As a born-Catholic who was both a religious sister and a layperson, Maude Petre provides an example of one kind of lay Catholic Womanhood in England.2 Her inconsistencies in behavior (at times, both conservative and radical) illustrate an ability shared with the other women of this book to go beyond what may have been a circumscribed life as Catholic women. Thus, building on Fletcher’s liberal views of using Catholicism to provide a space for lay Catholic womanhood to engage in the public sphere, Petre provides a further example of radical Catholic thought. Petre’s particular expression of Modernist Catholicism was revolutionary for its time. The Modernist Movement was ultimately unsuccessful in the moment (however, 50 years later these ideas form the basis of Vatican II), but Petre’s efforts to advance its arguments demonstrate how Catholicism provided some women with the tools and conviction to reinterpret aspects of their faith.3 DOI: 10.4324/9781003300861-4

Maude Petre  89 Maude Petre illustrated a radical kind of lay Catholic womanhood through her active participation in the Modernist movement. Yet she demonstrates a much less submissive, and in fact, combative kind of Catholic femininity than the other women in this book. Petre revised expectations of lay Catholicism as a way of finding empowerment through her interactions with the powerful male figures in the Catholic Church and Modernist movement. Petre was not the first, nor will she be the last woman to contradict the men of the Church and carries on a tradition rooted in the earliest days of the Church from Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, or Joan of Arc. She continued to usurp notions of female submission and traditional married domesticity, particularly through the example of her relationship with Father George Tyrrell. Her class identity and religion informed her notions of womanhood and a personal, liberating interpretation of Cisalpinist, Modern Catholicism. Historiography Given the revolutionary nature of Petre’s Modernism, Petre is unsurprisingly becoming the focus of more historical studies, with new works on the horizon from Joy Dixon and others. LaReine-Marie Moseley powerfully claims Petre as the “midwife of the Church’s future” due to her contributions to Catholic theology and “critical spirituality.”4 Yet, traditionally, Petre was studied in reference to Tyrrell, and her theological role mitigated due to her sex.5 She was described by the International Catholic University as merely “an English woman who for a time belonged to a rather obscure religious order. She contributed nothing of substance to Modernist ideas,” which is typical of the hypermasculine views of Modernism from some authors.6 Some questioned if Petre and Tyrrell “could … be satisfactorily considered apart.”7 It is becoming ever more apparent that Petre contributed an intensity of spirit to the Modernist movement in her own right and was certainly not a minor character due to her gender. There are a number of indicative texts on Petre and her theological contributions to Modernist, Catholic history. Father Clyde F. Crews’ book, English Catholic Modernism (1984), is a pioneering look into Petre’s work as a Modernist, but it does not attend to her attitudes about women’s issues, domesticity, or sex.8 There are unpublished theological PhD theses from Mary Dumonceaux, OSF and Joseph Jacobs that refute the earlier assumptions of Petre’s “feminine weakness” or “poor” scholarship. Dumonceaux contends Petre’s ecclesiastical ideology as a theologian combined freedom, friendship, and inclusivity as she worked to “advance awareness of women’s theological thought in the early twentieth century.”9 There is a clear link between Petre’s personal life and her understanding of her Church. Further, Jacobs states “she should be considered as a significant intellectual in her own right, even outside the sphere of Modernism.”10 Finally, Ellen Leonard, CSJ, the leading scholar of Petre, proved her major role in informing Tyrrell’s Modernism and “projecting [those views] on to Tyrrell.”11 Leonard’s seminal monograph

90  Maude Petre has a short discussion of how Petre may fit a “feminist framework,” while focusing on Petre’s theology.12 In this book, I see an opportunity to push Leonards’ short precis on Petre’s feminism by considering her in terms of her Catholic female cohort and expanding on matters of gender. Petre’s class and family background as “old” Catholics imbued her with a sense of exceptionalism that gave her the capacity to examine the Catholic Church on her own terms. In order to elucidate Petre’s wider contributions to the movement, it is necessary to look to Tyrrell, but Petre should not be subsumed under Tyrrell’s image or ignored, as other purely Modernist scholars have done in the past. The Modernist movement was a key moment in chipping away at a monolithic Papal (male) power from Rome, and this woman played an integral role in it, which supports my premise that some women could find agency in Catholicism to greatly renegotiate theological, social, political, intellectual, and historical boundaries. Petre was, truly, a pious transgressor. Biographical Sketch Maude Petre was born into the aristocracy near her family’s ancestral home in Ingatestone, Essex in August 1863. Her father, Arthur, was the son of the 13th Baron Petre. Her mother, Catherine, fourth daughter of the Earl of Wicklow, was part of the Protestant Ascendancy. Catherine was a convert to Catholicism, but her husband was a member of one of the oldest and best connected “Old” Catholic, or recusant, families in England. For the Petre family Catholicism “was the governing factor of life.”13 They felt their ancient recusancy illustrated that their faith proved the highest levels of devotion. Further, Arthur Petre was a Cisalpinist, meaning he favored a more autonomous approach to Catholicism than one dictated by a central authority in Rome.14 Cisalpinists understood that in England, for example, one could be both Catholic and English without concern. This desire for selfautonomy was certainly inculcated into Maude Petre. Catholicism and her aristocratic background paved the way for Petre to enjoy top-notch independent religious and theological study at the Vatican – usually only afforded to men. In her early 20s, Petre embarked on a solo sojourn to Rome to explore her faith, or as one aunt teased, “to study for the priesthood.”15 Unquestionably, in the 1880s, this type of independent trip would have evoked the spirit of the new ideal, the “New Woman.”16 While in Rome, she took Latin lessons, met with Jesuits, and established her opinions of the liberal theological philosophy, Thomism, and Augustinianism, which underpinned her future writing.17 Petre wrestled with her faith during this period, rather than accepting it as part of her birth right. She may have traveled to Rome because of her faith, but her faith was “tortured” there.18 This doubt gave Petre a significant amount of pain, as so much of her understanding of herself was bound to her status from an elite, old Catholic family. She stated, “I like to believe, and it is a sorrow to me when I cannot do so.”19

Maude Petre  91 After her return to England after her studies, she continued to explore her relationship to her faith rather than marry, or, search out a secular career. Petre, like some other aristocratic women of her era, saw a religious vocation as a method of expressing her Catholicism while engaging with the social work of the church in the public sphere. In 1890, Petre entered the London novitiate of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, or the Filles de Marie, a French order where the women “are consecrated women living in the midst of the world,” neither necessarily living together nor wearing any outward signs of their vocation.20 The Daughters of Mary were unique – there was a reunion of women, but they lived within the community and did not dress as a people apart. Membership in the Filles was secret until 1890 when Pope Leo XIII approved this style of female community. Entering a novitiate was not uncommon, and it grew in popularity during this period and, according to Mangion, provided Catholic women with a space to “find spiritual and professional satisfaction.”21 She began this life in Mayfair, with some household help and a boarder.22 Settling herself in Mayfair, rather than the East End, or Liverpool, is telling in itself. Petre took her final vows and took on various leadership positions within the English congregation from 1896 to 1908.23 It seems she never lived with any of the order and for someone so reticent to be given “orders” it does seem fitting for Petre. Having joined a “loose” sisterhood furthers the larger contention of women finding spaces within the Church to be increasingly free from male, hierarchical controls. This order reminds one of a béguinage, so flexible was membership, but the women did not necessarily live in community (her inclusion in this text as a lay woman is discussed later). Petre preferred to be seen as an equal, even if that man was part of the highest levels of the faith. In London, she formed deep and enduring friendships with some members of the hierarchy. Most notably, Petre met Father George Tyrrell, S.J. (1861–1909) just before the turn of the century. Father Tyrrell was an Irish Anglican, who converted to Catholicism within a few months of moving to England in 1879.24 Through her friendship with Tyrrell, as well as Baron Friedrich von Hügel, Petre was exposed to the Modernist movement from its earliest days. As a reminder, the Modernists sought a Church that understood contemporary society and its demands, or in the words of Alfred Loisy, “to live in harmony with the spirit of the age.”25 As a reminder, in essence, the Modernist debate was an attempt by some Catholics to urge a more historical and scientific understanding of the Bible. Among other issues, the Modernist Movement concerned itself with matters of centralized authority, most notably from the Pope, exegesis, historicity, the Magisterium, and an understanding and acceptance of other modes of religious thought. Led in England and France, by von Hügel, Loisy, Tyrrell, and Henri Brémond, with Petre as an integral figure, Modernism was entirely rejected by Pius X.26 Petre found in Modernism an outlet for a reinterpretation of her the Church within the scope of bettering the religion.

92  Maude Petre Outwardly, Petre’s status in Catholic and public society changed significantly during this period. Her role in the Modernist Movement damaged her reputation in elite lay Catholic circles despite the fact she was from of an old, noble Catholic family with recourse to private funds and kinship networks extending throughout the peerage.27 Many believed her private domestic relationship and theological sympathy with Tyrrell was far too radical. However, Petre did not accept assertions of a loss of virtue or complaints about her style of Catholicism. She continued to write and travel extensively, but her formal position in the Church was difficult. She was effectively, but not officially, banned by Bishop Amigo of Southwark. Eventually, she left Amigo’s jurisdiction which eased her situation to some extent, and she found other priests more sympathetic to her cause. When he died in 1909, Tyrrell was refused a Catholic burial, and, in a gesture of solidarity, when Petre died she was buried next to him in the Anglican burial ground at St. Mary’s in Storrington. However, it remains true that her work to change the Church from the inside left a lasting legacy through the work of Vatican II. Vatican II followed on many of the Modernist’s suggestions for the Church, which led to a transformation of Catholic lay womanhood. Single or Self(ish) Interests? The International Congress of Women was held in London in 1899 and featured lectures, debates, and presentations on a wide number of topics such as settlement work, emigration, environmental concerns, and women’s professions.28 Maude Petre was present at the Congress and was troubled by the privileging of the masses over the individual. She wrote, “while the larger causes of humanity are maintained the importance of single interests may not be overlooked.”29 Petre was concerned with an individualized, personal interpretations of her faith. She believed that good could not be calculated by numbers, but through personal experiences and reflection. She queried in the pages of the Catholic magazine, The Month, if, in regard to “public versus private altruism” if one was more beneficial than the other.30 Petre left this question unanswered because she felt that issues of the domestic could best be dealt with privately.31 Petre’s opinions on domesticity and womanhood were intensely personal, as were her reasons for being a Catholic Modernist. A study of Petre’s writing and life demonstrate contradictory attitudes on a number of subjects, which she herself did not recognize as problematic. Her interpretation of Catholicism privileged the individual, as her reaction to the Women’s Congress clearly shows Catholicism was not monolithic to Petre. A Modernist through and through, she believed the Church should be as flexible for the laity to bend as it was for some members of the hierarchy. Petre, an elite woman, reacted against attempts by some members of the (male) ecclesiastical hierarchy to exercise control over her personal domestic choices.

Maude Petre  93 Petre’s individual interpretation of lay Catholic womanhood was complex and much less submissive than many of her “cradle” Catholic cohort. While some of her attitudes may demonstrate a degree of conflict of belief in terms of traditional womanhood (rather than her actual practice), Petre herself did not believe this to be the case. In terms of a wider moment in lay Catholic women’s history, these slippages may be read as examples of pious transgression. Indeed, Petre demonstrated contradictory attitudes in her writing and life that were at once both orthodox and unorthodox. “True Catholic Womanhood” evoked typical gender stereotypes of submission, piety and domesticity. Petre rejected submission, marriage, and obedience as qualities of Catholic womanhood. Yet, as a matter of personal conviction and connection to the Filles, she rejected marriage and took a vow of single celibacy in 1900. Domestically, she gravitated toward a nurturing, quasi-maternal role toward those in need. She found fulfillment in unmarried cohabitation, despite that it violated Church strictures and caused great amounts of anxiety for some members of the hierarchy. While not doctrinal, Church teaching strongly discourages cohabiting as a threat to the Sacrament of Marriage. It is deemed a threat because it is viewed as mocking aspects of marriage such as sex without sanctifying the relationship. For each of the actions and reactions, Petre justified her behavior through her faith and the tacit support of friends and family, both lay and religious. Petre’s personal, individualized approach to life and her faith meant she pushed the limits of the Church’s flexibility in many cases, but she also had enough support to interpret the religion as she felt best suited her circumstances. Over the Modernist movement, Petre continued to overturn various aspects of the married Catholic feminine ideal, such as submission and traditional domesticity, particularly through the example of her non-traditional relationship with Father George Tyrrell. Achieving the aims of the Modernist Movement in the Catholic Church was, to Petre and Tyrrell, of the utmost import in reforming the Church. Petre wrote in her diary that her relationship to Father Tyrrell was indivisible from Modernism: [I] know that our union and our cause are one, and can never be separated and that to forsake the latter for the former would be to drop a treasure in order to find it … We must persevere.32 For Petre, that she would work for change alongside Father Tyrrell on equal footing was taken for granted. Their “cause” placed their relationship on a higher plane both spiritually and emotionally. For her, the two, “the union and the cause” were indivisible. Her theological and supportive work for the reforms of Modernism was no less valuable because of her sex. Her individualistic style of morality and womanhood was largely derived from her position as a member of an old (and elite) recusant family. She knew herself to be exceptional in her Catholicism and socioeconomic class, which offered her empowerment and authority as a lay woman (then associated with a flexible religious community, then lay again).33 Consequently, Petre

94  Maude Petre found it difficult to accept the pronouncements of those in positions of hierarchical power. This was because she felt she was generally better placed to make individualized, appropriate choices for herself, not just as a woman but also as a person. She would suggest in her writing that semi-literate Catholics needed the Magisterium as a guideline, but an educated upper-class Catholic such as Petre should be able to scrutinize Church teachings carefully and independently.34 Petre supported the maternal, feminine aspects of True Catholic Womanhood, but implicitly rejected notions that Catholic “femininity” was underpinned by weakness, subjugation, or obedience. Marriage was also regarded as a major aspect of Catholic Womanhood. But Petre, like other single women, was able to turn Catholic ideals of maternal self-sacrifice into “one of active spirituality” both as a religious sister and lay Catholic.35 She piously and strongly transgressed expectations placed on her as a Catholic woman of her age. A Woman’s Place? Like other religious women of her era, Petre both accepted and rejected contemporary notions of womanhood and domesticity. Petre sought a nuanced approach to Catholic womanhood that both reinforced and rejected expectations and assumptions. Sue Morgan explains that there was a “diversity of political approaches and moral perspectives” for pious women.36 Petre reflects such a diversity of “approaches” and “moral perspectives.” What were Petre (and Tyrrell’s) opinions on womanhood, the contemporary Women’s Rights movement, and the New Woman? Petre was conservative about women’s rights and did not endorse political endeavors for women to get the franchise. She claimed, “I wish to work for the cause of real feminism.”37 To Petre, “real feminism” was about rejecting subordination in Church matters by (some male) ecclesiasts rather than a secular, political expression of equality. Petre came of age in an era of increased agitation for women’s rights, which, along with her Catholicism, influenced her transgressive, interpretative religiosity. Some of this independence in actions was evident in her choosing a single celibate life outside of marriage as well as being strident in her refusal of any limitations on her prerogatives. Her ideas about obedience as not forming part of Catholic Womanhood were radically different from those widely suggested to Catholics, especially the inviolability of ecclesiastical powers. Petre did not believe that the hierarchy was any better placed to judge rights and wrongs than herself. Nor did she believe any man was innately equipped to command a woman. For example, regarding how Catholic women should behave toward men (priests, but also specifically others in positions of power, such as “sons-in-laws” or “husbands”), she wrote in 1903, “From an objective point of view the commands of superiors are not infallibly right … Holy as may be the call of obedience.”38 Catholic teachings and traditions informed her own understanding of right and wrong,

Maude Petre  95 and Petre was opposed to accepting “commands from superiors” without thorough personal investigations. This attitude and ideology of individual womanhood is rather representative of the New Woman trope. In addition, her status as a woman of privilege offered an additional layer of agency and power in status. Together, the duality of New Womanhood and aristocratic prerogative truly made Petre a figure to be reckoned with. Tyrrell, for his part, despite his liberal views on reforming the Church, was very conservative and traditional in his views on women. He is a useful counterpoint to the more forward-thinking Petre in her ideas about her abilities as a woman. This underpins the idea of the capaciousness of the Church as a space for a multiplicity of interpretations of behavior. He felt, as many late Victorians did, that the New Woman movement was dangerous since it removed women from their necessary roles in society, as domestic helpmeets, a virtuous symbols and “guardian[s] of the spiritual wealth of the family.”39 In his article on the New Woman in the American Catholic Quarterly Review, he made clear divisions between Catholic expectations for “gentle” married woman and “brusque” unmarried secular women, namely the New Women. He wrote that the New Woman may “elbow her way to the front,” pushing aside those who stop her advancement.40 Tyrrell felt this manly pushiness was unacceptable for women whose power should not be derived from “brute force” but be exemplary of their “unselfish … spiritual force.”41 Tyrrell believed the Catholic Church endorsed the moral, spiritual, and academic equality of Catholic women who would not need to use “brute force” to advance. Tyrrell wrote that the Church, “desires the fullest possible mental and moral development of women,” but, with the understanding that this must be “compatible with the discharge of social duties.”42 These social duties of course referred to women keeping a Catholic home, raising Catholic children, or, even entering the novitiate.43 Petre did not see the “home and hearth” as the place for her, but Tyrrell felt most women were best suited to mothering rather than work outside the home. Unlike many women of her generation, Petre was lucky enough to freely make this personal and progressive choice due to her class and status. She felt life as an unmarried woman allowed her a freedom that she would not have been able to achieve if she had married.44 “I am glad that I did not marry,” she wrote, because, “on the whole, I am glad to have lived my own life, and shared the life of others in a measure which I could not have done as a married woman.”45 Petre resented Coventry Patmore’s idealized “Woman” in his poem, “Angel in the House.”46 She found his description of femininity too rigid and that it unfairly categorized women merely “as cheerful companions.”47 In comparison, writing in The Month in 1900, Tyrrell was clear in his support of Patmore’s suppositions about women’s place and said Patmore was a “masculine poet whose power lies in a beautiful utterance of truth” about the role of women, particularly Catholic women.48 It is interesting to note that this article coincided with Tyrrell and Petre’s first meetings and indicates a source of future tensions for the couple as they

96  Maude Petre had such oppositional ideas about where woman’s best talents naturally lay. Catholicism was a source of both progressive and conservative thinking for Petre in terms of equality for women outside and inside the home. Suffrage In one particularly contentious area affecting contemporary womanhood, that of suffrage, Petre was exceptionally conservative. She felt the home and faith had a much greater value for women over the political sphere. Equality for women, Petre argued, was already spiritually evident; a “vote” could not alter what was already “divinely” true.49 She wrote that women had a great capacity to “work wonders far beyond the reach of any [manmade] law”: Birth and death, growth and sickness, love and marriage, joy and sorrow have been their special, their peculiar domain, the field of woman’s work and woman’s duty. The time has come when more than ever their influence could be exercised over their own kingdom.50 Equality was divinely given by God to women through their capacity for piety and sacrifice. Their “kingdom” was the home, but also social work on women’s issues. This argument was not, of course, new. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the famous suffragist, had used much the same argument herself in 1889 to argue in favor of women’s suffrage.51 Fawcett claimed that women’s capacity for “women’s work and women’s duty” to use Petre’s words were exactly what made women having the vote so necessary for the betterment of society.52 Conversely, Petre employed the conservative attitude that the political sphere was not the space to evoke change, but in the home. Good homes led to good societies. Petre feared women would forget their import in the domestic and altruistic spheres once given the vote.53 Here we see Petre privileging her own interpretation of “women’s work,” which was reforming the Catholic Church, rather than reforming the nation. Other reasons that Petre gave against agitating for suffrage were that she regarded middle-class and elite women as already having the ability to make self-conscious personal interrogations of rights and morality – so why agitate for political approval of something that was implicit? She wrote, “We repeat together the words of the Creed, but each one of us, if they are to be of any value to him, must make them his own, as though he had originated them.”54 While this statement is not referencing suffrage per se, it indicates that Petre regarded considered personal beliefs as preferable to any kind of communitarian decision. Petre failed to see that philanthropic and domestic work could be both improved through political campaigns or government intervention. The important distinction to make is that, while women’s equality in Christ was an important issue to her, the actual Women’s Rights Movement held little attraction for her. Yet, when the vote was given, Petre freely took part and

Maude Petre  97 voted in 1918.55 Therefore, while Petre perpetuated fears of women’s suffrage negatively affecting the family, once the vote was granted, she had little trouble in justifying the use of her enfranchisement. Petre even held elected office in Storrington in 1919. The Primacy of the Home For Petre, the franchise simply did not offer as many opportunities for women as the Catholic faith. Women were implicitly imbued with all the power she may need, along with grace, freedom, and morality. She wrote in an article, “Nietzsche the Anti-Feminist,” that Catholic women had many opportunities available to them, [Women] have felt that they could do some things very much better [than men], and these, not merely domestic trivialities, but works of very true intellectual and spiritual value.56 These women should use their independence and gifts to achieve empowerment. Women’s work outside of the home was acceptable and, in fact, supported, by Petre, but she felt it should not be taken up at the detriment of other responsibilities such as the family. Petre iterated popular fears that if all women left the home for work, the family would break apart, and then society, too, would fall apart. In her cyclical argument, The necessity for public work arises largely from the neglect of private duties – because these latter are left aside, by those who ought to perform them … [who will] espouse the cause of abandoned children, oppressed servants, misguided and downtrodden girls and women?57 Therefore, Petre believed middle-class women with families should not forget the import of the domestic sphere on the public sphere. But, she believed, as was the case with herself, some women’s talents were best used elsewhere. Underpinning this was, again, her belief in the primacy of the individual over the “many.” She wrote, We have then to examine the respective merits of public and private altruism. It is the latter, which has been, up till now, the more peculiar province of the woman. Is she leaving it for something higher and better when she gives up working for the few in order to labour for the many?58 Petre’s very individualist view on society meant that she was distrustful of applying large themes to what she felt should have been private choices. The primacy of the individual Catholic woman to evoke greater change than

98  Maude Petre a large group of non-Catholic women, in Petre’s mind, was reinforced at the International Women’s Congress of 1899. The Women’s Congress was international and secular in nature, although there were women and men present representing various faiths.59 Some of the most famous women of the era in the campaign for women’s rights were present such as Mary Wolstenholme-Elmy, Millicent Fawcett, and the American Susan B. Anthony.60 Petre felt the Women’s Congress missed an opportunity to support the cause of individual women – whether it was in the family, work, single, or otherwise. She made the rather conservative, but traditional point that women’s roles in the home were of vital importance, echoing Catholic thinking on this topic. She maintained that the home would suffer if some married women worked: It is important to know whether the work peculiar to their sex, the work, that is to say, which they, and they alone, can do, will gain or suffer by the strenuous movement they are making to assume a share in the give and take of public work and opinion.61 This conservative thinking was evident in other women, especially the anti-suffragists, but Petre’s own choice of single, active celibacy indicates that what she wrote in The Month demands contextualization. There is evidence of clear dissonance here for Petre. She evokes the home as the rightful place of most Catholic lay women, but for herself she allowed individual, public expressions of womanhood. This gendered idea of womanhood was very conservative and indicates a curious example of how Catholic womanhood could be interpreted in a variety of ways by even one woman. Petre was progressive in thought for herself, but conservative in thought for other women (presumably, non-elite women). This example of Petre’s interpretation of “woman’s place” illuminates how the Church’s teachings could be molded to fit all manner of ideologies regarding women’s rights. For every example of conservative thought underpinned by the Church, there were oppositional progressive, liberal views given credence by the same Church. Indeed, for every conservative idea toward women that Petre had, there was an equal and opposite idea that she applied to herself. Raised in the era of respectability, and strongly motivated by her religion, it is helpful to see how Petre’s more open-minded ideas about womanhood developed. Intellectual and Spiritual Sympathy Petre and Tyrrell met in 1897 but their friendship only blossomed in 1900 after she participated in a retreat led by Tyrrell.62 Their relationship grew over the following years, as Modernists with a shared vision for the Church, but also as companions who were constantly in contact personally or by letter. In 1906, when Tyrrell was asked to leave the Jesuits for his Modernist writings, she welcomed him into her home in Sussex where she was now living. To further

Maude Petre  99 highlight how Petre and Tyrrell’s relationship became so contentious to the Catholic community, it is fascinating to think of this as a way in which their relationship was oppositional to contemporary ideas about gender roles. For Petre, the intellectual and spiritual sympathy between herself and Tyrrell made him increasingly attractive. She felt a strong mutuality in their relationship on all levels, which Tyrrell refuted, citing his own weaknesses. Reflecting much of the rhetoric of Catholic Womanhood, he wrote how he believed she was his superior in many ways, such as her sensitivity, work ethic, and purity. Early on, Tyrrell warned her that she may have overestimated him, drawing attention to her greater capacity for “goodness” as a woman: In the great interest of life we are in full intellectual sympathy; but I am also convinced that you mistake my clearness of moral perception for a strength and purity of character in which you are immeasurably beyond me, and which would make your intelligent response so valuable a possession.63 This comment is worthy of a further look in that it shows how Tyrrell felt Petre was, in many ways exceptional, treating her as his equal intellectually but his superior morally. Underlining her seriousness and intellectual vigor, he later told Brémond: “She has no light side—all philosophy.”64 In the first instance, however, Tyrrell points out his (masculinized) capacity for moral perception and juxtaposes it against Petre’s (feminine) purity, which Tyrrell lacks. This demonstrates a clear engagement from Tyrrell with how Petre exemplified aspects of True Catholic Womanhood in her purity. Purity was, of course, a valued aspect of the pious Catholic and most commonly associated with women in the manner of the Virgin Mary. Mentioning a woman’s strength as superior to his own was a strange admittance from a priest. But it seems that this dichotomy was fluid and changeable, as Tyrrell could also take umbrage with Petre’s assertiveness and corrective words and actions. Petre offered Tyrrell theological critiques of his work, which he found difficult to countenance. She was well placed to give him suggestions, but would later feel bad about the critiques, even if necessary for him to improve his work: “[I] feel horribly anxious about him, and I suspect he is angry again, over a slight criticism I offered in regard to the ‘Much abused letter [Tyrrell’s famous pamphlet].’”65 Petre was perhaps right to offer suggestions to Tyrrell, as an editor and co-theologian. In the past, Tyrrell’s sarcastic writing style had confused readers to the point of believing he was endorsing a rejection of liberal theology, when he was doing just the opposite.66 Theologically, Petre was also well placed to comment; Leonard has argued that Petre’s theology formed an early version of liberation theologies, which influenced feminist theology.67 Mosely explains that Petre was excluded from lists of Church theologians because, “She was not beyond expressing her love and admiration for Tyrrell, for which some scholars have attempted to dismiss her

100  Maude Petre contribution to Catholic life in the late nineteenth and earl twentieth centuries.”68 Petre’s absence from the lists of lead Modernists is problematic as it undermines women’s intellectual work on Church matters. Petre’s effusive love for “Tyrrell the man” seems to render her theology less valuable to some scholars.69 Her tendency to “wear her heart on her sleeve” should not be misconstrued as weakness or anti-intellectualism. Indeed, as Petre practiced “continuous theological analysis and pastoral testing” of her theories surrounding “unity in the divine.”70 Between themselves, Petre and Tyrrell’s relationship was layered in ambiguity and constantly changing discourses around gender and power. There were some strong examples over the years of their friendship where he offered evidence of her superiority by privileging her feminine “goodness.” There were examples of a reversal of traditional gendering of priest and lay woman, when it could be argued that Tyrrell viewed Petre as having the power and authority in their relationship because of what he believed to be her particularly “female qualities.” He had jokingly called her “Reverend” in the past, but there seems to be evidence that he was reverential of her sanctity and piety, viewing her as a confessor.71 The placement of a woman in the role of a priest’s primary confessor was uncharted ground, but Tyrrell seems to have been comfortable with this and Petre felt herself well equipped to cope. Tyrrell wrote to her in 1900 of his struggles with the Jesuits: I tell you all this Maude because your heart is mine and I want at least one confessor in whom I can trust. You just prevent me turning into stone, and then I think how inaccessible you must always be.72 Here we see evidence of how Petre’s femininity and her sensitivity were drawn upon by Tyrrell to keep him from bitterness toward the Church in the wake of being disparaged for his Modernism. “Feminine” sensitivity is her strength rather than a weakness. As scholars have shown, a woman’s capacity to offer emotional sustenance repudiates notions of the spinster living on the periphery without agency or human connections.73 It could be that Tyrrell was especially taken with her cultivation of “womanly perfection” in this role of celibate womanhood and sought some of this feminine reassurance for himself. In this example of a kind of confession, Tyrrell looked to Petre to provide comfort and reassurance of his humanity. Not surprisingly, as their relationship developed, both sought differing things from their friendship. Petre had happily taken on the role of confessor, but she was strongest in her role as defender. On Matters of Respectability and Faith Respectability and propriety were a primary concern for young, aristocratic ladies during the late Victorian era. As a young woman, Petre attended balls, the society weddings of her family, performed on the piano forte at society

Maude Petre  101 concerts and fundraisers, and was presented at Court in 1885.74 She was taught to respect the boundaries of gender and separation of the sexes. She wrote, “We were not allowed to go out about alone with men, to have done so would have been regarded as improper.”75 However, as a young woman, she kept the mantle of respectability half on and half off. She was embroiled in a dispute with her father’s family over some Church relics that she had “liberated” from the ancestral home of Coptfold Hall and was ordered to return.76 Petre traveled to Italy alone and only used a chaperone when visiting “professor-priests” for her lessons. During this time, she joined the open order of the Filles de Marie and published a book on altruism and Catholics, called Aethiopum Servus (1896) a text which ironically demonstrated her belief in the importance of selflessness.77 But then again, there are also shades of Modernism evident in her writing during this time for the Catholic monthly, The Month, demonstrating her independence of thought from her superiors.78 Her attitudes toward men as a young woman reveal an early dissonance with stereotypical late Victorian conventions. As a young lady she was not taught to “fear men,” but it does not seem that she was taught to respect men in any special, patriarchal way either. There seems to be an innate notion of equality in action and behavior for Petre, although her interactions with men outside of her family may have been limited, shedding light on her tendency to “hero worship.” Twenty years later, she counted von Hügel, Tyrrell, Brémond, and Loisy among her most intimate male friends, admitting, “I had, perhaps more men friends than most women.”79 In England, an unmarried society woman, even an older one, was still expected to be chaperoned while alone with unrelated men, even if these men were priests. She, however, spent many hours unchaperoned, walking, talking, and lunching at private clubs with her male friends, Tyrrell especially. Their walks caused a furor in the local area. Petre could be “seized with intense longing to have GT to myself just to wander together where we will.”80 That this seemingly simple domestic act of taking a walk together would unnerve the locals is not surprising, since neighbors and strangers alike questioned the true nature of their domestic arrangements and accordingly Petre’s respectability.81 As an independent woman, the loss of her “respectability” could have had dire consequences for Petre had she been of the middle classes. As an upper-class woman, Petre followed her own model of behavior, indicating transgressions taken for pious purposes. Acting with a “pure” heart abjured Petre to negative connotations ascribed to her life in Sussex with Tyrrell. This instance shows how conservative thinkers could use their religious work as an excuse to behave outside of anticipated norms for unmarried couples by living together. This action further demonstrates a way in which some lay Catholics could use the Church to justify unorthodox behavior. This desire to be alone with men was considered an awful breach of propriety. From 1905, her preference for male company, coupled with Modernist beliefs, caught the attention of others. In Richmond where Tyrrell was the

102  Maude Petre parish priest, Petre was forced to leave because of gossip about the two as a romantic item.82 Her book, Catholicism and Independence (1907), which supported Modernist ideals, further increased the attention leveled on Petre and her behavior. She wrote in her diary about the gossip that surrounded her, “in London … I heard about how tongues are wagging – of course against GT but now also against me.”83 She was asked to vacate her position on the board of the Catholic Women’s League. Margaret Fletcher wrote to Petre, “I was told, and by authorities competent to judge, that it [your membership] would give a wrong impression of our aims and work at Rome,” due to the “disreputable” behavior of Petre in the Modernist Movement at home.84 Indeed, she continued, Petre’s current association with the incipient CWL may deter other women from joining so that they would not be associated with her incendiary beliefs.85 However, it seems that Petre did not actively try to “find” trouble, instead she merely acted for her cause, as other women of her generation involved in other movements in the method she felt most effective. For example, women involved in the women’s suffrage movement were also criticized in some parts of society for engaging too publicly for their beliefs and incurring notoriety. This use of spectacle in the case of the suffrage movement was similarly derided.86 Spectacle proved to be a helpful tool for the suffragist and the Modernists in order to advance their causes, by bringing attention to the issues they sought to redefine. It occurred to Petre that she was “beginning to find I have enemies” due to her transgressions of respectability and the hierarchy.87 Some felt that Petre enjoyed the notoriety that followed her actions, such as the “impropriety” of walking with Father Tyrrell. Such suspicions were also due to righteousness, letter writing, Modernist ideas, and how other elite Catholic women interpreted all these matters.88 In 1909, one Catholic priest wrote to Bishop Amigo that he felt she enjoyed the gossip and discussed ways to try and stop “her in the way of obtaining the notoriety she desires.”89 Petre transgressed conventions of what piety looked like for Catholic women. Yet, to contend that she did so for spectacle rather than as a matter of active spirituality undermined Petre as a matter of gender rather than method. Domesticity and Intimacy Recently, scholars have shown that women in England were transgressing traditional domestic and intimate boundaries in late Victorian and Edwardian England in greater numbers than previously realized.90 Middle-class and aristocratic women were increasingly living on their own in new, purposebuilt flat blocks in Marylebone, Kensington, and Chelsea, although mixed shared accommodation remained rare.91 Over her life, Petre lived in many different domestic environments, some very typical for a single woman of her standing and others less so. Vicinus offers that single women reordered daily life and found independence through all-female residential institutions (hospitals, settlement houses, convents) as “alternatives to the nuclear family.”92

Maude Petre  103 Petre did much the same as other single, or “odd women,” but, crucially breaking with Vicinus’s example, she rejected an all-female conventual residential institution, despite having a vocation. In Petre, we see an example of an elite woman achieving independence in part due to her wealth, by challenging ideas about respectability further than most, through truly rethinking an “alternative to the family” for herself. Partially, this is also due to her choice of the unconventional Filles de Marie as well. Petre’s living situation was rather fluid throughout her life, reflecting a freedom of movement and funds. As a child in the 1860s, Petre and her five siblings lived in their aristocratic home with eight servants and even a resident priest.93 In the late 1880s, she lived in the company of other women but also traveled and lived independently without a chaperone in Rome.94 Petre chose to join a religious order that advocated for women working in the community without monastic restraints. To that end, Petre lived “independently,” with servants.95 She also took on the role of foster mother to her Clutton nephews for a short time while their parents were in China, as well as nurturing other family and friends when her help was needed.96 In these roles, Petre reflected the domestic choices of other single women of her generation who flourished outside of heterosexual married domesticity. Like other single, lay Catholic women, she was “virginal and utterly self-sacrificing” and found in this position a place of “active spirituality.”97 She broke with traditional interpretations of singleness as unhappily binding one to actions of filial piety and claimed agency from reinterpreting domesticity over and over again. During this time, she “had a taste of maternity by proxy” when she cared for two of her nephews while her sister joined their father in the Far East.98 This time of “motherhood,” 1902–1904, coincided with Petre and her nephews living alongside Tyrrell in Richmond, North Yorkshire.99 From 1900 to 1906, Tyrrell was in “self-exile” in retreat in Richmond, due to repercussions from his controversial writings. In Richmond, Tyrrell, Petre, and the children behaved as a “traditional” Victorian family even reading together in the evenings with the children.100 Once the children were reunited with their parents the domestic situation between Petre and Tyrrell could no longer be sustained. Petre returned to London, still in her position of religious sister, at Tyrrell’s request, due to gossip.101 He wrote to Brémond in 1904 that it was necessary to ask her to leave as, “It was absolutely imperative to cut slander’s throat as promptly and effectively as possible,” although her leaving resulted in his depression.102 Petre retained her own flat in St. George’s Road, Southwark.103 The fact that this flat was just a few steps from the Headquarters of the Southwark Diocese could show that she had a desire for Catholic community well as the independence of keeping her own flat. A few years later, Petre decided to create an environment for the Modernists to thrive, and to this end purchased and rehabilitated Mulberry House, Storrington, Sussex. In 1907, Tyrrell, Petre, Mary Luard (another Filles de Marie) and her widowed sister, Adela Sweetman-Powell lived alongside each other at Mulberry House.104 Petre remembered it fondly as a “very varied

104  Maude Petre society at Mulberry House – orthodox and unorthodox – intellectual and simple” with many children and visitors including von Hügel, Brémond, and Alfred Fawkes.105 To employ Vicinus’s model, during this period, Petre’s engagement with creating fluid, orthodox communities of like-minded, but mixed-sex “families” is most inevident. After the death of Tyrrell, in 1909, she is listed in the census as residing “alone” at Mulberry House, supporting herself through private means rather than her work as a writer. The women caring just for her were a 75-year-old Irish cook and a 26-year-old parlor maid in the spacious 15-room home.106 Throughout her life she kept servants and cooks, even while in the Filles. Petre may have been radical in her religious activities during the Modernist crisis, but as a model of upper-class English womanhood she was most comfortable following the modes of domestic management that reflected her upbringing and class.107 As a female, single head of household, Petre reflected increasing independence for women, albeit one that was not particularly associated with Catholic single woman. However, as I showed earlier, Catholic single lay women were particularly adept at using their position as single women to demonstrate some of the ways in which Catholicism could be used as a progressive space for rethinking gender norms. The financial freedom that Petre experienced as an elite gave her the opportunity and power to reinterpret her domestic and intimate relationships. It was obviously highly irregular for a woman to share the intimacy of her home with a Catholic priest rather than a husband.108 With family and friends generally in support of the arrangement, Petre and Tyrrell resided alongside each other, off and on from 1902 in both Richmond and Storrington, in many ways emulating a traditional domestic partnership, until Tyrrell’s death in 1909. They discussed cohabiting together in Italy and London, after Tyrrell parted ways with the Jesuits in 1906. Mulberry House (and the companion property, Hespera House) was suggested by Tyrrell’s family as a place for the two to settle due to its proximity to a Premonstratensian Catholic Monastery where they could hear mass and to which Tyrrell could retreat.109 Petre’s family implicitly supported this domestic situation by visiting and defending Petre’s respectability to the hierarchy. Various family and friends (Miss Harriet Urquhart, a sister-in-law of Tyrrell’s cousin William, Brémond, Alfred Fawkes) associated with the cause of Modernism visited or moved nearby, bringing an air of respectability to their living arrangements.110 Petre’s widowed sister was installed in the home, but more as a help to Sweetman-Powell than as a chaperone for Tyrrell and Petre. Ginger Frost in Living in Sin (2008) studied cohabitation between heterosexual couples over the long 19th century.111 Frost makes a strong case that non-married cohabitating couples were a, “small minority … offer[ing] a unique perspective on the ‘norm.’”112 Frost outlines three themes or styles of living into which she groups cohabitating couples, but Petre and Tyrrell do not fit into any of her frameworks.113 I contend that this reinforces how unusual their domestic situation was in practice.

Maude Petre  105 The first difference that set Petre and Tyrrell apart from others was that despite Petre’s claims of natural equitability between Catholic men and women, Petre was the financial provider for Tyrrell.114 She was his main source of financial security. One must consider that living under her roof with her gift of a £100 annuity had implications of emasculation for Tyrrell, but somewhat acceptable for a woman of her class to bestow such a gift on a priest.115 Secondly, they were united in a common cause that they each valued above any other aspect of their lives. Thirdly, and in many ways the most contentious way that separated them from the cohabitating couples in Frost’s study was that both Petre and Tyrrell had taken vows of celibacy. Petre had taken an unrequired perpetual vow of celibacy at the turn of the century (an issue apart from her status as a religious sister) and as a Jesuit, Tyrrell had already done the same as part of his profession.116 Petre’s vow of celibacy was unrequired because the Filles de Marie were fairly similar to a béguinage, in which women could live semi-communally but with personal autonomy in many matters. History can only speculate on the nature of their relationship, but all these facts together can be (and have been) interpreted in myriad ways to create a picture of this non-traditional Catholic family life. I would also like to offer a few suggestions on how their intimacy was looked at by their contemporaries as alternately deviant (given their status as unmarried people) or appropriate (given their status as ex-religious). Despite what many contemporary onlookers believed about the nature of their relationship, namely that they were sexually involved, it is most likely that Petre and Tyrrell were living intimately in a celibate, devoted friendship. Tyrrell’s proximity and attentions were sufficient for Petre emotionally, and their vows of celibacy demonstrated their purity and strength of religious commitments. It should not take away from Petre’s agency or historical import in that she was wealthy and loved a man who was unavailable to love for several reasons. Tyrrell, for his part, regretted that he took her for granted, despite her provisions for him. He wrote to Brémond of this regret: “nor did I ever realise before how much I really cared for her and depended on her companionship and sympathy.”117 She said that in the last ten days of Tyrrell’s life, their relationship clarified the enormity of the sacrifice that the two had made to each other and the cause of Modernism drew them together with finality. She wrote, “For then the heart me heart in a union for which no danger any longer existed; he knew, better than ever, what he was to me, and I knew, at last, what I was to him.”118 Another alternate explanation over the nature of Petre and Tyrrell’s relationship comes from Frederick S. Roden who specializes in Queer Catholic history. Roden has proposed after Thomas Michael Loome that Tyrrell was homosexual and evidences this through Tyrrell’s letters to Marc Andre Raffalovich.119 This argument is tempting, but it hinges on a shared part of my own argument of Tyrrell’s relationship with Petre. Namely, that Tyrrell was bidden by purse strings. Roden writes that “Tyrrell recognize[d] Raffalovich’s privilege as a wealthy layman,” which he mirrored in his intimacy with Petre

106  Maude Petre who had given him a stipend. It makes it seem more plausible that Tyrrell was calculating in managing his personal affairs through the benevolence of sympathetic Catholic friends. Petre herself claimed that Tyrrell could be “evasive,” “self-detached,” and act with “indifference.”120 Petre and Raffalovich were both given emotional reassurances by a man not beyond “subterfuge” of their import in his life.121 In this way, Tyrrell could maintain his emotional “comforts” from both Petre and Raffalovich. To the gay Raffalovich in 1907, Tyrrell maintained “I have never been ‘in love’ with a woman in my life and I find myself ever less in sympathy with them.”122 Yet, to others Tyrrell was open about the pleasure he found with Petre through their shared philosophical interests and life together: she “feeds me like a little bird with choice worms & flies … which I gulp down greedily and wish I could feed myself.”123 In the same letter, Tyrrell likens his shared moments with Petre to Catholic married life, effectively linking their relationship to a certain ideal, through German ethical philosophy: I expect Wesensbildung is equivalently ‘soul-feeding,’ or the building up of our spiritual substance by voluntary acceptances of materials in the way of light and good impulses offered us by God – much as a caddisworm builds its house. These materials are offered to us both by religion and by culture, whose relation is like that of man and wife in the Catholic ideal – equality, independent personality, complementariness, a certain priority of the husband; yet neither for the sake of the other directly but for the sake of the Whole, i.e., of the dual society which they constitute; and whose good is indirectly the good of each separately. The whole of wh.[at] E[Eucken] speaks is, I think, the whole man the whole of human life which is a process of soul-feeding.”124 In 1907, Tyrrell gave Petre a more tangible symbol of his affection; a Valentine memento from Tyrrell – although others are evident in their papers.125 If Tyrrell had been inclined to pursue a sexual relationship with Petre or another woman like Miss Shelley, another close female family friend, in Clapham, there were others in his circle in the same position. Brémond too battled between his vocation as a priest and his desire to have a wife and family.126 Most writers, other than Roden, have placed the Tyrrell-Petre relationship in a heterosexual light. Sagovsky has tended to focus on Petre’s actions toward Tyrrell as a matter of unrequited and unwanted love. For example, Sagovsky says Petre was “passionately attached” to Tyrrell but that Tyrrell was “deeply ambivalent.”127 These interpretations are problematic in that they neglect to engage with Petre’s personal motivations and instead give primacy to the masculine position. Petre gained great fulfillment from caring for others, such as Tyrrell, and acting out this aspect of Catholic True Womanhood. She wrote in regard to female domesticity that, “I hold on to certain traditions, and regard them as permanent values, although I am no longer subjugated by them.”128 More closely, linked to my reading, Leonard believes

Maude Petre  107 Petre was at Tyrrell’s beck and call, and that Tyrrell maintained control over Petre in a mismatched celibate friendship.129 This also seems too simple an explanation for such complex figures who were usurping traditional gender roles in other ways. It also places Tyrrell in a position of domestic power that I do not see evidence of in Petre’s diaries. Petre saw herself as an equal to Tyrrell in many ways (for example, in their shared passion for Modernism), but she also saw herself as better-placed than Tyrrell as well (for example, through her class, her Englishness and being a ‘born-Catholic’). In fact, as his literary executor and editor, Petre curated Tyrrell’s memory and presented it to the public, and it could be argued she controlled him in this way. She also argued back at him when they disagreed. When he procrastinated about moving to Storrington, she insisted, and he capitulated. This is not to say that some members outside of their intimate circle did not assume that a romantic liaison was occurring between Petre and Tyrrell. Propriety and Scandal As Modernists, the two were actively violating the Pope’s teachings, and to others it seemed to follow logically that they would break with other norms too. Accusations of romantic improprieties were leveled at Petre during the autumn of 1908 and the winter of 1908–1919 (after Tyrrell’s death). These stemmed from her private walks with Tyrrell, which caused great upset for the locals of Storrington, especially the Prémontré monks. Her brother-in-law, Ralph Clutton, a Commander in the Royal Navy, wrote to the Bishop of Southwark in 1909, mere months before Tyrrell’s death, protesting about rumors in Catholic society over this matter.130 Commander Clutton took umbrage at the idea that the two were “giving great scandal at Storrington … [because of] his staying in her house and being seen out walking with her alone.”131 Clutton felt propriety had not been violated, as Tyrrell was an “honourable English gentleman.”132 Also, his sister-in-law Mrs. Sweetman-Powell was resident at Mulberry House too, so her argued there was nothing “unconventional” about Father Tyrrell staying there.133 Clutton fell back onto typical claims of feminine respectability being maintained by the presence of his sister-in-law as well as Tyrrell’s “Englishness.” Being an “English gentleman (despite being born in Ireland),” imbued Tyrrell with a level of “honorability” and respect that should surpass any concerns of untoward behavior. Clutton begged Amigo to intervene and stifle the slander so that his family would not have to do so themselves, as the whole matter caused “grievous indignation.”134 Petre had already written to Amigo demanding an end to the gossip surrounding her and Father Tyrrell and insinuating that Amigo began it himself, in which case she stated: You would be regarded by me and by my family as no longer acting in any sacred capacity, and we should feel that we had a right to deal with the matter as though you were an [illegible] individual. You may

108  Maude Petre imagine, my Lord, that members of my family are not very likely to submit silently to the very highest aspersions on their [illegible - character?] … And that he may expect to hear from her lawyer if the gossip continued.”135 These strong words by an aristocratic English woman in defense of herself reinforce a number of things. First, this shows just how independent Petre was in her thought. It also corresponds with her rejection of ecclesiastical pressures and the power of the male hierarchy. Second, it demonstrates that the public had decided that there was an inappropriate liaison taking place at Mulberry House, despite whatever the truth of the situation was. It also highlights societal pressures to maintain respectability and the dangers that such lapses could prefigure. Finally, it illustrates the implicit support of her family in matters relating to her Modernism and domestic situation. She was kept firmly inside the family fold despite public gossip, highlighting the familial bond that was exceptionally strong in this Catholic, recusant family, perhaps because they had been left to depend only on one another for so many generations. On one of these contentious walks with Tyrrell, she confided in him that her faith in the Church had not wavered, “I believe in [the] Church though not with a blind belief, that I trust [this?] is real faith inspired by grace in this … there is nothing else for me & I am willing … [?] lose or win.”136 Therefore, lest one forgets that the purpose of Modernism was to reform the Church, it is helpful to be reminded that Petre’s initial attraction to Tyrrell was based on this shared intellectual desire. Tyrrell wrote in 1897 about the New Woman rejecting marital bonds as the “profanation of marriage” as a “false principle.”137 Clearly over the following decade the domestic matters of Petre and Tyrrell rendered those old protestations mute. Their relationship mimicked marriage in many ways, but it did not follow the lines of gendering that Tyrrell claimed he valued such as “the right of authority and the duty of obedience.”138 While their relationship caused scandal and remains ambiguous in many ways to history, it was in many ways an example of how pious Catholics could be transgressive in both their faith and domestic situations. It further raises what may be an unanswerable question about the value of elective chastity if emotionally one is very much in love, and if that in turn renders the oath less valuable. Their relationship may offer a further example of how Catholicism was renegotiated by Catholics. In terms of female Catholics, Petre is significant in that she retained her faith despite her unorthodoxy. In fact, it seems her unorthodoxy strengthened her Catholic faith. Rhetoric and Empowerment as Tools against Praestantia and the Pope Petre became adept over the Modernist period in adapting rhetoric to validate her personal interpretations of Catholicism. Aided by a community of supporters such as Alfred Fawkes, her siblings, and other lesser-known

Maude Petre  109 Catholics who also believed in Modernism, Petre reacted against various anti-Modernist writings, especially Pius X’s Praestantia Scripturae (1907).139 Praestantia made it absolutely clear that the Modernists, if they continued to advocate for change, would in fact be excommunicated by the Pope.140 The other documents (such as Pascendi dominici gregis and Lamentabli, 1907), while stern, are more of the tone of a father scolding his children or, more appropriately, the shepherd and his flock; Praestantia is not the final warning, but instead the sentence. It gave full power to the bishops to excommunicate those who persisted in spreading and advocating Modernist ideas and how to treat them: To check the daily increasing audacity of many Modernists who are endeavoring by all kinds of sophistry and devices to detract from the force and efficacy … of the decree “Lamentabili sane exitu” [and] “Pascendi dominici Gregis” … we do by our apostolic authority repeat and confirm both that decree of the Supreme Sacred Congregation and those encyclical letters of ours, adding the penalty of excommunication against their contradictors, and this we declare and decree that should anybody, which may God forbid, be so rash as to defend any one of the propositions, opinions or teachings condemned in these documents … [that] this excommunication is to be understood as salvis poenis,[an exceptional punishment] which may be incurred by those who have violated in any way the said documents, as propagators and defenders of heresies, when their propositions, opinions and teachings are heretical, as has happened more than once in the case of the adversaries of both these documents, especially when they advocate the errors of the modernists that is, the synthesis of all heresies.141 Petre responded to these accusations with immediacy and furor. Her actions were stimulated by her interactions with some members of the hierarchy, especially Peter Amigo, the Bishop of Southwark. In her interactions with Amigo and some local parish priests, we see the clearest indication of Petre’s belief in her own power, specifically as a woman. In her letters, she chided, shamed, and called to heel cases of excessive ecclesiastical actions as they affected herself and Tyrrell. Using a skilled style of rhetoric where she infused irony, and feigned ignorance due to her sex, Petre proved herself to be an adept opponent to the hierarchy.142 Provocatively, Petre proved that the Church was a rich environment for radicalism and that some women were actively, vociferously rejecting any kind of control. Further, as a woman, Petre’s rhetoric was underpinned by a belief in the innate equality of her individual interpretations of Catholic theology alongside that of any (male) bishop, priest, or ultimately, the Pope. In this, she showed that Catholicism was in fact an environment where some women could overcome limits placed on their sex or assumed as members of the laity. One of the best examples of this empowerment may be seen in her actions at the death of Tyrrell and its aftermath.

110  Maude Petre Tyrrell never repented his Modernist ideals and could not rightly receive Last Rites unless absolved and therefore could not expect a burial with Catholic Rites. A great dispute arose over the circumstances of his death, which was played out in national and international papers with Petre at the center of the controversy. There remained a question of whether he was wrongly administered Last Rites by his close friend Henri Brémond, through Petre’s intervention, without retracting his Modernist views.143 If he had been given absolution, he should have been accorded a Catholic burial. But, if he had been given Last Rites under false circumstances as the Pope and Bishop Amigo argued, then it rendered his unction null and void. Not being buried in a Catholic ground with the proper rites meant his soul would have no repose. Knowing this, Bishop Amigo, following Praestantia, refused him a Catholic burial. Petre deemed this an absolute outrage against Tyrrell, especially as she felt he had dedicated his life to help improve the state of the Church.144 She insisted that no renunciation of Modernism was necessary (despite it being termed a “heresy”) and that Last Rites had been given in good faith. Matters surrounding death were serious business for Catholics and the furor that this matter sparked may seem surprising to secularists. However, from the Catholic point of view this matter held the highest degree of import. Petre sent a strongly worded telegram to Bishop Amigo, indicating that she blamed him entirely for the circus-like atmosphere which surrounded the organization of Tyrrell’s death and burial. She tersely wrote in a telegram that Amigo’s requirements for Tyrrell to renounce Modernism on his deathbed in order to be given Last Rites were untenable: The “condition of such man [Tyrrell] rendered your condition[s] utterly impossible. [We] are now announcing funeral arrangements and leaving your lordship [Amigo] responsible for open scandal that will ensue,” signed, only, “Petre.”145 She held Amigo fully responsible for pressuring the dying man to renounce his beliefs on his deathbed. Petre felt that forcing Tyrrell to recant Modernism was an astonishing abuse of power, which demonstrated a lack of sympathy appropriate to a bishop. Her telegram and letters amplify her outrage with all levels of the hierarchy who contributed to preventing a matter of sacramental faith to take place. Petre used dismissive language purposely with a member of the priesthood to underline how little respect she had for him. That Amigo wore the cloth did not implicitly imbue him with a greater understanding of Catholicism or the faith than she herself had. This example underscores how, despite being a lay woman, seemingly the most marginalized of all Catholics, Petre understood herself completely equal in her faith to Amigo. Between Tyrrell’s passing on July 15 and his burial on July 21, 1909, Petre widely publicized the events surrounding Tyrrell’s death, in order to gain sympathy and create an uproar over the poor way in which she felt his death was handled. During this time, she published a hagiographic obituary in The Times, which inflamed the situation further.146 Her notice to the press detailed the events of Tyrrell’s last few days and focused

Maude Petre  111 on his interactions with priests regarding receiving Last Rites. She wrote that the confusing circumstances surrounding Tyrrell’s death and final absolution should be understood in light of his being “taken suddenly ill” which rendered him “partly inarticulate” to all but herself.147 Also, he had “probably” made a confession, which allowed him to receive conditional absolution.148 This would concur with canon law. Petre makes it clear that Tyrrell refused to renounce his Modernist beliefs and that the priests who offered benediction, did not ask him to do so.149 This reinforces one of my larger themes that Church law was seemingly inviolable, but in practice it was being subverted as a matter of personal interpretation on an individualized basis throughout the Church. In her letters to The Times, Petre was making it publicly known that the Pope’s wishes had been defied, but couching it within hyperbole. Defying the Pope on purpose and publicizing it to The Times highlights the ways in which she continued to undermine the men she believed were misrepresenting Catholicism. Praestantia had stated that local priests must be vigilant against the Modernist influence.150 This action engendered a battle of words between Petre and the local prior of the Order of Prémontré, in Storrington, with whom she formerly had cordial relations, until, that is, he felt she had tried to “put something over on him,” over the death of Tyrrell. The prior, Reverend FF Xavier explained that one reason he could not grant burial or a funeral Mass at the priory was due to the tone of the obituary.151 Furthermore, he had been told specifically not to allow it by Amigo. To underscore that he completely understood what was being asked of him, the Frenchman relayed Amigo’s feelings in both French and English, “L’évêque, je crois, a vu là un acte de désobéissance publique et il m’a, sans aucune commentaire envoyé la Dépêche: Do not allow Brémond to say Mass [for Tyrrell’s funeral].”152 Not surprisingly, within months, it followed that she was disallowed Communion in Storrington, which was under Amigo’s jurisdiction and Xavier’s locality.153 In the end, Henri Brémond, still ordained but no longer a Jesuit, held a service of sorts for Tyrrell, with some prayers and poems, but it was not a sanctified Catholic burial.154 It took place in an Anglican burial ground, attended by, according to the Pope’s English secretary, “a collection of apostates and protestants (sic) and bad or indifferent Catholics.”155 These lapses quickly provided an opportunity for their detractors to create a set of legends around the circumstances of Tyrrell’s death and burial. Petre and other Modernists like Alfred Fawkes and Robert Dell were forced to refute these myths about the order of events around the death in the press in The Times.156 Some of these same legends were then taken up in the French Catholic press by La Croix, which claimed Tyrrell had begged not to be “buried like a dog,” – “vous ne me ferez pas enterer comme un chien”– in an Anglican ground.157 Yet, according to Dell and Petre, he never said anything of the sort.158 The French press also erroneously reported that Tyrrell had effectively admitted that Modernism was sinful, “qu’il aurait une profonde contrission de tous les péchés … dans la course

112  Maude Petre de la controverse.”159 In America, the New York Times reported that Tyrrell, received absolution and recounted the matter of whether his death was sanctified in light of “trouble at the Vatican.”160 The situation surrounding Tyrrell’s death and how the ecclesiastical powers handled the matter was of great international significance. Petre’s role as the arbiter of the matter thrust her into worldwide prominence. Petre shattered the feminine ideal of obedience in this controversy. The public discussion of the events of Tyrrell’s last days and reception of the Sacrament of Last Rites further provoked the Pope’s English advisor, Merry del Val and the London bishop Amigo, as well the Pope. Pius’s power and authority had little effect on Petre, who sought an even higher validation for her efforts from God. She felt the Church, as an institution, was undermined by the conservative Pope and his whims. Not many would stand up to a Pope and not back down, but this was a lay woman who stood her ground. In comparison, von Hügel recanted his Modernist beliefs, bowing under the pressure of the scandal but Petre never swayed in her principles. It was in 1910 that the Pope struck his last real blow against Modernism with Sacrorum Antistitum.161 In Sacrorum Antistitum, the Pope asked for an oath to be given against Modernism, “to be sworn to by all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries.”162 It was not specifically required of the laity, and theoretically did not directly affect Petre who, in 1910, had not been a sister for some years.163 Within days, however, a letter was sent from Rome to the Southwark Diocese in regard to the case of Petre and the oath. In the letter, Cardinal Rampolla, representing the Suprema Sacra Congregatio Sancti Officii, referred her to simply as that “mulierem Petre,” or “that Petre woman” and it was implied that there should be action taken regarding the oath and Petre. In the letter it stated that she is a “publicam peccatricam,” or a “public female sinner.”164 For Petre, this letter from Rome had severe ramifications. Amigo officially told Petre that she should not try and go to neighboring parishes, such as Amberley five miles away, in order to receive the Sacraments.165 However, other Bishops ignored the Papal pronouncement and Fletcher took the Eucharist in the Bishopric of Portsmouth.166 Bishop Amigo reiterated that she must submit to the Pope and renounce her Modernist beliefs for this sanction to be lifted.167 Petre feigned confusion over why she was subject to these requests: “I do not see why I, as a lay person and a woman, am asked for any expression of opinion in these documents [the encyclicals and the oath] when I have not spoken or written about them.”168 Here we see another example of Petre’s skilled use of rhetoric to distance herself from any impediments to her freedom of religious practice. In her response, Petre draws on contemporary perceptions of women as unequal. Yet, as I have shown, as a woman, Petre did not think that she was lesser than any other Catholic. The Southwark diocese queried Petre’s angry response by calling attention to her false claims of “her womanhood” as a source of ignorance over

Maude Petre  113 the encyclicals. Penned by Father Arthur Hinsley (later the archbishop of Westminster), he wrote, her excuse of “being a woman” was completely invalid and that her letter was out of line.169 Hinsley redirected her attention again to whether she would take the oath.170 Again, she opted not to take the oath against Modernism. Petre brought this private matter into the public sphere again by sending more letters to The Times. In an era before “spin,” Petre was adept at using all methods available to her to retain what she saw as her moral high ground. Her rejection of the oath is again couched in rhetorical language that could be read simultaneously as both capitulation and rejection. She wrote to The Times: “I accept these documents, and actually do accept them, inwardly and outwardly, in their meaning as in their words, from the first line to the last.”171 But, despite this seeming affirmation, she then states she will not sign it because, This would be a solemn action and before giving my answer, which shall be a truthful one, I hope I may … ask for assurance, that every condemnation or proposition of these two documents, without a single exception is de fide now.172 In this one sentence, she turned the Church’s argument against itself. She writes, “I will only sign this document if it will not change,” i.e. de fide, because she was so distrustful of Pius X. She claimed she wanted “assurance,” but she was aware that assurance would never be forthcoming. In another example of Petre’s rhetorical skill that was again presupposed on feigned ignorance, she claims ignorance of the encyclicals. It is clear from Petre’s letters that she was very aware of the tone and content of all the encyclicals. But to have claimed ignorance of the bearing of the encyclicals, afforded her some flexibility in her ability to worship and take the sacraments. She wrote to Bishop Amigo in complaint and contended that she had only read Lamentabili and Pascendi once, And that a long time ago. They made on me a very painful impression, which I found was shared by a great many Catholics; for they seemed to condemn writers like Cardinal Newman and Father Tyrrell who had been our greatest Catholic apologists; they seem to hamper the mind in the acceptance of scientific and historical fact; and the ‘Pascendi’ seemed to advocate a line of [illegible] contrary to general [notions?] of charity. If I am wrong in this I shall be very glad to be convinced of my errors; but your Lordship will understand why I do not want to read them.173 However, according to the encyclicals she could not receive communion, and the priests in Storrington were doing exactly as they were asked to in the document. Amigo replied to Petre that these prohibitions would remain in effect until she assured him that she did not side with Modernism.174 Petre avoided answering that question.175

114  Maude Petre Effectively, she wanted to take part in the Eucharist and would not “incriminate” herself for admitting to attempting to do so. Regardless, at times Petre was foiled in some of her efforts to take the Eucharist. This was because some priests were sympathetic to the Pope’s indictments against the Modernists in Praestantia. As well they responded to Pius X’s requests for reports of Modernists trying to hear Mass. Petre traveled to Arundel, 30 miles south of Storrington, and requested a Mass be said in memory of Father Tyrrell. Petre would have felt this to be of pressing importance since Catholics believe that having a Mass “said” for the deceased helps move the soul out of Purgatory.176 She was not forthcoming about her identity, but the Sacristan alerted the priest to her identity. However, the priest went ahead with saying the Mass, but, in compliance with the encyclicals, he also informed his Bishop of the matter.177 Conclusion Petre refused to recant her beliefs, demonstrating how some Catholic women of privilege were able to take part in Church debates while reinforcing their personal interpretations of Catholic belief. Simultaneously, we see in Petre an idea of the inherent equality of the feminine to question ecclesiastical interpretations of the faith.178 In terms of defending her style of Catholicism, Petre showed little deference to the hierarchy and rejected patriarchal expressions of power. Her writings in the press and interactions with various Church powers underline this transgressive religiosity. Petre chose to also record her reinterpretations and suggestions for reform in monograph form. Provocatively, it was not until 1907, the year of the three major encyclicals against Modernism that she decided to publish her book Catholicism and Independence, despite sections of the book had been ready years in advance. Petre specifically chose 1907 to agitate for change and galvanize further support for the movement. Individualized expressions of Catholicism were a vital aspect of the unconventional religiosity of Maude Petre. In this chapter I have highlighted how Petre sometimes exemplified ideals of Catholic True Womanhood – in her celibacy, her vocation, and advocacy for “women’s particular feminine gifts.” I have also offered examples in which she rejected these same expectations of Catholic womanhood, through disobedience, her close friendships with men, particularly that with Father George Tyrrell, and speaking against the Magisterium via Modernism. As a lay woman, she vehemently rejected what she perceived as heavy-handed authoritarianism by those she felt attempted to wield unearned temporal power over her through their religious position. This notion of personal exceptionalism came from her upbringing as a people apart, as a Catholic and aristocrat. In the next chapter, I turn to look at two other elite women, Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall, who were also very much pious transgressors, but expressed their faith in very different ways than Petre.

Maude Petre  115 Notes 1 Maude Petre, Catholicism and Independence: Being Studies in Spiritual Liberty (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907), p. 35. 2 Petre was a member, and, later, provincial, of a very small order, the Daughters of the Hearts of Mary, the Filles de Marie, from 1890 to 1908. This order was unstructured in that women did not live in community, did not dress in habit, and largely carried on in their secular lives as before. She was a lay person for most of the period that I focus on in this chapter. 3 For more on Petre and modernism, please see my forthcoming journal article. 4 LaReine-Marie Mosely, “The Conundrums of Newer Catholic Women Scholars,” in Women, Wisdom, and Witness: Engaging Contexts in Conversation, Rosemary P. Carbine and Kathleen Dolphin, eds. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), pp. 113–123, p. 120. 5 See Lawrence F. Barmann, Personal Faith and Institutional Commitments: Roman Catholic Modernist and Anti-Modernist Autobiography (Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 2002); Nicholas Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side:’ A Life of George Tyrrell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); Alec R. Vidler, A Variety of Catholic Modernists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Oliver Rafferty, George Tyrrell and Catholic Modernism (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010), esp. pp. 9–20; Darrell Jodock, Catholicism Contending with Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); David G. Schultenover, S.J., George Tyrrell in Search of Roman Catholicism (Shepherdstown: Patmos Press, 1981); David G. Schultenover, S.J., A View from Rome: On the Eve of the Modernist Crisis (New York: Fordham University Press, 1993). Jodock, Catholicism Contending with Modernity (2000) is a collection of essays by Modernist scholars such as Lease, Barmann and Leonard. Barmann and Leonard contribute sections on von Hügel and Petre. The introduction to Modernism by Jodock is especially helpful. The work aims to situate Modernism in its contemporary world, rather than taking it out of its 19th-century context. I agree wholeheartedly with this and hope that my own work will contribute to this movement. Leonard’s excellent chapter, “English Catholicism and Modernism,” deals with roughly the same time period as my own chapter, although it is written through the lens of both von Hügel and Petre, from 1890 to 1910 (pp. 248–273). 6 International Catholic University, op cit., Joseph Harry Jacobs, “The Last Modernist? The Spiritual Vision of Maude Dominica Petre” (PhD, University of Dayton, 2003), pp. 8–9. 7 Vidler, A Variety of Catholic Modernists (1970), p. 109. 8 Crews, English Catholic Modernism (1984). 9 Mary Martha Dumonceaux, OSF, “Maude Petre’s Theology of Freedom and Friendship,” (PhD, Saint Louis University, 1998), p. 1; Jacobs, “The Last Modernist?,” 2003. 10 Jacobs, p. 8. Consider on the contrary that William Schoenel only included von Hügel, Tyrrell, Wilfrid Ward, and Cardinal Gasquet as the “leading figures” of English liberal Catholicism in his book on Modernism. William J. Schoenel, The Intellectual Crisis in English Catholicism (New York: Garland, 1982), p. 19. 11 Ellen Leonard, CSJ, “Other Modernisms: Maude Petre and the Place of Dissent,” The Month, December 1988, pp. 1008–1015, p. 1008. 12 Ellen M. Leonard, Unresting Transformation: The Theology and Spirituality of Maude Petre (New York: University Press of America, 1991). 13 Maude Petre, My Way of Faith (London: Dent, 1937), p. 17. 14 Friedrich Hügel, Maude Dominica Petre and James J. Kelly, The Letters of Baron Friedrich Von Hügel and Maude D. Petre (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), p. xix; Petre,

116  Maude Petre My Way of Faith (1937), pp. 18–19; E. Duffy, “Joseph Berington and The English Catholic Cisalpine Movement” (PhD, Cambridge, 1973). 15 Clyde F. Crews, English Catholic Modernism (1984), p. 8. 16 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), pp. 172–173. She states, “It was a fairly crazy idea … and I was quite free, no duties or ties to impede me” (p. 172). While in Rome however she felt it necessary to take on a companion to accompany her to her lessons, something she had not done in England (p.173). 17 Ibid., pp. 176–190. 18 Ibid., p. 162. 19 Ibid., p. 169. 20 Author’s personal correspondence with Gina Eastwood, Wimbledon Order of Daughters of the Heart of Mary, June 2013. See also Dhmary.com, “The Daughters of the Heart of Mary,” last modified 2014, http://www.dhmary.com, accessed August 21, 2014. 21 Carmen Mangion, Contested Identities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), p. 55. 22 Census of England and Wales, 1891. Maude Peter [sic] is listed as a boarder at 14 South Street, Mayfair. 23 Carmen Mangion, Contested Identities (2008), p. 3. According to Mangion, “the term ‘mother house’ or ‘provincial house’ refers to the convent that is the administrative and oftentimes spiritual center of centralised communities of women religious.” Women who took “simple vows” and were mainly engaged in philanthropical work as Petre was, lived in congregations; Leonard, “Other Modernisms,” p. 1008. 24 In 1893, Tyrrell was seconded to what would become Margaret Fletcher’s home church in Oxford, St. Aloysius. See Marvin Richard O’Connell, Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), p. 170. 25 Ernesto Buonaiuti, The Programme of Modernism (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908), p. 5. This quotation is taken from Buonaiuti quoting Loisy. Loisy was excommunicated in 1908. He was a diocesan priest. 26 Pius X, Pascendi dominici gregis (1907). 27 Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871 (Kew, Surrey, England, 1871; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911 (Kew, Surrey, England, 1911). 28 Countess of Aberdeen, ed. The International Congress of Women (London: Unwin, 1900). 29 Maude Petre, “Stray Thoughts on the Women’s International Congress,” The Month, Vol. 94 (1899), pp. 186–193, p. 191. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid., pp. 190–191. 32 Petre Diary, October 20, 1904, BL Add MS 52373; Petre Diary, December 23, 1904, BL Add MS 52373. Also cited in Ellen Leonard, Unresting Transformation (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991), p. 35. 33 Petre (b.1863) left her open order officially, the Filles of Marie, in February 1908. She lived until 1942. 34 Graham James Wilcox, “Freedom and Authority in Church and Society: Maude Dominica Petre 1863–1942” (PhD, University of Birmingham, 2010), p. 8. 35 Martha Vicinus, Independent Women (1985), p. 5. 36 Sue Morgan, Women, Religion, and Feminism in Britain, 1750–1900 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 3. 37 Petre Diary, August 30, 1908, BL Add MS 52374. 38 Maude Petre, Where Saints Have Trod (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1903), pp. 102–108, esp. 108; The reference to male family members is found in: M.D.

Maude Petre  117 Petre, “The Woman’s Movement,” The Times, October 29, 1913. I believe her reference to “obedience as holy” means within the strictures of the Holy Orders. 39 George Tyrrell, “The Old Faith and The New Woman. II,” The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. 22, No. 87, (1897) pp. 630–645. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Bernard O’Reilly, The Mirror of True Womanhood, 16th ed. (New York: P.J. Kenedy, Excelsior Catholic Pub. House, 1886), pp. 1–33. 44 Petre, My Way of Faith (London: Dent, 1937), p. 129. 45 Ibid., p. 129. 46 Petre Diary, Diary November 14, 1900, BL Add MS 52372. Please note, the capitalized “Woman” is Petre’s own. 47 Ibid. Petre stated, “I am not always a cheerful companion” in reference to Patmore’s contention that a good woman was a cheerful woman. Petre’s entry in her diary about Patmore coincides with Tyrrell’s work on Coventry Patmore in The Month in 1900. Petre also refers to Patmore again in her autobiography. She says that she did identify with Patmore’s reluctance about devotions such as those to Mary in particular (Petre, My Way of Faith, p.114). Petre felt uncomfortable with Marian devotions and only participated with them out of a sense of “submission” (p. 115). This is a much different way of engaging with Catholicism than other lay Catholics. My thanks to Ellen Leonard for bringing my attention to this reference for The Month article. See Leonard, Unresting Transformation, p. 127. See also, George Tyrrell, “Coventry Patmore,” The Month, Vol. 96 (December 1900), pp. 561–573. 48 Tyrrell, “Coventry Patmore,” The Month, Vol. 96 (December 1900), pp. 561–573, p. 562. 49 MD Petre, “The Woman’s Movement,” The Times, October 29, 1913. 50 Ibid. 51 Mayhall, p. 20. 52 Ibid. 53 MD Petre, “The Woman’s Movement,” The Times, October 29, 1913. 54 Maude Petre, “Carlyle on Religious Ceremonies,” The Month, Vol. 55 (1885), p. 319. 55 Leonard, Unresting Transformation (1991), p. 124. 56 Maude Petre, “Nietzsche the Anti-Feminist,” Catholic World, Vol. 83 (May 1906), pp. 159–170, pp. 163–164. 57 Ibid., p. 192. 58 Maude Petre, “Stray Thoughts on the Women’s International Congress,” The Month, Vol. 94 (1899), pp. 186–193, p. 191. 59 For example, Catharine Booth gave a paper on rescue work, low-Church woman Maude Stanley on clubs, and Mr. Joseph Rowntree, a notable Quaker, spoke on Temperance. 60 Countess of Aberdeen, ed. The International Congress of Women (London: Unwin, 1900). 61 Maude Petre, “Stray Thoughts on the Women’s International Congress,” The Month, Vol. 94 (1899), pp. 186–193, p. 191. 62 Ellen M. Leonard, “Petre, Maude Dominica (1863–1942), author and writer on religion.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. September 23, 2004; accessed November 11, 2019. https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-65087. 63 Letter, Tyrrell to Petre, September 3, 1900, BL Add MS 52367. 64 Letter, Tyrrell to Brémond, July 25, 1907, op cit Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’ (1990), pp. 216–217.

118  Maude Petre 65 Petre Diary, November 11, 1906, BL Add MS 52374; see George Tyrrell, A Much-Abused Letter (London: Longmans, Green, and co., 1907). 66 George Tyrrell, “Semper Eadem,” The Month, Vol. 103 (January 1904), pp. 1–17; op cit Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’ (1990), p. 177. 67 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), p. 127. Ellen Leonard. 68 Ibid. 69 Vidler, A Variety of Catholic Modernists (1970); Ronald Burke referred to Petre as merely a “friend” (p. 156) of the Modernists, despite using her scholarship. See Ronald Burke, “Loisy’s Faith: Landshift in Catholic Thought,” The Journal of Religion, Vol. 60, No. 2 (1980), pp. 138–164. 70 Dumonceaux, pp. 8–9. 71 Letter, Tyrrell to Petre, March 3, 1903, BL Add MS 52367. 72 Letter, Tyrrell to Petre, December 18, 1900, BL Add MS 52367. 73 Eleanor Gordon and Gwyneth Nair, Public Lives (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 168; Katherine Holden, The Shadow of Marriage (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007); Martha Vicinus, Independent Women (1985); Emma Liggins, Odd Women? Spinsters, Lesbians and Widows in British Women’s Fiction, 1850–1930s (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014). 74 “Annual Subscription Ball At Chelmsford,” The Essex Standard, West Suffolk Gazette, and Eastern Counties’ Advertiser (Colchester, England), April 22, 1882; “Marriage of The Hon. Miss Petre and Mr. Trafford, at Kelwedon,” The Essex Standard, West Suffolk Gazette, and Eastern Counties’ Advertiser, August 28, 1880; “The Drawing Room,” The Standard (London), March 13, 1885; “Literature,” Freeman’s Standard, West Suffolk Gazette, and Eastern Counties, April 3, 1886; “Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales honoured the performance at the Opera Comique with her presence last night,” The Morning Post (London), May 30, 1879. 75 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), p. 122. Her desire to study was “to the great amusement of the ecclesiasts” (p. 171) but one priest, “he was kind enough to take me seriously” (p. 173). 76 “Society & Personal Notes,” The Essex Standard, West Suffolk Gazette, and Eastern Counties’ Advertiser, November 7, 1891. 77 Maude Petre, Aethiopum Servus (London: Osgood, McIlvaine, 1896). 78 Maude Petre, “Shades of the Prison House,” The Month, Vol. 93 (1899), pp. 381–389. This article makes a case for the benefits of the solid foundations of the medieval Church but also the blessings of modern developments. This is rather Modernist in that it advocates for an account of both history and science in Catholicism. In an article on Carlyle from 1885, she quotes the Modernist A.L. Lilley, which shows an early engagement with Modernist principles. See also Maude Petre, “Carlyle on Religious Ceremonies,” The Month, Vol. 55 (1885), pp. 314–321; Petre, Temperament of Doubt (1901). 79 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), p. 129. 80 Petre Diary, September 8, 1906, BL Add MS 52374. 81 Nicholas Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 185–186. 82 Ibid., p. 185. 83 Petre Diary, December 14, 1907, BL Add MS 52374. 84 Letter from Margaret Fletcher to Miss M Petre, December 15 [1907], Westminster Diocesan Archives (WDA), BO 1/30 1906–1912. 85 Ibid. 86 Mayhall provides an example of how spectacle was used by the militant women to remove grilles from the House of Commons to allow women access to Parliament. This action, as well as other examples of militancy, from the suffragettes brought spectacle and was termed “sensational.” However, as Mayhall shows

Maude Petre  119 this sensationalism was seen as a necessity in order to evoke change. See Laura E. Nym Mayhall, The Militant Suffrage Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 49–54. 87 Petre Diary, February 8, 1907, BL Add MS 52374. 88 Ibid. 89 Letter, Father Bergh to Amigo, December 4, 1909, SDA. 90 For examples of other women transgressing the boundaries of sexual norms in England during this period, see Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992) esp. pp. 1–80; Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast (London: Penguin, 1995), esp. pp. 124–186. 91 Lynne Walker, “‘Home and Away:’ The Feminist Remapping of Public and Private Space in Victorian London,” in New Frontiers: Space, Bodies, and Gender, Rosa Ainley, ed. (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 65–77, esp. p. 70. 92 Vicinus, Independent Women (1985), p. 7. 93 Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881. 94 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), pp. 171–174. 95 London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832–1965. Southwark West. 96 Petre’s nephews lived with her from 1901 to 1903. She moved with the boys from the South to Yorkshire where Tyrrell was based at the time. She left Richmond in 1904. 97 Martha Vicinus, Independent Women (1985), p. 5. 98 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), p. 154. 99 Ibid., p. 157. 100 Ibid. 101 Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’ (1990), p. 185. 102 Ibid., p. 186. 103 London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832–1965. Southwark West (1898–1902). 104 Eleanor Gordon and Gwyneth Nair, Public Lives (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 43. According to Gordon and Nair, many single women lived with their sisters with one sister listed as head of household, further underlining Sweetman-Powell’s residence as a norm rather than as a chaperone. 105 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), p. 158; Von Hügel spent three weeks in Richmond, from August 18 to September 6, reading, walking, and talking with Tyrrell and Petre. See David G Schultenover, George Tyrrell (1981), p. 260. 106 Census of England and Wales, 1891; Census of England and Wales, 1911. In 1891, she was recorded as having two servants and residing “alone.” In 1911, the census describes her home as having 15 rooms, not including bathrooms or smaller rooms. 107 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), p. 113. As an aside, she rejected privilege, but admitted she was part of a privileged class. 108 According to Meriol Trevor, Tyrrell lived in a cottage on the property of Mulberry House. (See Meriol Trevor, Prophets and Guardians (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969), p. 71.) However, Sagovsky states “he was living in two rather dark rooms annexed to Mulberry House.” Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’ (1990), p. 246; Petre gave the impression they lived together in her autobiography. See Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), p. 158. Also, she says, “he was free in my house to see and receive who he would” (p. 286). Further, she says she had a cottage “built on” to the house, “and thus rendered it more possible for him to make his home with me” (p. 284). 109 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), p. 157. 110 In her diary Petre details the issues over procuring the home, what she hoped to do with it, and how she hoped that she and Father Tyrrell could benefit from it as a place of rest. Her desire to care for Tyrrell (financially and mentally) outweighed her reservations over the matter and in the end, Mulberry House

120  Maude Petre became his base. See, for example, Petre Diary, June 2, 1906, September 13, 1906, BL Add MS 52374; Petre Diary, June 2, 1906, Storrington, BL Add MS 52374; See also George Tyrrell and Maude D.M. Petre, Autobiography and Life of George Tyrrell in Two Volumes (London: E. Arnold, 1912), p. 310. 111 Ginger Frost, Living in Sin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008). 112 Ibid., p. 2. 113 These three styles of cohabitating were: Firstly, “those that lived together because they could not marry” because of the law. The second group was those that “did not marry, either from indifference, lack of social pressure, or class concerns.” The third group were those “who would not marry, as a conscious protest.” See Frost, Living in Sin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), p. 3. 114 Letter, Tyrrell to Petre, May 3, 1902, BL Add MS 52367. Also cited in Schultenover, George Tyrrell (1981), p. 215. 115 Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’ (1990), p. 199. 116 This state of celibacy was endorsed Biblically: “An unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord’s affairs, all he need worry about is pleasing the Lord . . . In the same way an unmarried woman, like a young girl, can devote herself to the Lord’s affairs; all she need worry about is being holy in body and spirit” (I Cor. 7:32, 34). 117 Letter, Tyrrell to Brémond, September 18 1904, op cit Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’ (1990), p. 186. I am indebted to Sagovsky for references to the letters between Brémond and Tyrrell which are kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Fonds Brémond). 118 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), p. 287. 119 Frederick S Roden, Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 3, pp. 1–14. Roden drew on unpublished letters between Raffalovich and Tyrrell for his evidence of Tyrrell’s homosexuality. 120 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), pp. 294–295. 121 Ibid., p. 294. 122 Ibid., p. 6, op cit Thomas Michael Loome, “Tyrrell’s Letters to Andre Raffalovich,” The Month, Vol. 229 (1970), p. 146. 123 Schultenover, George Tyrrell (1981), p. 200; Letter, Tyrrell to von Hügel, November 12, 1900, BL Add MS 44927. 124 Ibid., p. 201; Letter, Tyrrell to Petre, November 16, 1900, BL Add MS 52367. 125 Petre Diary, February 26, 1907, BL Add MS 52374. 126 Letter, Brémond to Maude Petre, January 10, 1903, op cit Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), p. 265. 127 Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’ (1990), pp. 184–185. Sagovksy believes “Tyrrell’s attitude to Maude Petre was deeply ambivalent. There were aspects of his life about which she probably knew very little, such as his friendship with the Shelleys at Clapham” (p. viii). 128 Petre, My Way of Faith (1937), p. 147. 129 Leonard, Unresting Transformation (1991). 130 Letter, Ralph Clutton to Amigo, February 4, 1909, Southwark Diocesan Archive (SDA). Clutton added that he disagreed with Father Tyrrell’s “insubordination” regarding the encyclicals. 131 Ibid. 132 Of course, he was not, in fact, English but Irish. 133 Letter, Ralph Clutton to Amigo, February 4, 1909, SDA. 134 Ibid. Other letters followed to and from the Bishop and her family throughout the year on this topic, in regard to Petre taking the Eucharist despite her Modernism and the Papal Encyclicals. See Letter, Amigo to R. Clutton, July 16, 1909, SDA; Letter, Margaret Clutton (sister of Petre) to Amigo, November 25

Maude Petre  121 [misdated 1908]1909, SDA; Letter, Margaret Clutton to Amigo, November 29 [misdated 1908] 1909, SDA; Letter, Adela Sweetman-Powell (sister of Petre) to Amigo, November 30 [misdated 1908] 1909. 135 Letter, Petre to Amigo, January 24, 1909, SDA. 136 Petre Diary, October 20, 1907, BL Add MS 52374. 137 George Tyrrell, “The Old Faith and The New Woman. II,” The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. 22, No. 87 (1897): 630–645. 138 Ibid. 139 A motu proprio is a document that comes directly from the Pope, without the intercession of any other hierarchy. 140 Tyrrell was excommunicated on October 22, 1907. Petre was not excommunicated, but her vows lapsed officially in 1907, although she had been in irregular contact with her order for some time. Loisy was excommunicated in 1908. Von Hügel was not excommunicated. But he was wealthy and not a religious. Brémond was not excommunicated and was in fact named to the Académie Française in 1923. 141 Praestantia Scripturae, Pius X (1907). Asking specifically for the bishops and Priors to take action against the Modernists: “Wherefore we again and most earnestly exhort the ordinaries of the dioceses and the heads of religious congregations to use the utmost vigilance over teachers … We exhort them also to take diligent care to put an end to those books and other writings, now growing exceedingly numerous, which contain opinions or tendencies of the kind condemned in the encyclical letters and decree above mentioned; let them see to it that these publications are removed from Catholic publishing houses, and especially from the hands of students and the clergy. By doing this they will at the same time be promoting real and solid education, which should always be a subject of the greatest solicitude for those who exercise sacred authority.” 142 There has been little work done in the area of Modernism and female involvement, but it seems that women were very rarely at the forefront across Europe and North America. 143 The number of documents detailing the last days of Tyrrell’s life and whether or not Petre acted according to what she knew to be the correct methods, given his excommunication, are rife, and most from Petre herself. For a concise treatment of the death bed see Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’ (1990), pp. 258–261. My sources mostly originate from the SDA. Documents consulted on this matter include K.M. Clutton, in The Modern Churchman, March 1922, pp. 678–686. Clutton writes, “Miss Petre was perfectly right when she pleaded that her mistakes, if any, should not be visited on Tyrrell. She was a devoted friend of the dying man, willing to risk any censure for herself if only she could procure for him the last consolations of religion … it was the priests, not she, who were responsible [for his unsanctified burial]” (pp. 685–686), and furthermore, “as an orthodox catholic, she [Petre] did the right thing, she sent for a priest and she left that priest alone with Father Tyrrell. Having done this her responsibility ended” (p. 684). The issue was also played out in the national media: “Letters to the Editor,” The Guardian, July 28, 1909 (details the funeral, who was there, and that Brémond gets put on temporary warning from his Diocese, that of Aix, in France, over the matter). In The Tablet there was an exchange about the circumstances of Tyrrell’s death from July 31, 1909 and August 16, 1909. (It links his death, burial, and treatment to the English convert St. George Jackson Mivart, a controversial biologist, who was also initially denied a sanctified burial.) In The Times, there were letters from Alfred Fawkes (later to be buried next to Petre and Tyrrell), Francis Clutton, Archbishop Bourne, G.L. Bruce, Arthur Galton, and Robert Dell. See Francis Clutton, “The Late Father Tyrrell,” Friday, July 30, 1909; M.D. Petre, “The Late Father Tyrrell,” The Times, July 31, 1909; Robert

122  Maude Petre Dell, “The Late Father Tyrrell,” The Times, July 27, 1909; Arthur Galton and Alfred Fawkes, “The Funeral Of Father Tyrrell,” The Times, August 16, 1909; Francis Bourne and G.L. Bruce, “The Funeral of Father Tyrrell,” The Times, August 17, 1909; Letter, Dessoulavay to Amigo, July 19, 1909, SDA; M. Clifton, “New Light on Tyrrell,” The Tablet, January 22, 1983, pp. 55–57; “La Mort Du P. Tyrrell,” La Croix, June 19, 1909. 144 Various telegram copies, from Petre to Amigo and Prior Xavier in Storrington, SDA. In: “Amigo - Petre Documents,” Manuscript, SDA. 145 Telegram, Petre to Amigo, July 17, 1909. “Amigo – Petre Documents,” Telegram (London, n.d.), SDA. 146 “Obituary,” The Times, July 16, 1909; Petre, “The Late Father Tyrrell,” The Times, July 31, 1909. 147 Ibid. 148 Ibid. 149 Petre claimed she had no real knowledge of whether Tyrrell received Last Rites (see her Diary and numerous letters). 150 Some priests felt Petre was, alternately, a belligerent force to be reckoned with and a “silly” woman who must not comprehend the seriousness of her actions in regard to Tyrrell taking Last Rites. Bergh, the Abbot at Carshalton in 1909, wrote, “this disclaimer from a woman would probably be adequate” but in the case of Petre, it was not. See Father Thomas Bergh to Amigo, December 4, 1909, SDA. 151 There is confusion over the name of the prior. From the document it appears his name is Xavier. The Roman Catholic directories of England and Wales from the time list him as FF Xavier. Ellen Leonard calls him Fourviere. Sagovsky uses “de la Fourvière.” Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’ (1990), p. 323. 152 Letters from Prior Xavier of the Order of Prémontré in Storrington to Petre, July 25, 1909, BL Add MS 52368. 153 There exist a series of letters from the Prior to Amigo in which he was definite in his rejection of giving Petre the Eucharist. The prior then wrote to Petre and detailed why he would not give her Communion by linking his decision to the encyclicals. Letter, Prior Xavier to Petre, November 30, 1909, SDA. Letter, Mrs. Sweetman-Powell to Amigo, December 10, 1911, SDA. Petre’s sister and lodger Mrs. Sweetman-Powell was not above using her wealth to fix the situation and threatened to withholding money from Diocesan charities until Petre could receive communion. 154 Brémond was censured for these actions for a time. 155 M. Clifton, “New light on Tyrrell,” The Tablet, January 22, 1983, pp. 55–57; Letter, Merry del Val to Amigo, July 25, 1909, SDA; Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’ (1990), p. 262. 156 Robert Dell, “The Late Father Tyrrell,” The Times, July 27, 1909; Arthur Galton and Alfred Fawkes, “The Funeral of Father Tyrrell,” The Times, August 16, 1909. 157 “La Mort Du P. Tyrrell,” La Croix, June 19, 1909. Gallica.bnf.fr, “La Mort Du P. Tyrrell,” http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2574273/f4.highres (last modified 2014; accessed August 20, 2014). This quote was revisited by Francis Clutton, “The Late Father Tyrrell,” July 30, 1909; M.D. Petre “The Late Father Tyrrell,” The Times, July 31, 1909; Robert Dell, “The Late Father Tyrrell,” The Times, July 27, 1909. 158 M.D. Petre, “The Late Father Tyrrell,” The Times, July 31, 1909; Robert Dell, “The Late Father Tyrrell,” The Times, July 27, 1909. 159 “La Mort Du P. Tyrrell,” La Croix, June 19, 1909. 160 “Special Cable to The New York Times: Father Tyrrell Dead,” New York Times, July 16, 1909.

Maude Petre  123 61 Pius X, Sacrorum Antistitum, or, “The Oath against Modernism” (1910). 1 162 Ibid. 163 Ibid. 164 Letter, Suprema Sacra Congregatio Sancti Officii to Amigo, September 12, 1910, SDA. Suprema Sacra Congregatio Sancti Officii [The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office] is now called Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei or Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). It is important to note that Cardinal Rampolla also had past interactions that were less than positive with Merry del Val, which may have meant that he was biased against the English Catholics, stemming from the election of the Pope in 1903. From 1896, Merry del Val was writing to Westminster Diocese regarding the “situation in England” which at this time was in a furore over Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Apostolicae Curae (1896), which made Anglican Orders “null and void.” So, there were ongoing issues between England and the Vatican. See Merry del Val papers in “Vaughan,” Ephemera (London, n.d.), Vaughan [WDA] especially: Merry del Val to Lord Cardinal of Westminster, April 2, 1996, WDA, v.1/14; Apostolicae Curae, Leo XIII (Vatican City: Vatican, 1896). Tyrrell’s work was censored from 1901 to 1902, to see the censor’s records v. 1/12, “Vaughan,” Vaughan, WDA. 165 Letter, Amigo to Petre, October 5, 1910, SDA. 166 She received the Eucharist in Grayshott, Hampshire, since it was outside of Amigo’s jurisdiction and under Bishop Cahill in Portsmouth. 167 Letter, Amigo to Petre, October 11, 1910, SDA. 168 Letter, Petre to Amigo, October 14, 1910, SDA. 169 Draft of letter, Hinsley to Petre [n.d.], SDA; Letter, Hinsley to Petre, 1910 [n.d.], SDA. 170 Ibid. 171 Maude Petre, “Pope and Modernism: Open Letter to My Fellow Catholics,” The Times, November 2, 1910. 172 Ibid. 173 Letter, Petre to Amigo, December 8, 1909, SDA. 174 Notes scrawled on the bottom of her letters for replies, Amigo to Petre (docs. 99–100), SDA. She avoids acknowledging the issue over the Sacrament in her letter, Petre to Amigo, December 8, 1909, SDA; from Letters, December 7–9, 1909, SDA. 175 Ibid. 176 Letter, AS MacCall to Amigo, August 21, 1910, SDA. 177 Ibid. 178 Tyrrell to Maude Petre, April 1, 1908. In this letter Tyrrell writes of his fear about von Hügel leaving the Modernist world because of a fear of excommunication.

4

The Society Sapphists Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall

In her poem, “Salvation,” Radclyffe Hall (1880–1943) rejoiced in her love of God and His promise of a glorious life after death: I will be full, oh, full of praise … I’ll bless the Lord and all His ways, And magnify Him all my days As part of His Creation … When I go into Jericho, Between the gates of Jericho, In the good time that’s coming!1 After Hall’s conversion to Catholicism in February 1912 she gave her life and writing completely over to God, and such a commitment is the theme of the Biblical story of Joshua and Jericho. Her relationships, writing, and thinking were profoundly influenced by her Catholicism.2 She did not see any dissonance between her faith and her sexuality – she believed her sexuality was derived directly from God. Speaking for Hall, when her biographer Una Troubridge was asked how she and Hall “reconciled” their Catholicism and sexuality, Troubridge replied “there was nothing to confess” as there was no sin.3 Instead, the sin lay in the miscomprehension of God’s creation by society. At particular times, Hall felt society misunderstood her because of her “Sapphism” and, as much as she rejoiced in it privately, she also suffered for it. She identified closely with the aspect of suffering in the life of Christ. She believed her own redemption would come as did Christ’s – by sacrificing herself to a cause greater than herself. With Mabel Batten, these upper-class English Catholic women both accepted and transgressed societal perceptions of gender, faith, and sexuality. Mabel (Hatch) Batten (1856–1916), her lover, a Catholic (assumed) convert from the upper classes, offered Hall love, support, and the promise of a shared life together – despite her long marriage to George Henry Maxwell Batten (1832–1910). Batten was a child of the Raj, educated on the continent, who returned to India and was also a famous songstress that carried on numerous affairs with powerful men such as the Prince of Wales, the DOI: 10.4324/9781003300861-5

The Society Sapphists  125 Count de Mirafiore, Lord Lytton. Batten’s “unorthodox” life situated her at the convergence point of multiple interrelated narratives of Imperial Britain with its tensions, anxieties, and pride.4 Catholicism was a way for Batten to validate her expressions of sexual identity and “dissonant” behavior.5 But, she was also a mother who was committed to her faith and the passing on of her learned cultural Catholicism to her daughter. With Hall, the family traveled throughout Europe participating in numerous acts of lived Catholicism, meeting with members of the hierarchy including the Pope, and then settling in Rye and London as active members of their local parishes. Catholicism was a place where Batten was able to reconcile various strands in her life, the familial and the social. Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall’s American mother, Mary Jane (née Diehl) Sager (1854–1945), a widow from Philadelphia, met Radclyffe ‘Rat’ Radclyffe-Hall (1846–1898) in Southport, Lancashire in 1878. Their marriage was rancorous and short-lived.6 Their child was born in August 1880, and the father left the embattled family home within the month. Hall subsequently had little interaction with her philandering father and her paternal relatives. Life with her mother was difficult, and maternal disdain and resentment for Hall have been well documented. It was only after Rat Radclyffe-Hall’s family money (due to a successful sanatorium in Torquay), passed down to Marguerite on her 21st birthday, that Hall’s mother began to show much interest in her. The responsibility of the Radclyffe-Hall family fortune, coupled with parental rejection and a poor home life, greatly shaped the woman that Hall was to become.7 She went on to author over a dozen novels and collections of poetry and short stories – many of which explore aspects of faith and identity. In 1915, Hall met and began a relationship with Mabel Batten’s cousin Una Troubridge, who had already converted to Catholicism. At the time, Troubridge was unhappily married to a naval captain and mother of one daughter, Andrea (who was largely ignored in a fashion similar to that of Hall’s own childhood). Batten’s death in 1916 was caused by a cerebral hemorrhage, which occurred after an argument with Hall concerning Troubridge. Troubridge and Hall spent a number of years attempting to reconnect with the deceased Batten through psychics and they became members of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR).8 Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall, as lay Catholic lesbians, found a place in the Church, which implicitly supported their relationship. Their lives as sexually “unorthodox” but devout Catholic women further my argument that lay Catholic women found in Catholicism a flexibility not commonly associated with the faith. Batten and Hall both adhered to and rejected aspects of the faith that they converted to as adults. Their faiths sustained them, emotionally, spiritually, and aesthetically. Like other women of their time, their faith found its expression in devotional, lived practices. Catholicism was for them, as well as other queer converts, a haven for self-expression.9 Not surprisingly, given the dearth of research on both lay women and Catholic lesbianism in this time, neither Hall nor Batten has been studied exclusively within

126  The Society Sapphists the context of their Catholic womanhood. Studying these women alongside their Catholic female contemporaries urges considerations of how un/like they were to other lay Catholic women of the period as to un/like other lesbians. Hall, particularly, like her female writer friends Christopher St. John and Tony Atwood, understood themselves as both Catholics and queer.10 Their sincere belief in Catholic doctrine matched an enjoyment of the aesthetic and devotional aspects of Catholicism, which brought them a sense of belonging. A conservative thinker, Hall reflected much of the traditional ideas of True Catholic womanhood for other women, but not for herself. This contradiction of belief and behavior may seem problematic, but Hall did not see this herself. Expanding upon Laura Doan’s critique of Hall’s perceived slippage in this area by arguing that her personal interpretation of Catholicism was a vital part of expressing her self through her writing, lifestyle, and thought.11 Accordingly, the Catholic Church was much more accepting than has been previously understood and was a liminal space for pious transgressions and reinterpretations of womanhood for some women and men. Batten and Hall’s Catholicism, while appreciative of the decadent aesthetic aspects, was based in a firm belief in its traditions, devotions, and practices. Their membership in the Church gave them a sense of inclusion and place, especially when on the Continent. Catholicism distanced them from tidy “Englishness” and the kind of mixed feelings this represented for them. Hall particularly saw herself as “othered” as an “invert,” and the Church was a further expression of this “othering” within society, since Catholicism remained “different” but “traditional.” Batten’s upbringing and class allowed her a certain degree of freedom to transgress the most sober aspects of Catholicism in favor of sexual exploration. Her contravention of the Catholic ideal of fidelity corresponds with contemporaneous historical movements that also stressed the freedom of the individual, such as the idea of the New Woman and the suffrage movement. Like Maude Petre, as a member of the upper classes, Batten had a sense of self-exceptionalism that gave her confidence to act as she pleased. It seems this self-assurance gave her the ability to balance her faith, morality, and respectability against her actions. However, this is not to say that she ever took her conversion for granted – her Catholicism gave her succor and strength. It seems Batten and Hall were tacitly accepted as Catholic cohabitating women. They, along with other queer Catholics, demonstrate that the Catholic Church was able to provide a space for a renegotiation of the self as a place of “institutionalized otherness.” Historiography There is a strong tradition within LGBTQIA+ scholarship of unearthing links between religious belief and sexuality. It is often difficult to find an approach that balances the aesthetic aspects of Catholicism (which tend to be the focus for most scholars) and more theological aspects of faith, belief, and devotion. Frederick Roden, who pioneered the study of religiosity

The Society Sapphists  127 (specifically Catholicism and Anglo-Catholicism) and queerness in England, details the makings of 19th-century Queer Romanism in his seminal book Same-sex Desire in Victorian and Religious Culture.12 Roden argues that Victorian religious culture provided an exceptionally fertile ground for a “safe expression” of sexual identity through imagery, iconography, and religious orders. The term “safe expression” does not necessarily include actual sexual intercourse in this case. Roden is arguing for a widening of the explanation of a multiplicity of methods of sexual expression. In some cases, becoming a vowed religious could preclude one from sexual expression and become a form of institutionalized repression forcing one to closet one’s sexuality. Catholicism proved to be an “empowering” space to engage in homoeroticism.13 Literary critic Ellis Hanson argues in Decadence and Catholicism that the gay writers of conversion novels, who also subsequently converted to Catholicism, did not do so because of any academic understanding of the faith. He claims conversions derived from love of beauty that drew men into the ritual, art, sculpture, and symbolism of the Church.14 Others, such as Patrick O’Malley, have brought attention to the links between Catholic cloistering as an institutional “closeting” and how Britons used this in their discourse on Victorian queerness.15 This idea of closeting was pushed further in 2015 by Dominic Janes’ argument that the English nunnery and seminary were in fact queer families and points to John Henry Newman as representative of the breadth of English Catholic queerness at all levels of the faith.16 The Church was later reevaluated as a place where decadent convert writers felt Catholicism was a safe haven for a fetishization of (via devotion of relics) and way of recreating the past. And, as in the case of John Gray, it was a space for the practice of “effeminacy” with robes, processions, and costumes, and was an opportunity to enjoy ornament. One could reach an understanding of one’s place in the world through the pantheon of saints and imagery. Thus, conversion to Catholicism, or belief in Catholicism, aligning with same-sex desire, was clearly a genuine aspect of life for some men and women. More work needs to be done to understand how queer lay Catholic women particularly engaged with these ideas of decadence and faith. Understatement was certainly not part of the Ultramontane Catholicism prevalent in England at the turn of the century, which elevated demonstrative methods of worship over national styles. Ultramontane decadence can best be seen in the creation and decoration of the Brompton Oratory in Kensington (1880–1884). But it is problematic to overly associate the superficial aspects of the Church with the interior motivations of the soul. This is not to deny the beauty and awe inspired by the Church, but to more closely ally it with Church practices. For example, frescoes, architecture, sculpture, and windows all played a historically didactic role for the Church in articulating its mission and beliefs. Effectively, there is a point behind the pomp.17 The beauty of devotionals in light of their liturgical and spiritual purpose was a combination of ritual with faith that also proved attractive to Batten and Hall.

128  The Society Sapphists It is vital to build a case for why converting to Catholicism proved to be so compelling to Hall, Batten, and other queer Britons, although at the heart of each example will be an individualized picture of piety. Building substantially upon Hanson’s assessment of decadence as the chief motivator for the conversion of male authors, Philip Waller outlines the motivations for the great number of converts ranging from the aesthetic to the Church’s ability to include those unorthodox in “belief or behavior.”18 Some, such as Oscar Wilde, felt that Catholic confession, as a method for coping with morality and ethics, best explained its attraction for queer Britons. In response to the seeming contradictions of conversion, Wilde wrote to Reggie Turner that “the Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone. For respectable people the Anglican Church will do.”19 Another convert linked with the literary world, John Gray, the model for Wilde’s Dorian Gray, may initially have been attracted to the pageantry, but it was the integrity of faith that led him to become a Catholic priest, despite his past vanities of excess.20 Gray, in turn, played a role in the conversions and faith-lives of other queer Catholics such as the female authors Michael Field and Andre Raffalovich.21 I will show in the case of Batten and Hall, the pageantry of Catholicism proved similarly attractive but that the strength of their faith rested squarely on sacramental and cultural Catholic practice. As well, a Catholic environment of already being the “other” imbued it with a place where one had freedom to be “different” appealed to these women. To revisit Roden’s idea of Catholicism performing a role as a place for the “safe expression” of one’s homosexuality, one must consider why lesbianism, in particular, may have gone largely undiscussed in contemporary Church society. It may be argued that if, in Catholicism, sex outside the bonds of marriage is the locus of sin and guilt but guilt is itself erased weekly in the confessional, and then there is always a tabula rasa. Further, if sex is technically defined as sex if it is genitally penetrative and is, therefore, not sex if not penetrative, then, again, there is no guilt. Being both respectable and subversive was not of course behavior limited to Catholics – many other female Britons at every level of society seem to have also broken from classic ideas of True Womanhood in the domestic sphere. Other women of the era engaged in similar love triangles, secular and religious. Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf were both married and practiced open marriages, an example of same-sex desire for women of privilege.22 There were also examples of women from religious backgrounds who were romantically linked with women (even, in some cases relatives). They included, in the mid-Victorian era, the Rossetti sisters, poet Christina Rossetti and her sister, an Anglican nun, who were High Church AngloCatholics linked with the Pre-Raphaelite Movement.23 Others included the Keary sisters, poet Eliza and novelist Annie, daughters of a Yorkshire vicar, who wrote children’s books and argued for the femininity of Christ.24 Evangelical Constance Maynard used the Biblical quotes to link her lesbian affairs and desires.25 Mary Benson, the wife of an Anglican bishop, was also a religious

The Society Sapphists  129 (married) lesbian.26 As noted, the niece-aunt writing duo of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper (also Catholic converts), known collectively under the pseudonym Michael Field in public and private, kept a lesbian home without any male intervention.27 Their shared masculine-gendered personality of Field shows another way that lay Catholic women could “usurp the male” by co-opting perceived aspects of masculinity for themselves. Earlier instances are the “Ladies of Llangollen,” one of whom was Catholic, who lived out the quintessential “Boston Marriage,” away from their religious families in Ireland.28 Amy Levy was an assimilated Jewish lesbian working at the end of the Victorian era in England; her writing touched on issues such as disaffection with Judaism, immigration to England, and same-sex love.29 Certainly, there are examples of religious lesbian womanhood to draw from when thinking of the example of Catholic lesbianism via Batten and Hall. Privileged lay Catholic women of this era, straight or queer, were able to mold their sense of respectability according to their desires. In Catholicism, they found a home for their beliefs, which were paradoxical – both “straight and queer, respectable and subversive” according to Hanson.30 Through her romantic choices, possibly Batten was demonstrating that Catholicism could be reinterpreted in alternate ways despite canonical teachings. However, in regard to her daughter, Batten pursued a very traditional style of Catholic motherhood. For Hall, Catholicism empowered her as woman and an “invert” to claim her identity and celebrate it. She never felt any contradiction between her religion and her same-sex desire. As Martha Vicinus writes in her important work about lesbians in England, Intimate Friends (2004), “exceptional women … could behave with exceptional freedom.” Building Connections Radclyffe Hall and Mabel Batten made each other’s acquaintance through tennis. Barbara “Toupie” Lowther – who would later be arrested for both “masquerading as a woman” and “cross-dressing” – was competing against the future seven-time Wimbledon champion and fellow Briton, Dorothea Chambers in Homburg.31 Hall was there with her cousin Dolly Diehl to watch her friend Lowther play, and all were staying at the Savoy. Batten was there with her husband and was regretting her visit, comparing it to a decade before when she as there with the Prince of Wales and their circle.32 George, who was 74 years old in 1906, had found some friends to discuss the old days with.33 Mabel, just turned 50, was still hoping for excitement, when she met Hall (then known as Marguerite) and her coterie including Lowther at the Savoy; Batten quickly found an affinity with the group, but especially with Hall. A like-mindedness with Hall developed with great speed from a mutual admiration to romantic love. When they returned to England, they worked together on setting some of Hall’s poems to music, and Hall felt it necessary to do her utmost to be “worthy of their friendship … What I am I owe to her … she took me

130  The Society Sapphists and very gradually proceeded to rub off the sharp and ugly corners.”34 Their friendship grew, but it was not until 1908 that they became lovers during a trip to Ostend. From then, Hall was regarded as an integral part of the Batten-Harris family unit, but they maintained separate homes until 1910 when George died. From 1908, the two women mutually filled a void in each other’s lives. For Batten, Hall gave her back her youth, showered her with gifts, supported her spiritually, loved her physically, and was fun. Hall wrote to Cara Harris that: I gave to her the best eight years of my life and although other people took my surface interest trivial during that time, they never touched my soul, or penetrate (sic) into my mind. She was seldom out of my thoughts.35 Batten’s expressions of same-sex desire for Hall were mutually expressed and in this she found little cause for concern regarding how it related to her faith. For the first time in many years, she was doted on and looked after in style; Hall was forced to work hard to maintain Batten’s interest in the early years of their friendship. For her part, Batten offered up advice and tutelage to Hall in her writing. She also helped acclimatize her to fine society. Hall’s paternal inheritance gave her entry to these circles, but she had not been educated on expected modes of behavior in polite society. Batten organized their holidays abroad, managing all the more “domestic” tasks such as interviewing traveling maids.36 Batten was happy to take on the normative feminine tasks, which Hall happily and habitually handed over to Batten and later lovers.37 Like a mother, Batten nurtured Hall in other ways as well. Batten brought Hall into her family unit, and for the first time, Hall experienced a motherfather/husband-wife dynamic.38 Hall interacted closely with Batten’s husband George, her daughter Cara, her sister Lady Clarendon and son-in-law, Austin Harris. With the Battens, Hall discovered a family environment where she was wanted and her company was found enjoyable. In her own family, her mother ignored her unless she needed money. Besides exposing Hall to her family and work, Batten’s Catholicism quietly showed Hall the way of her faith.39 At home and abroad, Batten and Hall mixed with some of the most important figures in English Catholicism, lay and religious, including Pope Pius X, Cardinal Gasquet, Sir Walter Hamilton-Dalrymple, and Lady Edmund Talbot (who had not always been sympathetic to converts).40 The nature of Hall and Batten’s relationship was implicitly understood since they shared a calling card with both names and one address, and while not publicly stated, and it seems unlikely that the Catholics they interacted with were ignorant of it. Hanson argues that while this may seem odd at first glance, in fact there was “a great deal of felicitous cohabitation … and the turbines of Christianity spun with an extraordinary quantity of queer steam,” which may account in some part for Hall’s acceptance in Church circles.41

The Society Sapphists  131 Elite Lay Conversions On January 3, 1912, Batten and Hall took in “The Miracle” (1911), in one of its first performances at The Olympia, Kensington, and Batten wrote enthusiastically, “we both loved it.”42 “The Miracle” was a spectacle-pantomime by Max Reinhardt and Karl Vollmoller about a medieval nun who leaves the convent for love and adventure. The nun’s absence goes unnoticed, because her position is maintained by a statue of the Blessed Virgin who comes to life.43 The Olympia was converted into a “cathedralesque” space for the performance and it was reported in the press that, “the Roman Catholic Church should thank Max Reinhardt for the propaganda.”44 This, perhaps, flippant comment proved true in the case of Hall since on the following day she and Batten went to the Oratory to meet Father Sebastian Bowden and discuss her possible conversion to Catholicism.45 As discussed earlier, Bowden was a familiar face to upper-class converts, and notably, to queer elite converts. The Oratory was not only a locus of upper-class Catholicism, but also for the kind of decadent Catholicism that Hanson has argued was so aesthetically pleasing to pre-war converts.46 The two women remained friends with Bowden and were semi-regular worshippers at the Oratory until their respective deaths.47 Within a month of this meeting, Hall had completed the first two Rites of Initiation, followed by her confirmation on October 20, 1912.48 There is some confusion over when Mabel Batten converted to Catholicism as the records for her early life were either destroyed or remain untouched, and untouchable, in the family archives.49 Most of Radclyffe Hall’s biographers (and myself) contend that both were converts. In the absence of concrete evidence to the contrary, and as she married in an Anglican Church in India (despite the existence of Catholic churches) and her daughter was baptized in one as well, I will proceed on the assumption that she converted. What can be corroborated is that for Batten, Catholicism provided her a platform from which to engage with her spirituality, beliefs, and identity in a way that Anglicanism, even high Church Anglicanism, failed to. Like the elite convert Lady Georgina Fullerton, Catholicism provided Batten with a “true home,” a place where ritual, tradition, and faith were matched.50 Anglicanism was a muddle of high and low churches and was underpinned by English sensibility. What Batten sought was an engagement with Continental expression and vibrancy in her faith and her life; Catholicism provided both. Batten’s presumed reasons for converting to Catholicism were myriad.51 Many others of her class were converting in large numbers in the late-Victorian era, including others living in the Raj such as the Viceroy, Lord Ripon, who himself had converted at the Oratory in 1874. A book was even published listing many of the converts.52 By 1910, the upper echelons of English Catholicism included 29 peers, 53 peeresses, and hundreds of other assorted members of the nobility, forming a distinct “club” for Batten to belong to.53 The stripped-down plainness and propriety of Protestantism did not bring with it the vestiges and trappings of power in the same way Catholicism

132  The Society Sapphists could in the ultramontane Romanish (Brompton Oratory) worldview. This echoes the argument of Hanson that many fell in love with the “decadence” of Catholicism in the fin de siècle.54 Without the idea of decadence, it would still stand that Batten was attracted to the Church for belonging and a special “otherness.” In some ways, Batten’s love of continental Europe, and especially the vibrant Mediterranean may have led her to Catholicism as a closer way of engaging with the local world she visited so often. We can infer from letters that, as a Catholic, Batten felt most comfortable away from the English and on the Continent.55 She may also have sought a closer link with George Batten’s family, one branch of whom were an old recusant family, the Chicheley Plowdens, upon her return to England. That link to a Catholic past may have secured emotional links to long-standing traditions and connections, which many in England were yearning for in the heavily industrialized late-Victorian era as we see particularly through the Arts and Crafts Movement. Catholicism offered upper-class convert women a freedom of expression that was not fully available to them as Anglicans, even High Anglicans. As Catholics they could participate in highly symbolic philanthropy as the Church rebuilt itself in England. These women could donate and design items like stained glass windows, fund schools for girls, and even church buildings. For example, Countess Helen Tasker was the major benefactor in the construction of St. Helen’s Church in Southend-on-Sea in 1867. Mrs. Elizabeth Bowden (d.1936) was a convert, who funded and worked closely with architect A.W.N. Pugin to design St. Wilfrid’s Chapel at the Oratory.56 Miss Frances Ellis (1846–1930), an heiress and a convert (1901), donated the funds for over 20 Catholic churches to be built in and around South London from Peckham Rye (St. James, 1905) to Streatham (St. Simon’s and St. Jude’s Church, Streatham, 1906). She also funded numerous Catholic orphanages, hospitals, and nursing homes.57 Women were instrumental in re/creating the practice of an ancient faith, that state-sponsored Anglicanism did not need in the same way as the Victorian Catholic Church. But there are also the intangible aspects surrounding the conversion of upper-class women. Possibly, Mabel Batten’s understanding of Catholicism and her conversion may be best-explained at this point by comparing it to the life of another upper-class convert from a generation before, Lady Georgina Fullerton (1812–1885). Fullerton was, like Batten, initially drawn to the Church by the aesthetics and her years spent abroad.58 Frances Taylor (1832–1900) founded the Poor Servants of the Mother of God and Fullerton served as a patron. The two women were concerned with providing working and middle-class Catholics with literary matter that supported their image of respectability. Both of their conversions were, to some extent, predicated by the Tractarian Movement which lent respectability to the Roman Church in England. As with Hall, Fullerton converted at Brompton Oratory, reinforcing the acceptability of converting to Catholicism among the upper classes. Catholicism for all these women was beyond the “mere

The Society Sapphists  133 artistic or aesthetic satisfaction” and, in Fullerton’s words, “their faith and their love, [drew] closer the ties which unite[d] them to the Church and to our Lord.”59 Fullerton’s biographer wrote, “those who have been born in the bosom of the Church are so accustomed to the singular blessings with which she surrounds every moment and step of our lives, that they do not understand what those persons feel, who come to the possession of her treasures … but of a sudden, when mature age and personal experience … have taught them to … enjoy them more worthily.”60 There are simply not yet enough works on lay Catholic upper-class women to understand if these experiences are singular or common, but this assertion seems especially relevant for Batten and Hall. Catholic Life Catholicism in London and Catholicism on the continent were practiced very differently for upper-class converts. Hugh McLeod has argued in his classic text on class and religion that Catholicism in the upper classes was at its strongest in the West End during the late-Victorian era. He offered that Rome “had a special attraction for reformed rakes, retired courtesans, and so on.”61 West End churches in Mayfair, Chelsea, and Knightsbridge were built to cater for “the rich” but English Catholics were a touch less orthodox than High Church Anglicans since they lacked the “inherited feeling of duty to support” something so quintessentially English.62 Batten fits into this bridge between faith and class in Victorian society through her adoption of a cultural Catholicism which underpinned her daily life. Batten and Hall found the fullest expression of their faith in Continental Europe where the practice of Catholicism was more closely connected with spectacle. As part of this desire to engage with their faith on vacation, they chose holiday spots almost exclusively in Catholic countries rather than in the Middle East where Britons could tour via companies such as Thomas Cook.63 Whilst in the Canary Islands, they attended church every Sunday.64 In the Canaries over the Lenten season, the women spent the Easter Triduum visiting churches veiled and swathed in black mantillas.65 On Easter Sunday they attended an early morning Mass and during the week participated in traditional Spanish processions through the streets. In Tenerife this celebration would be typified by cloaked, hooded believers processing through the town. While abroad other years in Alassio, Tamaris, Florence, the Cote d’Azur, and Lisbon, their interaction with their faith became much more visible and active.66 This is not to say that Batten’s faith was not evident in England, but it was not as outwardly participatory. Despite her obvious devotion at Easter, she did not scale back her activities in the fashion normally associated with Lenten practice. In fact, on the Friday a week before the Triduum in 1912 she “placed a few sovereigns on the Grand National” and followed her gambling on the horses with attendance at the Via Crucio also known as the Stations of the Cross, at Brompton Oratory.67

134  The Society Sapphists In Rome, where seemingly the ideological tensions over being in an unconventional relationship would have been the most rife (albeit as women this level of interrogation would have been less than if they had been gay men), they found some of the greatest expressions of their faith. Batten and Hall traveled to Rome for small audiences with Pope Pius X over the Christmas season of 1912–1913, the year of Hall’s conversion.68 However, Batten preferred the previous Pope, Leo XIII, because she felt he “loved the pomp and circumstance” and carried himself with more “dignity.”69 In Italy over the Advent and Christmas 1912, the women participated in their faith daily through lunching with priests, attending benedictions, viewing “papal treasures,” attending confessions, purchasing religious items, and making offerings. All this culminated on Christmas day with Mass at St. Peter’s led by Cardinal Rampolla (another of Maude Petre’s archenemies).70 One of their favorite companions was Hall’s friend Bishop Brindle who was, she wrote, “a very jolly old man” along with Monsignor Stanley. Marian womanhood and virginal purity were not adopted by all Catholic women, contrary to what the examples of Petre and Fletcher offer us, but those that did were lauded by Batten for their sacrifice. Mabel Batten’s feelings about nuns were a mixture of awe and pity for these women who dedicated their lives to serving the Church. “Nuns,” she wrote, have the most “intense comfort in the practice of religion” and “no one can fail to admire their simple faith & wish to be more like them in being so contented & happy in such a dull & cheerless life.”71 The piety of the sisters was regarded as a show of virtue. When these women were also from elite backgrounds, Batten’s enthusiasm for their work was even greater. She also was taken with their aesthetic sense. She enthused that the nuns of Santa Maria Reparatrice were very “chic.”72 Also impressed with their “beautiful singing,” she wrote the nuns were “all very well-born,” and she was taken with their habits of “bright turquoise blue cloth” paired with white shoes and cream wool as if chosen from the Parisian runways.73 Other sisters she made the acquaintance of while on holiday were the Assumption Sisters, whose Reverend Mother governed a “dear little convent.”74 For Batten, nuns were held in a position of awe, as a people apart, but priests were quotidian and much less mysterious. One may query if this was due to the religious sisters achieving a level of sanctity that Batten felt herself unable to approach, despite sharing a faith and gender.75 In any case, her interactions with priests were much more numerous which could also contribute to her comfort with these men. The other possibility that could account for this is that the nuns may have been less comfortable associating with a woman engaged in a same-sex companionship. The priests had none of these fears regarding building intimate friendships. Other Catholic “habits” were part of Batten and Hall’s life such as Church attendance before a long journey or event, lighting candles, and carrying devotional objects. The devotional idea of finding respite and seeking protection in the faith has been argued by Heimann, as is one of the

The Society Sapphists  135 most vital, private aspects of Catholic lay cultural belief. When in Rome in 1912 and 1913, Batten made a special note of purchasing rosary beads for her granddaughter Honey, crucifixes, and benetiers (which contain Holy Water).76 She prayed at the massive, beautiful Roman presepios.77 Presepios are nativity scenes, noted for their extreme size and intricacy and which form a key part of Christmas devotions, especially around the Mediterranean. Key parts of Batten’s last will also demonstrate aspects of devotion; the passing on of items related to her religion was given the utmost importance. In her will she wrote: I have an affection for the Benedictine Church at Malvern Wells, where I hope she [Hall] will erect a small tablet to my memory and have a Mass said for the repose of my soul twice a year, viz., on the 22nd September in each year and on the anniversary of my death. I wish to be buried in my wedding ring and with two medals taken from those I always wear put on a piece of blue or white ribbon and tied round my neck. The medals are a tiny, oval one of Our Lady of Lourdes and a round gold medal with St. Anthony on one side and Pope Leo XIII on the other. And I further wish Marguerite R. Hall to leave on my breast after I am dead and until my coffin is about to be closed my silver Bona Mors crucifix specially blessed for me by the late Holy Father. I then ask her to give the said crucifix to my grandson, Peter Harris. It is my hope and belief that this Bona Mors crucifix will carry will it a special blessing.78 Having a Mass said in one’s memory is an important aspect of the Roman Catholic mourning process which commemorates the life of the deceased while also praying for their soul to make a speedy exit from Purgatory. This form of intercession for the dead through having masses said in one’s memory was validated in the Mirae Caritatis (1902) an encyclical from Leo XIII. Batten had a special affinity for Leo XIII, and there are important echoes of this devotion to Leo XIII in her request for masses to be said for the repose of her soul.79 The crucifix and the medallions mentioned here were passed down as requested through two generations after Batten’s passing, although the family are no longer Roman Catholics. Part of the will is evidence of Batten’s to her love for her deceased husband, and her being buried with the wedding band reiterated the marriage bond. The wearing of medals to show one’s special link to a saint as a form of protection or prayer is a particularly Catholic devotion that goes back to the Early Modern era. Batten’s daily wearing of the Our Lady of Lourdes medal is fitting, as it demonstrates her affinity for Continental Catholicism, as well as her desire to benefit from the healing properties of this Marian intercession after her accident in 1914. Her other medal, with St. Anthony and her favorite Pope, Leo XIII on the other, indicates a very common form of piety. Anthony is associated with the Mediterranean and also the Blessed

136  The Society Sapphists Sacrament, which was Hall’s preferred devotion. Also, Antonia, the feminized from of Anthony, was Hall’s name chosen upon her conversion to Catholicism, and the wearing of this medal could be interpreted as a private acknowledgement of Hall. The Bona Mors crucifix has a similar meaning. Batten was deeply concerned about im/mortality and faith – that she included her Bona Mors crucifix echoes this concern. The Bona Mors confraternity was founded in the 17th century and dedicated to securing a “happy death.” Monsignor Stanley, their friend, was a longtime member of the devotional Archconfraternity of the Bona Mors. It can be inferred from the Will and other evidence that the crucifix was acquired in Rome over the Winter of 1912–1913. It seems both Hall and Batten were thinking about the fate of their eternal souls throughout their time together. Practices of piety and ownership of Catholic objects gave her a sense of belonging within the religion and reinforced her faith life. Heimann writes, “Catholic spirituality, and ultimately identity came to be seen as tied to specific services, devotional rituals or quasi-monastic practices” and further “marked Catholics out as different.”80 Further, scholars such as David Morgan have written broadly about the value of visual piety through viewing religious images, or, Mary Heimann in regard to devotions in Victorian England.81 An entire issue of the Catholic Historical Review (2015) was devoted to the study of material culture, confirming the value of objects to understanding Catholic history.82 Amassing Catholic material objects as aspects of devotion served to increase a feeling of solidarity with other Catholics for Hall as a convert. Devotional practices became the greatest expression of religious commitment and belief by Roman Catholics, especially women, at the end of the 19th century.83 Callum Brown offers that church-going can no longer be viewed as the primary marker of faith, given the existence of devotional cultural markers of piety, as well as problems in Victorian data collection of church-going.84 Both women often attended the Te Deum, benedictions, and vespers – ­activities that while not Mass, are church services linked to devotions, daily ritual, and chanting traditions.85 They attended Church often, but not regularly.86 They seem not to have a had a preference as to what kind of masses they attended, and there is evidence of worship in cathedrals, chapels, military posts, Jesuit churches, decadently designed parishes, more simple, local churches, and even through other Rites such as Armenian.87 Some weeks they may have attended a few days in a row, and then not at all for a month.88 This irregularity of church attendance, coupled with numerous absences from London, and nor being dedicated to a single parish, validates Brown’s argument that these types of non-routine church-going by religious Britons were not taken into account in the secularization thesis. Other demonstrations of Lived Catholic practice that Hall carried on after the death of Batten involved prayer. Hall had numerous Masses said for family and friends, for both celebratory and memorial purposes.89 She took confession often, which was expected of all Catholics.90 Her prie dieu, a portable, “kneeler” for in-home devotions, meant she could pray privately and formally as well.

The Society Sapphists  137 Places and Spaces Hall and Batten particularly relished being in a foreign environment and sharing a faith with the local people when in culturally Catholic countries. A dichotomy of experience emerged for Hall – at home she was enveloped in “difference” and “otherness,” but abroad felt a deep-rooted kinship with the Catholic culture of the Mediterranean. Hanson provocatively argues these styles of demonstrative piety appealed to a “camp” aesthetic and performatory decadence for gay men.91 Queer lay Britons were able to find a public space for subverting the cultural pressures to conform within Catholic devotional practices. As Catholics, they were making themselves simultaneously part of something (the Church) and drawing further away from other aspects (such as bourgeois expectations of what constituted Englishness). Often, Cisalpinism and Ultramontanism informed styles of local devotion.92 Subsequently, Catholic devotion in England did take on a somewhat Roman context (for example in the Brompton Oratory) in the late 19th century. However, there was still very much “English reserve” left in English Catholicism in the Southeast. In the Mediterranean, where they spent a great amount of time around Lent, public parades of devotional objects such as relics or statues to be venerated created a festive atmosphere. Not surprisingly, their Catholicism flourished while abroad. Hall was particularly loathe to spend time “recreating South Kensington” while on the Continent, and it seems her Catholicism strengthened her spiritual connection to “dear abroad.”93 During the winters that they did not travel abroad due to the war (1913–1917), the couple’s participation in public Catholic devotions dropped significantly.94 After Batten’s death, when Hall and Troubridge lived in Rye, East Sussex, there were no noted participations in outwardly public devotions, such as processions. This is of course unsurprising since these public displays were not usually part of upper-class English forms of Roman Catholicism, which they enjoyed on the Continent. Hall was very much taken with the processions practiced by Catholics on the Continent. Many upper-class Catholics did not experience the public processions in England because of class concerns and rarity. Mary Heimann has recently pointed out that there were Catholics participating in processions across Britain, but she notes they were in the “slum districts” of Irish-heavy areas such as Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester. Neither woman seemed to have taken part in these working-class Catholic displays in England. However, the romance of peasant/village processions appealed to a sense of Catholicism as part of the pre-Industrialized pastoral world. What is also interesting and underlines my point about European Catholic devotions being particularly attractive to both is that there were Catholic places of pilgrimage in Britain (Iona in Scotland, Walsingham in England, Holywell in Wales), but they did not record visits to any of them. A concept and vision of God as mystical and unknowable gave the women a basis for faith and sexuality. Participatory continental Catholicism gave a sense

138  The Society Sapphists of the mystic to both. In the Canary Islands, Batten and Hall shared in the village Easter procession to the Cathedral.95 On Good Friday they observed women dressed in mourning for Jesus, wearing black mantillas and robes.96 In Tamaris and Toulon they saw Carnaval and the Mi Carênne fête, which were popular events seeped in religiosity and symbol.97 Unsurprisingly, when in Rome in 1912 Hall and Batten participated in an exceptional number of devotions. They participated in Carnaval in the lead up to Lent and drove the famous Via Appia, the site of Classical and Early Christian monuments. They visited seven churches on Holy Thursday alone.98 They saw the Baby Jesus, the Bambino, blessed on the Steps of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome, where there had been an apparition of the Virgin holding Baby Jesus.99 This particular devotion, performed at Aracoeli, links Catholic mysticism and faith life, a link which Hall would later become increasingly interested in after Batten’s passing. The Bambino statue at Aracoeli was carved by a Franciscan with wood from Gethsemane and its face purportedly painted by an angel. The statue itself is purported to be imbued with the spirit of Jesus and has therefore been a locus for healing and veneration. The outward expression of faith through such holy objects and places showed faith in the miraculous. In later years, Hall made a summer pilgrimage to Lisieux with Troubridge. They visited tens of churches and admired depictions of the saints in Beauvais, north of Paris.100 As another marker to demonstrate cultural Catholicism, Hall especially would use her financial resources to benefit working class and local Catholics near her various country homes after her conversion.101 At the local church in Malvern, where she and Batten lived together after 1910, they donated new hassocks for the parish.102 While in Rome in 1913, the women purchased medals and had them blessed to be distributed to the children of Malvern School.103 The women endeavored to hire Catholic workmen and maids as part of their staff. One particular handyman, Tim Dudley, had a large family and Batten and Hall contributed toward the education of his children.104 When in Rome, Hall and Batten took their maids to services with them and organized for them to attend an audience with Pope Pius X.105 One maid in particular, Sibelle, was taken to Christmas Eve mass at St Peter’s in Rome.106 This idea of helping Catholic domestic staff is reinforced in The Well of Loneliness where the Gordon/Hall/character showers her loyal staff with gifts.107 Here we see Hall at a crossroads of charitability between Fletcher’s highly institutionalized and organizational charitable works and Petre’s lack of engagement with social welfare. This further offers examples of the multiplicity of ways with which some lay Catholic women of privilege engaged with their faith and Catholic social thought more broadly. Keeping Company Hall’s friendships and love affairs from 1907 were integral in forming her later attitudes about herself, her religion, and society. Batten was the most singularly important relationship in Hall’s early Catholic life, but both

The Society Sapphists  139 women spent a great deal of time nurturing friendships with like-minded men and women. Batten’s Catholicism, in part, brought Hall to find the religion that influenced the rest of her life and work. Batten introduced Hall to the musical salon society of London, which, in turn, gave her entrée into lesbian (Catholic) circles in the Continent and at home. Hall’s interactions with these women opened her horizons to a sense of belonging, which she had always felt she lacked.108 Consequently, both women kept company with male and female Catholics, which reinforced their Lived Catholicism. Hall in particular lunched, visited, and sought the guidance of many priests. She would seldom visit with nuns, and by far her greatest interactions were with male ecclesiasts.109 Batten particularly associated with members of the hierarchy, due both to her natural inclinations and the social conventions as members of the upper class. While together, Hall and Batten built strong friendships with well-connected parish priests in their localities, but also some of the most elite men of the Church. In Rome, Hall and Batten had numerous audiences with the Pope Pius X, although Hall’s introduction was awkward as she was awed by his presence.110 They saw a great amount of fellow convert Monsignor Algernon Stanley in Rome and made the rounds with other priests such as Bishop Robert Brindle, and priests from the English College like Cardinal Rampolla and Cardinal Gasquet. Stanley along with Cardinals Gasquet and del Val were some of the most notable personages in English Catholic Society in Rome.111 The women became so close with Stanley that he helped Hall purchase religious medals for Batten’s granddaughter Honey and had them blessed by the Pope.112 Cardinal Bourne of Westminster Cathedral, Monsignor Arthur Jackman, Father Bernard Vaughan at Farm Street, the ageing Father Sebastian Bowden and Father Ball (both of the Oratory) were friends, although Bowden would be regarded as her primary confessor in London.113 Her relationship with priests continued after Batten’s death, but not necessarily any longer with the highest-ranking priests. Hall contented herself with local parish priests in Rye and continued to nurture friendships forged in Malvern.114 Hall continued to make a concerted effort to relate to the parish priests of her local parish churches, such as in Peter Worswick in Malvern and later in Rye with Fr. Bonaventure Sceberras, OFM.115 In Rye, besides the memorial cross donated in memory of Mabel Batten there was also a rood screen dedicated to Batten’s memory. In addition, Hall funded much of the construction of the new Church which clearly helped in cementing her relationship with Father Scebberas. Scebberas gave her a chair for her home as a gift of thanks for her generosity to the Church.116 Earlier, I argued how important the role of the parish priest was in terms of relaying information about notable parishioners to the hierarchy. In the case of Hall, she seems to not have had any trouble with either the hierarchy or local priests, despite that her sexuality was well known. This again raises the issue of the Catholic Church and its stance on homosexuality.

140  The Society Sapphists Were there simply so many gay, Catholic converts from the elite levels of society that there was a tacit acceptance of their sexuality? Of the scholarship on gay converts, the underlying direction of inquiry is to discover what attraction Catholicism held for queer Britons.117 It seems that perhaps many of the highest-ranking Catholics had little problem socializing and worshiping alongside queer Britons or were queer themselves. The fluidity of sexual identities in this period makes this kind of terminology and usage of queerness most appropriate following the practice of academic Matt Houlbrook.118 Clearly though, Catholicism provided a capaciousness that allowed for multiple individual interpretations of the faith in practice both at home and abroad for male and female Catholics. Female Family and Friends For both Hall and Batten, female connections were of the utmost importance. Hall spent a great deal of time in conversation with friends, while Batten concerned herself more with family. These various circles of female friends formed overlapping connections of friendship and love for both women. Sharon Marcus has argued in Between Women that there was elasticity to such female friendships that encompassed female same-sex marriage, friendship, and hierarchies of power, and, for the women this was certainly the case.119 Matrilineal kinship relationships formed the cornerstone of many women’s lives in Victorian England. Evidencing many aspects of the tropes of Victorian womanhood, Batten was a caring mother, sister, and daughter. She often visited her mother Mary Cecilia, her daughter Cara Harris, her sisters the Lady Clarendon and Nan (Annie PJ Hatch).120 It is possible that Batten’s mother may also have converted to Catholicism; she is pictured in family photos taken in Belgium around 1880 and after 1900 wearing a large cross and in the latter image holding what looks to be a missal and scapular.121 Batten’s relationship with her own daughter, Cara, was very close, and Cara, like other elite girls, attended boarding schools.122 Convent education was a way of instilling the faith in the young women of the religion. Many of their early letters to each other have to do with the minutiae of daily life, including their Catholic life such as confession, hearing mass, and Mabel was keen to ensure Cara was following the Sacraments.123 For a time Cara was educated at the Boston House School, Eastbourne but the school was often unable to accommodate or facilitate Cara’s attendance at Catholic services. On one occasion, Cara reported to her mother, “Mrs Dickens says that I cannot go to Holy Communion on the 15[th].” The young mother was fearful Cara was finding it alienating being the only Catholic at her school; a decision was made to send her to be educated at a Benedictine convent school in Arras.124 Convent schools on the continent were regarded as superior to Protestant boarding schools or English Catholic schools for inculcating young Catholic women in the faith.125

The Society Sapphists  141 Batten wrote to her daughter giving her advice on how better to follow her religion, which Batten felt would be easier in a Catholic school abroad than a Protestant school in England: Try and like church & things pertaining to yr. faith more than you do now/I haven’t spoken about it before to you – but I have felt rather grieved to see you are bored at going to Mass & seem seldom if ever to say yr. prayers. It must be dull & horrid to go to church all by yourself at Eastbourne – and at Arras it will probably be much more cheerful.126 The expectations of what a school on the Continent could deliver over one in England was clearly an important matter of faith for Batten. Batten gave Cara further advice to take this educational opportunity to further her spiritual development at the Pensionnat des Dames Bénédictines du SaintSacrement (despite that the same order had a presence in nearby Brighton). Batten also urged Cara to think further ahead and strongly suggested marrying someone who shared her religion: “believe me no man or woman is ever really happy without faith in God & a future life – You don’t know how I lie awake sometimes wondering what yr. life will be” and Mabel asserted she would take comfort in knowing that Cara’s life would be spent with someone who believed in God.127 Here we see the transmission of conventional Catholic ideals about womanhood down the matrilineal line: marriage is seen as a matter of course and so is an inherited religiosity. Only a few years later, on All Hallow’s Eve, 1896 Cara Batten married the banker Austin Harris, later KCB (1871– 1958) at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Cadogan Street in Chelsea.128 While not Catholic, Cara’s husband was mindful of her Catholic upbringing and sought to please his fiancée by observing the unfamiliar traditions. He wrote to Cara querying their wedding date, because “someone has told me that one cannot be married on Friday in the Catholic Church – could you enquire as to this?”129 The Harris’s resided at Aspenden, Hertfordshire and had three children, one of whom would have the future King of England, Edward VII, as his Godfather.130 Mother and daughter remained very close, and Batten never stopped inquiring about Catholic matters in regard to Cara or her family. Batten looked especially forward to news of her granddaughter Honey’s First Communion and Confirmation at the Brompton Oratory, urging Cara to speak with Lady Edmund Talbot as well as with Father Kerr about the matter.131 She felt Talbot would be a helpful contact to use in making introductions to Father Kerr in particular because she had heard he was understanding of sacramental situations with “Protestant fathers.”132 Other female friendships outside of the family unit were a great source of comfort to Batten. Her circles included artists, Catholics, and others in society. She counted as friends’ women such as Toupie Lowther, Mrs Colin Campbell, and Dolly Diehl Clarke (Radclyffe Hall’s American cousin).

142  The Society Sapphists Batten included Cara in her friendships, and her daughter’s relationship with Hall seems to have been nearly constant until 1914 when Mabel suffered a debilitating car accident.133 Important connections were also made with musicians and composers, gay and straight, such as Adela Maddison and Ethel Smyth, who were interested in music or female Catholic themselves. Batten, like other lay and religious women of the period, was able to use hymn-writing as a way of engaging with all these aspects of her life simultaneously.134 Making a link between the Catholic world and her passion for music was vital for Batten. She socialized with other Catholic composers (such as Edward Elgar.)135 Some of her verses were especially religious in tone such as this one from 1906, written in her hand: Another Lamb, O Lamb of God, behold Within this quiet fold. Among Thy Father’s sheep He lies asleep. A heart that never for a night did rest Upon its mother’s breast! Lord, keep it close to thee. Lest waking it should pine and cry for me.136 Envisioning Christ simultaneously and figuratively as a lamb, Batten is evoking Christological attributes in Jesus. These are as both the sacrificial lamb (here referencing the Lamb of Passover) of God sent to take away the sins of the world, but also the “shepherd” of His people in(to) the Church. Although hymn writing by women was popular, Batten’s compositions in the genre should be considered as an aspect of her piety and career, due to her conversion, rather than as participation in a common hobby.137 A famed songstress, her profession as a singer and composer demonstrates the import of the arts in her work and social life. Hall, too, was part of numerous circles of women friends, some of whom also lived together. On the continent, there was a metropolitan coterie of lesbian fellowship that was not entirely unusual among financially and sexually liberated women. Women living together was empowering because it gave them a certain level of autonomy. Secular women, New Women, lived together outside of marriage. To Catholics, unmarried women living together outside of marriage was accepted practice. Catholic nuns and sisters had been living side by side for hundreds of years. Single, sanctified women like Maude Petre and her sister Adela Sweetman-Powell are an example of Catholic familial sisters residing together. Vicinus reminds us that there had been other Anglophone households established in Victorian Italy by the openly “masculine lesbians,” actress Charlotte Cushman, American sculptor Harriet Hosmer, Lady Louisa Ashburton, and Emma Stebbins.138 One might also think of later groups such as London’s Bloomsbury group, or the Parisian circles of Romaine Brooks, Natalie Barney, Djuna Barnes, and Dolly Wilde

The Society Sapphists  143 to name a few.139 In Rye, after the death of Batten, Hall and Troubridge befriended the circle of Catholic ladies; Edy Craig, Christopher St. John, and Tony Atwood. In fact, Hall and Troubridge spent Christmases with these polyamorous women in Smallhythe, which was near to Rye in Kent. Batten introduced Hall to her circle of lesbian musicians and their patrons including the Princesse de Polignac, the American heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune, the suffragist and composer Smyth, as well as the composer Maddison. Outside of this circle, there was also Violet, the Duchess of Rutland, and Phoebe Hoare (with whom Hall had an affair). Hall also had her “athletic” friends who shared her love of the outdoors, such as heiresses Toupie Lowther and Betty “Joe” Carstairs. It seems evident that understanding of oneself was derived from these important relationships with other women who transgressed the boundaries traditionally set for them. Objects of Devotion: Christological and Marian Scholars of material religion point to objects in the home as markers of faith, class, and devotional levels. These markers indicate a solidity of belonging where faith can otherwise be experienced as a “chimera” or, as Frances King so aptly puts it, “the objects and images of popular religion can offer an emotive outlet for those in search of a secure identity.”140 Objects such as crucifixes had pride of place in Hall’s homes and were used for devotional practices and behaviors. Like so many of her generation and class, Hall favored a style of home decoration where mementos took center stage, but for her they were freighted with further meaning than perhaps was often the case.141 Objects referencing her sexuality were placed near to religious belongings like sacramentals, an outward demonstration that for Hall there was no conflict between these two facets of her personality. For example, in one room she mentions that she has “a large crucifix on a stand … a little modeled figure … [an] ivory Christ,” and as she delicately puts it a “very close book … a propaganda book” that contained risqué sexual content.142 Hall herself preferred Christ-centered venerations, but her home included a few examples of Marianism. Marian devotions were a contested area for Victorian Britons, even among Anglo-Catholics, because of wariness over the perceived “idolization” of Mary over God.143 Hall had a shrine to the Virgin Mary built, and blessed by a priest, at the White Cottage in Malvern Wells, to further honor Batten’s survival of the 1914 car accident.144 There were other references to Marian devotional objects in the home such as “the darling marble Madonna” from Italy.145 Hall purchased a painting of Mary Stuart, the Queen of English Catholics, and was very pleased with it, making sure everyone appreciated her image of this Catholic martyr, which served as material proof of her English Catholicism.146 In Hall’s novels there are a few female characters who represent the Blessed Virgin Mary in terms of virginity (Joan Ogden and Elizabeth Rodney in The Unlit Lamp, for example), but

144  The Society Sapphists even these figures are more Christ-like if one examines their overall development in the novel. Hannah Bullen, the protagonist of The Sixth Beatitude, is, like Mary, the mother of children born out of wedlock in difficult circumstances.147 All three women, despite some Marian qualities, ultimately suffer, sacrifice, and die in Christ-like martyrdom. Herringer argues that most Catholics practiced Marianism, and some Protestants too (in one form or another), but for gender dissonant Hall, the focus of her devotion was clearly with Christ.148 Perhaps Hall’s devotion to Christ over Mary could be linked to an autobiographical reading. Hall’s relationship with her mother was contentious, and it seems plausible that she felt little internal comfort in the Marian-motherhood modeled devotions. Moreover, Hall seems to have correlated the masculine Christ’s suffering and sacrifices with her own and saw many aspects of herself in Christ’s being. That the focus for Hall was Christological and not Marian is clearly present in both her writing and modes of religiosity.149 Dellamora writes that she was “enamored of Christ on the cross,” and this clearly becomes a foundational belief of Hall’s Catholicism.150 The Well of Loneliness’ Stephen Gordon is one of Hall’s most Christ-like figures, born near to Christmas, named after the first Saint, and created in God’s image and left misunderstood by contemporary society (this is reminiscent of Jesus’ dealings with the Sanhedrin, the Sadducees and Pharisees). The Well of Loneliness concludes with Stephen being mentally overtaken by the suffering of all inverts, “clamouring in vain for their right to salvation.”151 Stephen, the female protagonist, feels that only she can save inverts from any anguish stemming from societal misconceptions about them. This mirrors the belief that Christ died sacrificially to release humanity from its sins. Hall equates the Communion Host, as the Body of Christ, with “the whole suffering universe.” Hall describes the Eucharist as imbued with the epitome of “supreme purity,” but “heavy-laden” with the suffering of the downtrodden of societal “lepers.”152 These lepers are the helpless, anemic (“white-skinned” for lack of Christ’s blood), haunted inverts who look at Gordon/Hall “reproachfully” for not taking on their burden.153 In the ultimate conversion moment, Gordon claims Christ’s suffering for her own, for her fellow inverts: she cries out to God the Son, “We have not denied You, then rise up and defend us. Acknowledge us, oh God, before the whole world, give us also the right to our existence!”154 In her own life, her devotion to the crucified Christ was physically felt and demonstrated materially. Many women preferred the image of the infant Jesus as it represented the home and family, but Hall favored the veneration of the adult Christ. During the writing of The Master of the House (1932), the novel which she wrote for personal and religious redemption after her obscenity trial in 1928, Hall developed painful stigmata on her hands.155 She was forced to write the novel with bleeding, bandaged hands. In Rye, Christopher St. John’s relic of the True Cross was enshrined and illuminated in Hall’s home while she was writing The Master of the House, furthering Hall’s connection to Christ’s suffering before rising from the dead. The women felt Hall’s Christ-like stigmata imbued the

The Society Sapphists  145 novel with a sense of “unearthly radiance.”156 On Fridays during Lent, like many Catholics, she followed the practice of participating in the Via Crucis, adoration, and Venerating the Cross on Good Friday.157 But, unlike most Catholics, she took up “an intensive study of the Passion of Christ.”158 It could be surmised that Hall’s understanding of the spiritual world had much to do with Jesus’s interim period between the crucifixion and Ascension into heaven. Consequently, her use of material devotional objects of the crucified man symbolized this.159 In the late nineteenth century, physical manifestations of Roman Catholic mysticism were regarded by most Catholics as symbols of divine illumination. This was balanced with secular skepticism, until the Church properly investigated claims. Teresa Higginson, of Bootle, Lancashire, is the most famous case of English lay stigmata in the mid- to late-Victorian period.160 She had a personal devotion to the Sacred Head of Jesus. Her prayer to the Sacred Head includes the line, “Consoled by the Loving Gesture of Veronica.” This interestingly links back to St. Veronica – Veronica is most closely associated with wiping the head of Jesus with her veil as an act of kindness – whose name Mabel Batten took after her conversion. Sainted Names As part of her faith, Hall took on a particularly lay Catholic devotion to saints. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the pious lives of the saints were to be mirrored as sanctified modes of behavior and sentiment. Sodalities, groups of devotees, were formed to honor both the popular and obscure saints. Relics of these saints were collected as material representations of faith; private and public shrines were built throughout Europe to venerate them. The intervention of the saints to perform miracles remains a cornerstone of devotional Catholicism. This aspect of Catholicism can be seen most visibly through the personification of characters in her novels. Hall’s most culturally Catholic novels were Adam’s Breed (1926), The Master of the House, and The Well of Loneliness although there are strong aspects of both Anglo-Catholicism and Catholicism in her early poetry, such as Songs of Three Counties (1913), and her short stories.161 The protagonists of these novels’ names echo the personages of both the Holy Family and the litany of saints. The litany of saints is a list of historical spiritual figures that Catholics appeal to for help in specific areas (not unlike mythological gods and goddesses, who represent human attributes). This mix of Hellenism (or the Classical world) and Catholicism is a motif in both Hall’s writing and that of other gay Catholic converts such as Michael Field and John Addington Symonds.162 Symonds wrote that the attraction to Hellenism for homosexuals belied the fact that the Greeks “alone in history have … the example of a great and highly-developed race not only tolerating homosexual passions, but deeming them of spiritual value, and attempting to utilize them for the benefit of society.”163 Queer Catholic Britons could create their own style of veneration by linking Greek ideals of love and its panoply

146  The Society Sapphists of figures with Catholic saints. For women such as Hall the veneration of saints took on many guises, but for Hall in particular, the capacity to place her lovers on a pedestal and shower them with offertory gifts constitutes a doubling of this Catholic devotional practice. Naming was another way in that the Lives of Saints could be integrated into daily life. At confirmation, the candidate is anointed with the Holy Chrism, a sacred oil, and symbolically given the gift of the Holy Spirit. Roman Catholic practice in some areas included choosing the name of a saint whom one feels an affinity for and adding it to their given name during the sacrament of Confirmation. This adoption of a patron saint for oneself gave one a spiritual guide to emulate. When Batten was born she was christened Mabel Gertrude, but after her conversion took on the name Mabel Veronica. St. Veronica wiped the face of the dying Christ with her veil, preserving his image. Veronica is linked to the Holy Face, a popular devotion in the late-Victorian period, eventually meeting papal approval in 1885. Hall chose the name Antonia for her confirmation name in 1912.164 Antonia refers to Saint Anthony, who she may have chosen for several reasons. Anthony is the saint to whom one prays to find lost people and he is also associated with Viareggio, which Hall and Batten visited.165 As a convert, Hall may have considered herself “lost” before she found her place in the Church. The theme of naming as a symbolic indicator of character and motivations are found in Hall’s own life and in her literary character names, so it is likely that Hall gave much thought to how she wished to portray herself. What is especially compelling is that, in Catholicism, there is a long tradition of male-female “ungendering” in naming.166 When nuns enter the novitiate they generally choose new names to indicate a new life as a religious sister. Priests and brothers may also choose or are given new names. The most common example of this is when a newly chosen Pope changes his name to reflect a legacy they seek to emulate, which is based on sainted names. All these religious figures may choose names of the opposite sex.167 Hall’s character Stephen in The Well is masculinely named from birth, but gendered female. This led to Hall being satirized as St. Stephen for the Christological symbolism in this novel.168 Hall was known to her intimates as “John” or “Johnnie” and knew other Catholic women who were self-styled as “Christopher,” “Michael,” and “Tony.” Christopher St. John was born Christabel Marshall and adopted the “sainting” of John as her surname, as well as the masculinization of Christabel, without losing the Christological focus. Una Vincenzo Troubridge also changed her name from Margot Taylor, as part of her conversion to an Italian-influenced Roman Catholicism. Jarlert points out that the “cross-gendering in religious language, where godly men and women are regarded as examples to women and men alike was self-evident in old religious literature” of Protestant Northern Europe, but that in the Victorian era this was reworked into Christian virtues becoming sexed.169 For English Catholics, the case was slightly different, as the process of re/naming as a matter of devotion may have removed gender limitations to some extent.

The Society Sapphists  147 In The Well of Loneliness, Hall names some of the women in Stephen’s Parisian lesbian world with deliberately androgynous names such as Jamie and Pat. She named herself “Michael West” in a thinly veiled and never completed memoir.170 Why, then, did Hall not choose the masculine version of Antonia for herself? The matter of naming was vital to Hall for her understanding of inversion and gendering and was closely connected to her perception of some kinds of Sapphic womanhood. The choice of the feminine name of “Antonia” over the masculine “Anthony” may be a further level of dissonance of gendering for Hall. She was removed from her feminine self in many ways and a renaming was an intensely personal evocation of this choice – choosing a feminine name in this case shows further confusion over gendering – underlining the paradoxical aspects of Hall’s choices. Beresford Egan’s 1928 portrayal of Hall in The Sink of Solitude shows Hall as completely masculine, she has a dandyish “booted and suited” appearance which contrasts with voluptuous, longhaired woman who dances before her. The image could be read as speaking of lingering concerns over the crossing of gender borders. The cross-dressing Victorian was not an uncommon phenomenon in some sections of entertainment and society. This was seen most famously in the case of Fanny and Stella, stage names of Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park, a theatrical pair taken to task by the judiciary for their dress and concerns of moral respectability. It was also seen in the music hall personas of performers such as Vesta Tilley.171 Gender ambiguity, at least as portrayed on stage, was something that the cosmopolitan Victorian would be familiar with and shows a certain amount of comfort with transgressing borders of respectability.172 Beyond the world of stage entertainment, behaviors linked to transgendering/cross-dressing were regarded as part of a shadowy, private world that caused anxieties in the Victorian psyche. Some women, such as Hall, Vernon Lee and Eliza Lynn Linton, believed themselves to have been born in the wrong body and struggled with issues of psychological and physical dislocation when attempting to correlate their “masculine” tendencies with a feminine body.173 Vernon Lee (1856–1935) was the pseudonym for Violet Paget; she wrote about George Tyrrell and was a follower of Walter Pater, with whom Margaret Fletcher worked to create a Catholic college at Oxford. In the case of Hall, the extension of “masculine” modes of power into the feminine via sainted naming is paradoxical. Not surprisingly, as Doan relates, she rejected feminism in many ways and was bored by female suffrage, and it could be argued that her re-gendering of herself as “male” in fact reinforced traditional forms of patriarchal power.174 Conclusion Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall challenge the idea of what lay Catholic piety may have looked like in practice. They exhibited aspects of both conservatism and progressivism in regard to work, relationships, and, for Batten, motherhood. Conceptions of identity, aesthetics, sexuality, sanctity,

148  The Society Sapphists femininity, friendships, family, and even naming demonstrate a capacity for rethinking lay Catholic womanhood in practice. Catholic cultural practices appealed to both, and these flourished while abroad. Their work (writing, songs, poetry) underpins their Catholicism and devotions. In fact, Catholicism’s confessional, compassionate redemptionism in turn gave both an institutional spiritual support for how they understood themselves. Despite the anti-Modernism of the Church, they also found succor for traditional upper-­class notions of respectability and responsibility. It seems reasonable to conclude that Hall and Batten’s Sapphism and Catholicism underlie spirit of pious transgression where they showed an ability to harness dissonance, reinvention, and expression as reminders of the power and potential of Catholic womanhood to transcend the conventional. Notes 1 Radclyffe Hall, “Salvation,” in Una Troubridge, The Life and Times of Radclyffe Hall (London: Hammond & Hammond, 1961), unpaginated. Importantly, the biography begins by citing this poem despite that Hall’s Catholicism has been so largely overlooked. 2 Most of Hall’s novels were published during the 1920s. This stretches the timeline of this study, but I feel that this lengthening is appropriate. Hall and her cohort joked that they were the last of the New Women, or the “old” New Women, when they were in Paris in the 1920s – replaced by the younger flappers. It seems arguable that an inclusion of her writings in the 1920s is suitable, given that the author herself considered herself part of this earlier era spiritually. Further, I focus largely on her time with Mabel Batten and Batten died in 1916. I would like to thank Lucy Bland for meeting with me at BU London to discuss this idea of aging and the New Woman. 3 Joanne Glasgow points out there were, “no recorded struggle[s] at all” for the two women between their Catholicism and sexuality. See Joanne Glasgow, “What’s a Nice Woman Like You Doing in The Church of Torquemada? Radclyffe Hall and Other Catholic Converts,” in Lesbian Texts and Contexts, Karla Jay and Joanne Glasgow, eds. (New York: New York University Press, 1990), pp. 241–254, 244–245, op cit. Troubridge quote, Baker, Our Three Selves, p. 357. 4 Ibid. 5 For this definition and understanding of fin de siècle as a period of upheaval via sexuality, see Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture and the Fin de Siècle (London: Bloomsbury, 1991), especially, pp. 3–4. 6 “Radclyffe Hall v. Radclyffe Hall,” The Times, February 27, 1882. The Times reported that Hall’s father had physically assaulted her mother in 1878–1880, culminating in “his desertion” in September 1880. 7 Baker, Our Three Selves (1985), pp. 21–22. 8 For a further exploration of the occult and sexuality for Hall, see Elizabeth English, “‘Ghost Desire’: The Lesbian Occult and Natalie Clifford Barney’s ‘The One Who Is Legion’ Or A.D.’s After-Life,” in Lesbian Modernism: Censorship, Sexuality and Genre Fiction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), pp. 59–80; recent scholarship from Jonathan Riddle has shown that converts to Catholicism were often the most prolific in bringing a together a hybridity of ideologies (such as spiritualism) and that increasing numbers were engaging in this practice on both sides of the Atlantic; Jonathan D. Riddle, “All Catholics are Spiritualists:

The Society Sapphists  149 The Boundary Work of Mary Gove Nichols and Thomas Low Nichols,” Church History, Vol. 87, No. 2 (June 2018), pp. 452–486. 9 Frederick S Roden, Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); Frederick S. Roden, “Michael Field, John Gray, and Marc-Andre Raffalovich: Reinventing Romantic Friendship in Modernity,” in Catholic Figures, Queer Narratives, Lowell Gallagher, Roden and Patricia Juliana Smith, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 57–68; Philip Waller, “Roman Candles: Literary Converts in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain,” in Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain Essays in Memory of Colin Matthew, Peter Ghosh and Lawrence Goldman, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 197–219. 10 Christopher St. John’s novel Hungerheart brings together lesbianism and spirituality as well as the New Woman. See Christopher St. John, Hungerheart (London: Methuen & Co., 1915). Also David Trotter, “Lesbians Before Lesbianism: Sexual Identity in Early Twentieth-Century Fiction,” in Borderlines: Genders and Identities in War and Peace 1870–1930 (New York: Routledge, 2014), pp.193–212, 206–207. 11 Laura Doan, “Woman’s Place Is the Home”: Conservative Sapphic Modernity,” in Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women and National Culture, Laura Doan and Jane Garrity, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 91–108, p. 93. 12 Roden, Same-sex Desire (2002). 13 Roden, Same-sex Desire, p. 8. 14 It should be noted that the construct of “decadence” is itself complicated. C.E.M. Joad (1891–1953) first tackled this term in his work of the same name, Decadence: A Philosophical Inquiry (Faber, 1948). Joad maintains that “decadence” is not objective enough to use for academic inquiry. Yet, Roden especially shows the flexibility of the term “decadence” in relation to Queer Catholics. See Jason Tomes, “Joad, Cyril Edwin Mitchinson (1891–1953), philosopher,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004. 15 Patrick O’Malley, “Epistemology of The Cloister; Victorian England’s Queer Catholicism.” GLQ, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2009), pp. 535–564. 16 Dominic Janes, Visions of Queer Martyrdom from John Henry Newman to Derek Jarman (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015). 17 Pageantry and the glorification of God through effusive story-telling and décor was a common practice in the medieval and post-medieval Church. Its purpose was to infuse a sense of wonder and provide an explanation of the metaphysical for the illiterate. Hanson terms a predilection for the aesthetics of the Church as a reason for Catholic conversion as “the odd disruption, the hysterical symptom, the mystical effusion, the medieval spectacle, the last hope of paganism, in an age of Victorian Puritanism … a volatile eroticism” (Hanson, 26). 18 Waller, Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain (2006), p. 197. Waller also feels there was great affinity to “dressing up” and “the camp” but also a desire for rules as in the case of Alice Meynell who was unlike other writers in “her fundamental soundness” (p. 210). 19 Ibid., pp. 198–199, p. 193. 20 In his novel, Wilde described him as a collector of magisterial religious objets: “He had a special passion … for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed he had for everything connected with the Church.” Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray (London: Penguin, 2003 [1897]), p. 134. 21 Diary entry, Michael Field, April 13, 1914 transcribed in Ivor C. Treby, Binary Star: Leaves from the Journal and letters of Michael Field (Suffolk: deBlackland Press, 2006), p. 204. “Michael Field” is the pseudonym for lovers and the aunt/niece couple of Katharine Bradley Harris (1846–1914) and Edith Cooper (1862–1913) who converted in 1907.

150  The Society Sapphists 22 Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf (New York: Vintage, 1999). It should be noted that Woolf’s novel Orlando (1928) published the year all women in Britain were given the vote, and the same year as Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. Both grappled with themes of androgyny and gendering. For a comparison of Hall, SackvilleWest, and Woolf in regard to their lesbianism and writing, see also Laura Doan, “Woman’s Place Is the Home”: Conservative Sapphic Modernity,” in Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women and National Culture, Laura Doan and Jane Garrity, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 91–108. 23 Roden, Same-sex, pp. 80–81, 35–82. 24 Ibid., pp. 70–80. 25 Naomi Lloyd, “Discourses of Desire: Religion, Same-Sex Love and Secularisation in Britain, 1870–1930,” Gender & History, Vol. 26 (2014), pp. 313–331. 26 Rodney Bolt, As Good as God, as Clever as The Devil, 1st ed. (London: Atlantic Books, 2011); Vicinus, Intimate Friends (2004), pp. 88–98. 27 Ivor C. Treby, Binary Star: Leaves from the Journal and Letters of Michael Field (Suffolk: deBlackland Press, 2006); Terry Castle, ed., The Literature of Lesbianism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 561–565; Vicinus, Intimate Friends (2004), pp. 98–108; Roden, Same-sex (2002), pp. 190–225. 28 Eleanor Butler, Sarah Ponsonby and Elizabeth Mavor, Life with The Ladies of Llangollen, 1st ed. (Harmondsworth: Viking, 1984); Vicinus, Intimate Friends (2004), pp. 1–30. 29 Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture and the Fin de Siècle (London: Bloomsbury, 1991), p. 20; Linda Hunt Beckman, Amy Levy (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2000); Also Terry Castle, ed. The Literature of Lesbianism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 548–552. 30 Hanson, Decadence and Catholicism (1997), p. 25. 31 Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), p. 84. 32 Diana Souhami, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall (1998), p. 33. 33 Letter, MVB to CVH, August 1906. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 34 Souhami, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall (1998), pp. 40–41, op cit. Forbears and Infancy, Mss Ransom. 35 Letter, RH to CVH, [1916–1918?] (Red House, Purton, Wilts). Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 36 Diary, MVB1, January 1910. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 37 Laura Doan, “Woman’s Place Is the Home”: Conservative Sapphic Modernity,” in Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women and National Culture, Laura Doan and Jane Garrity, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 91–108. 38 Diary, MVB1, 1910. 39 SPR MS 34/1110. Leonard Sittings, February 14, 1917. 40 Mary Talbot vigorously opposed the Margaret Fletcher and the CWL. Hall had tea with Talbot on April 15, 1912 and October 22, 1912, ostensibly to make her acquaintance, and later to procure letters of introduction for Rome. This is important, because for Talbot to write these letters of introduction she was effectively endorsing Hall and Batten as suitable company for her priest friends as well as the Pope. 41 This is not to say that her deep pockets and connections were not also part of that acceptance. For reference to this, see Ellis Hanson, Decadence and Catholicism (1997), pp. 371–372. 42 Diary, MVB1, January 3, 1912. 43 Felicia Hardison Londré, “The Unreported Miracle of Paul Robeson and ‘The Miracle,’” in Theatre History Studies, Rhona Justice-Malloy ed. (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2010), pp. 73–82. 44 Ibid., p. 74.

The Society Sapphists  151 5 Diary, MVB1, January 4, 1912. 4 46 Ellis Hanson, Decadence and Catholicism (1997). 47 When Batten and Hall were in London they most usually alternated between the Oratory and Westminster Cathedral. To a lesser degree, but still semi-regularly, they attended St Mary’s Cadogan Square and Farm Street. Outside of London, they had connections to the parish church in Malvern Wells. See Diary, MVB1, 1910–1914; Mabel V. Batten, “The Diary of Mabel V. Batten, 1915–1916,” Diary (London, n.d.), Family collection of Cara Lancaster. After, Diary, MVB2. Later, in Rye, East Sussex, Hall and Troubridge were parishioners of St. Anthony of Padua. They chose their home in part because of its proximity to the new Church (built 1927–1929), which had been called St. Walburga’s. They enjoyed looking through their front room window into the nave. Hall donated the rood cross. This Church and its pastor, Malta native Reverend Fr Bonaventure Sceberras, OFM (Franciscan Friar), also figure prominently in the conversion of Elizabeth Rendall and Ivy King from Oxford who then went on to found the Catholic school in Oxford, called Rye St. Antony. This school was located on the same road as Margaret Fletcher’s home on Woodstock Road. “The Centenary of the arrival of a Maltese priest in Rye,” Malta Independent, Tuesday, 6 April 2010; “UK Boarding School – Rye St Antony Catholic Boarding School | History Of Rye”, Ryestantony.co.uk, http://www.ryestantony. co.uk/ index.cfm?page=ourschool.content&cmid=32. 48 Diary, MVB1, February 5, 1912 (conversion at the Oratory with Bowden); Diary, MVB1, October 20, 1912 (confirmation at Westminster Cathedral with Bishop Butt). Batten was Hall’s confirmation sponsor. 49 Correspondence between myself and Cara Lancaster. June 25, 2012. 50 Pauline Marie Armande Aglaé Craven and Henry James Coleridge, Life of Lady Georgina Fullerton (1888), pp. 148, 308. 51 One Anglo-Indian example of conversion, that of Lord Ripon, the Viceroy, is especially demonstrative of the value of Catholics in power in the Raj. 52 W. Gordon Gorman, Converts to Rome: A Biographical List of the More Notable Converts (London: Sands and Co., 1910). Margaret Fletcher is included, but not Batten. 53 Philip Waller, Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain (2006), p. 193. 54 Ellis Hanson, Decadence and Catholicism (1997). 55 See, for example her letters to her daughter regarding schooling in Eastbourne versus Arras. As well, her reactions to the English on holiday in Europe. She is especially dismayed by a Protestant English vicar and his family in Pisa (Letter MVB to CH, November 22, 1912). Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 56 Denis Evinson, Catholic Churches of London (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), p. 167; Sheridan Gilley, “Newman, Pugin and the Architecture of the English Oratory,” in Modern Christianity and Cultural Aspirations, David Bebbington and Timothy Larsen, eds. (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), pp. 98–123, p. 107. 57 “Our benefactor Miss Frances Ellis,” St. James the Great Church, Peckham Rye, London; ccessed November 1, 2019. https://stjamesthegreatpeckham.org/ our-benefactor-miss-frances-ellis. 58 Mrs Augustus Craven and Henry James Coleridge, Life of Georgiana Fullerton (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1888), pp. 108, 145. See also Katherine Harper, “Crossing the Convent Threshold: Frances Taylor, Georgiana Fullerton and Nineteenth Century Catholic Women’s Writing” (PhD, York, 2009). Harper’s thesis focuses on the writings and works of these two English converts, Taylor and Fullerton. 59 Mrs Augustus Craven and Henry James Coleridge, Life of Georgiana Fullerton (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1888), 308. 60 Ibid., 286.

152  The Society Sapphists 61 Hugh McLeod, Class and Religion in the Late Victorian City (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1974) p. 207, also, pp. 199–213. 62 Ibid., p. 209. 63 Robert F. Hunter, “Tourism and Empire: The Thomas Cook & Son Enterprise on the Nile, 1868–1914.” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 40, No. 5 (2004), pp. 28–54. 64 For example, Diary, MVB1, March 6, 1910, attendance at military Mass. Cathedral at Las Palmas, March 27, 1910. 65 Diary, MVB1, March 24, 1910. 66 Diary, MVB1, 1910–1915. 67 Diary, MVB1, March 29, 1912. 68 Diary, MVB1, February 5, 1912; Letter from MVB to CH, December 7, 1912; Diary, MVB1, December 10, 1912; Diary, MVB1, December 4,1912. 69 Letter MVB to CH, December 7, 1912. 70 Diary, MVB1, December 9–25, 1912. 71 Letter, MVB to CH [n.d., c.1893–4?]. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 72 Letter MVB to CH, December 7, 1912. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. Underline Batten’s own. I assume to draw attention to the value Batten placed on being “chic.” 73 Ibid. 74 Letter MVB to CH, August 23, 1910. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 75 Alternately, it could also have been the ubiquity of priests over nuns in her daily life. 76 Diary, MVB1, December 9, 1912. 77 Ibid. 78 “Wills,” The Tablet, July 15, 1916; Mabel V. Batten, “The Will of Mabel Veronica Batten,” April 1, 1915 in Family collection of Cara Lancaster. The church in Malvern is St. Wulstan’s. 79 Leo XIII, Mirae Caritatis (1902); Letter from MVB to CH, December 7, 1912. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 80 Ibid., p. 72. 81 David Morgan, “Defining the Sacred in Fine Art and Devotional Imagery,” Religion, Vol. 47, No. 4 (2017), pp. 641–662; Mary Heimann, Catholic Devotion in Victorian England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). 82 Maureen C. Miller, “Introduction: Material Culture and Catholic History,” The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 101, No. 1 (2015), pp. 1–17. 83 Mary Heimann, “Catholic Revivalism in Worship and Devotion,” in Cambridge History of Christianity: Vol. 8, Sheridan Gilley and Brian Stanley, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 70; Mary Heimann, Catholic Devotion in Victorian England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 127. 84 Callum G Brown, The Death of Christian Britain (London: Routledge, 2009). Brown says that this secularization has been overstated because McLeod’s data only considered church going rather than Lived Catholic practices. 85 See, for example, Diary, MVB1, December 31, 1912 for Rome Te Deum and Benediction; Also, Diary, MVB1, March 10, 1912 for Benediction in Brighton. 86 Before and after her conversion Hall was a regular attendant at Mass. See Diary, MVB1 and 2, Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 87 When she and Batten attended High Mass it was noted. For Armenian Rite Mass, see Diary, MVB1, January 12, 1912; For Jesuit Church in Rome, see Diary, MVB1, December 31, 1912. Batten was able to privately say daily devotions at her prie Dieu, a portable kneeler. Hall purchased an altar shrine for her prie Dieu as well. See Diary, MVB1, April 20, 1910. 88 See for example, Diary, MVB1, August 21, 23–25, 28, 1914. Hall went to Church or confession on all of these days around the death of Pius X; in Monte Carlo they attended Mass four days in a row and tried to go on a fifth but showed up too late.

The Society Sapphists  153 See, Diary, MVB1, April 2–6, 1914; on other days, they would take Communion at one Church and then go to other churches to hear Mass again (see, for example, Diary, MVB1, May 17, 1912); the women heard Mass at the Oratory and then went to Westminster Cathedral or going to Mass and taking the Eucharist at St. Mary’s followed by Mass at Westminster Cathedral, see Diary, MVB1, June 21, 1914. 89 According to Troubridge, Hall prayed daily for the repose of Batten’s soul and had numerous Masses said for her. They had a Mass said at St Peter’s in honor of Batten’s granddaughter Honey Harris’s First Communion at Brompton Oratory, Diary, MVB1, February 22, 1913. 90 Diary, MVB1, February 17, 1912 in Falmouth. 91 Hanson, Decadence and Catholicism (1997); Waller, Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain (2006); Roden, “Michael Field,” in Catholic Figures, pp. 57–68; Patricia Juliana Smith, “The Woman that God Forgot”: Queerness, Camp, Lies and Catholicism in Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood,” in Catholic Figures, Queer Narratives, Lowell Gallagher, Frederick S. Roden and Patricia Juliana Smith, eds., pp.129–148. In this volume, Roden looks at decadence in the conversion narratives of Raffalovich and Gray. Catholic decadence is linked to the “camp” and is amplified by Patricia Juliana Smith in the same volume. 92 Anders Jarlert points out that piety and expressions of devotion in Catholic countries help develop national identities. See Anders Jarlert, Piety and Modernity: The Dynamics of Religious Reform in Northern Europe, 1780–1920 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2012), p. 12. 93 Troubridge, The Life and Times of Radclyffe Hall (1961), p. 100. 94 The women spent Christmas in 1913 at Aspenden in Hertfordshire, and 1914 at Llandudno in Wales. Obviously throughout the First World War there was no travel to the Continent. 95 Diary, MVB1, March 27, 1910. In England such a procession would have been confined within the building of the church. 96 Diary, MVB1, March 25, 1910. 97 Diary, MVB1, February 22, 1914; Diary, MVB1, March 22, 1914. 98 Diary, MVB1, March 20, 1913. 99 Diary, MVB1, December 24, 1912; Diary, MVB1, December 28, 1912. 100 Troubridge, The Life and Times of Radclyffe Hall (1961), pp. 88–90. 101 There is no evidence of her seeking to be active in any kind of social or moral reforms outside of making direct financial gifts to those she was personally acquainted with. 102 Diary, MVB1, November 2, 1911. 103 Diary, MVB1, November 26, 1912. 104 SPR, MS 34/11/8. Sitting with Mrs. Leonard, October 16, 1916. 105 Diary, MVB1, December 12, 1912. 106 Diary, MVB1, December 24, 1912. 107 Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (1982), p. 397. 108 In fact, Hall often termed these women of her circle as her “belongings.” Richard Dellamora, Radclyffe Hall: A Life in the Writing (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), p. 26. 109 It seems there was only one nun in particular, Mother Veronica, at a convent in Rome. See Diary, MVB1, December 12, 1912. 110 For Dolly Clarke, see Diary, MVB1, January 1912. For references to Hall and Batten’s private audience with Pope Pius X, see Diary, MVB1, December 1912– February 1913; Ransom, pp. 43–44. Troubridge wrote, the “Pope abhorred ceremony and his humility deprecated homage” and they were “warned” by Cardinal Gasquet not to genuflect, but Hall in her “shyness and reverence she forgot and fell on to her knees to kiss the Pontiffs hand” and Gasquet, horrified,

154  The Society Sapphists “horrified, clutched her by the scruff of the neck and hauled her to her feet” and hissed at her. Batten charmed The Pope, but Hall “hovered in the background” (pp. 43–44). 111 “Rome,” The Tablet, May 5, 1928. 112 Diary, MVB1, February 12, 1913; Diary, MVB1, June 19, 1913, Gasquet at Westminster Cathedral; Diary, MVB1, December 10, 1912, lunch with Gasquet and Brindle in Rome. 113 Numerous references, all from Diary, MVB1, Family collection of Cara Lancaster, unless otherwise noted. For the Ball, see December 14, 1913; for Bourne, see January 21 and 23 1912; for Bowden, see March 30, 1912; August 24–25, 1914; for Brindle, see December 8, 1912 and December 12, 1912; for Jackman, April 22, 1916; for Rampolla, see December 25, 1912; for Stanley, see November 24, 27, and 28, 1912. Also, February 9, 12, and 22, 1913 and July 22, 1913. Finally, for references to event at Westminster Cathedral for Gasquet, see Westminster Diocesan Archive, Bourne Papers. 114 For example, she was friends with the local Abbé Boneux and Father Gilbert Dolan, see Diary, MVB1, August 14 and 18, 1912 and November 24, 1912. 115 For Worswick, see August 11 and 15, 1914. Also, October 31, 1914 and November 12, 1914. According to Souhami, Hall paid for the “roof, pews, paintings of the Stations of the Cross, and a rood screen of Christ the King … and the outstanding debts of the Church.” 116 Souhami, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall (1998), p. 238. 117 Eve Sedgwick and Ellis Hanson, both point to the aesthetic and what they see as fetishizing qualities of Catholicism. See Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of The Closet (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), p. 140; Hanson, Decadence and Catholicism (1997), pp. 1–26. 118 Matt Houlbrook, Queer London (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. xii. Houlbrook argues for the inclusiveness of this term to account for masculine styles of same-sex affection. I think it is helpful to expand this idea further to be inclusive of the greater LGBTQ+ community. 119 Sharon Marcus, Between Women (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 5. 120 Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1911. Mabel’s sister, Nan, was born in Belgium around 187? Nan lived with their mother as long as her mother was alive. 121 Family objects in the collection of CL. 122 Batten wrote to CH that she knew that Cara must have felt “wretched” after having been separated so that she may attend boarding school. (Letter MVB to CH [n.d.].) From family letters we can piece together information about Cara Batten’s (later Harris) schooling. Besides studying at Boston House in Eastbourne (1894?), she also studied in Frankfort in 1891–1892 and possibly at a convent school in France (SPR, MS 34/11/9), January 20, 1916–January 3, 1917. Many of the letters are undated and it is therefore difficult to place when exactly Cara was at various schools. 123 Batten gave Cara advice on how to deal with “French priests,” although as a mother she was “glad I am to hear that you have been to Confession & H Communion. Please tell Fraulein Trümpler with my love that I would like her to allow you to go over a month unless you have a cold or sore throat or don’t feel well. I would rather you went to Confession in the morning you take the Holy Communion it need not necessarily be on Sunday …” Letter MVB to CH December 2, 1891, Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 124 Letter, Sister Annonciation to CH [n.d.]; Also, she mentions that with this upset at Eastbourne it would end her “English school life.” Letter MVB to CH [n.d., c.1893–1894]. Family collection of Cara Lancaster.

The Society Sapphists  155 125 Although there is also evidence that the schools in England may have been just as good as the continental education available to Catholic girls. See Susan O’Brien, “French Nuns in Nineteenth-Century England,” Past and Present (1997), pp. 42–180. 126 Letter MVB to CH [n.d., c.1893–1894]. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 127 Ibid. 128 “Arrangements for this day,” Morning Post, October 31, 1896; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1911. 129 Letter Austin Harris to CH, September 10, 1896. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 130 Home of Cara B. Harris (1879–1952), b. Bengal, m. 1896. Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives, 1911; details the marriage of Cara Batten to Austin Harris at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Cadogan Street with the Prince of Wales present. “Arrangements for This Day,” Morning Post, October 31, 1896. 131 Letter MVB to CH, December 7, 1912. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 132 Also, in MVB1, February 19, 1913 at the Brompton Oratory; Letter MVB to CH, December 7, 1912. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 133 Mabel Batten had a severe auto accident in 1914. Hall took great care of the severely injured woman and felt that Cara Harris had not helped sufficiently. Later, Cara apologized but the damage was done and tensions increased. When Batten died, there was much letter writing between Hall and Cara as well as anger of Batten’s legacy and wishes, particularly over the destruction of the very materials that I have used in writing this book. 134 Nancy Jiwon Cho, “‘Martyrs of England! Standing on High!’: Roman Catholic Women’s Hymn-Writing for The Re-Invigoration of The Faith in England, 1850–1903,” in Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality: Women and The Roman Catholic Church in Britain and Europe, 1200–1900, Laurence Lux-Sterritt and Carmen Mangion, eds. (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 131–148. 135 Ibid. Also, in Charles Edward McGuire, “Measure of a Man: Catechizing Elgar’s Catholic Avatars,” in Edward Elgar and his World, Byron Adams, ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 223–248. McGuire argues for a re-Catholicizing of Elgar arguing that his Catholicism has been undermined by the secularization debate. There is a clear correlation between Elgar and Batten that should be researched more carefully by a music historian. 136 Mabel Batten, “Lamb of God,” handwritten, unpub. All Saint’s Day, November 1, 1906. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 137 See also Jiwon Cho, “Martyrs of England! Standing on High!” pp. 131–148; John Wolffe, “‘Praise to The Holiest in The Height:’ Hymns and Church Music,” in Religion in Victorian Britain, John Wolffe and Gerald Parsons, eds. (Manchester: Manchester University Press in assoc. with the Open University, 1997), pp. 59–101, p. 83. 138 Martha Vicinus, Intimate Friends (2004), pp. 2–3. 139 Souhami, Wild Girls: Paris, Sappho and Art: The Lives and Loves of Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005); Joan Schenkar, Truly Wilde (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 100–111, p. 117, p. 128. Schenkar writes of how Dolly Wilde’s social life overlapped with Radclyffe Hall’s, as well as that of Mabel Batten’s granddaughter. 140 Frances E. King, Material Religion and Popular Culture (London: Routledge, 2009), p. v, 1. 141 Deborah Cohen, Household Gods (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), esp. pp. 28–30; Roden, “Introduction,” Catholic Figures, pp. 1–18, p. 16. Also see Radclyffe Hall, Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself (London: William Heinemann, 1934).

156  The Society Sapphists “The Lover of Things,” a short story from the Miss Ogilvy collection, references the idea of the decadent and the beautiful as attractive to all classes, and touches on marriage and family life. Henry Dobbs fetishizes objects above women, wondering if when he handles an antique if that is what other “fellers feel when they sees and touches the skin of a woman (p. 72)?” Dobbs’s quest for beauty and the desire to retain it for himself speaks of a transgression in another sphere – that of class. That a poor man could never quite own an object of created beauty, and that in the end, he is forced to steal a small delicate figurine and hide it in his attic for veneration illustrates the fetishization of objects that Hanson argued, but links it to a broken, man who is a bad husband (pp. 83–86, 96–97). This also hearkens back to the idea of “hidden” Catholics who were forced to venerate and practice their religion in the shadows of society and were not allowed to fully engage with their faith because of societal expectations. Dobbs cannot fully engage with his love of art, due to his poverty and coarseness, which are societal matters of class that cannot be overcome in Victorian society. For authors such as Roden and Patricia Juliana Smith, this understanding of decadence is most closely linked to Catholicism. 142 SPR MS 34/28. Letter from Radclyffe Hall to Helen Salter of the SPR, November 6, 1920. 143 Carol Engelhardt Herringer, Victorians and The Virgin Mary (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), pp. 1–34. 144 Souhami, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall (1998), p. 62; Hall felt that Batten’s survival from this accident was “miraculous,” see SPR MS 34/11/9. Sitting with Leonard, December 30, 1916. 145 SPR MS 34/28. Letter from Radclyffe Hall to Helen Salter at the SPR, November 6, 1920. 146 Diary, MVB1, January 4, 1910. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 147 Radclyffe Hall, The Sixth Beatitude (London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1936). 148 Herringer, Victorians and The Virgin Mary (2008). 149 Diary, MVB1, March 11, 1913. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 150 Richard Dellamora, Radclyffe Hall: A Life in the Writing (2011), p. 180. 151 Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (1982), p. 446. 152 Ibid., p. 383. 153 Ibid., p. 446. 154 Ibid., p. 447. Other works, such as the short “Fraulein Schwartz” revisit these ideas of salvation through martyrdom and minority disenfranchisement. Radclyffe Hall, “Fraulein Schwartz,” in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself (London: William Heinemann, 1934), p. 171. 155 Mary Heimann, “Mysticism in Bootle: Victorian Supernaturalism as an Historical Problem,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 64, No. 2, April 2013, pp. 335–356; for references to Hall’s stigmata, see Troubridge, The Life and Times of Radclyffe Hall (1961), pp. 104–105; for reference to Sacred Head prayer, see Mary Dolores and Ann Pitts, Teresa Helena Higginson, 1st ed. ([Neston] [c/o Mrs. G.M. Moreton, 17 Sidney Road, Neston L64 9TH]: [A. Pitts], 1986). 156 Troubridge, The Life and Times of Radclyffe Hall (1961), p. 103. 157 See, for example, Diary, MVB1, March 29, 1912; Diary, MVB2, April 21, 1916. Family collection of Cara Lancaster. 158 Troubridge, The Life and Times of Radclyffe Hall (1961), p. 104. 159 Catherine Mooney has recently underscored a similar link from St. Clare to St. Francis to Christ. Mooney claims that rather than privilege a Marian concept of “power,” Clare preferred the active Christological path, like Francis. Catherine M. Mooney, Clare of Assisi and the Thirteenth Century Church (State College, PA: University of Pennsylvania, 2016).

The Society Sapphists  157 60 Heimann, “Mysticism in Bootle,” pp. 335–356. 1 161 Radclyffe Hall, Songs of Three Counties: And Other Poems (London: Chapman & Hall, 1913). 162 The classical world was rife with positive imagery relating to same-sex love, which many of the decadent writers, artists, and others used in their own work. For an Edwardian explanation of this see John Addington Symonds, A Problem in Greek Ethics (London: The ΑΡΕΟΠΑΓΙΤΙΓΑ Society, 1908). For another example of poetry with Hellenistic, Sapphism by later Catholic converts see especially: Michael Field, Long Ago (London: G. Bell, 1889); Michael Field, Sight and Song (London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane, 1892). 163 Symonds, A Problem in Greek Ethics, introduction, unpag. 164 Diary, MVB1, October 20, 1912. Reference to confirmation Batten was Hall’s confirmation sponsor at Westminster Cathedral with Bishop Joseph Butt. 165 “Decisions of Roman Congregations: Precedence of Confraternities,” The Tablet, August 15, 1885, p. 33. 166 Jarlert, Piety and Modernity, pp. 19–21. 167 This matter of reverse naming is given discussion in a novel by another AngloIndian Catholic convert Rumer Godden (1907–1998), who first published in 1936. See Rumer Godden, In this House of Brede (London: Macmillan, 1969). 168 Beresford Egan, P. R Stephensen, The Sink of Solitude (London: Hermes Press, 1928). See Fig. 3. 169 Jarlert, Piety and Modernity, pp. 19–21. 170 Radclyffe Hall, “Michael West,” unpub. Manuscript, Series 1 (Austin, TX, n.d.), Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center: University of Texas, Austin. 171 Neil McKenna, Fanny and Stella (London: Faber and Faber, 2013); Morris B Kaplan, Sodom on the Thames (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005). 172 For an extensive list of primary sources on transgendering that link to the time when Hall published The Well of Loneliness, see Peter Farrer, Cross-dressing between the Wars: Collections from London Life, 1923–1933 (Liverpool: Karn publications, 2000). For takes on the New Woman, Hall, and gendering, see Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “Discourses of Sexuality and Subjectivity: The New Woman, 1870–1938,” in Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, Martin Bauml Duberman, Martha Vicinus, et al., eds. (New York: New American Library, 1989), pp. 264–280; Esther Newton, “The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman,” in Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, Martin Bauml Duberman, Martha Vicinus, et al., eds. (New York: New American Library, 1989), pp. 281–293. 173 Vicinus, Intimate Friends (2004), pp. 144–146; Vineta Colby, Vernon Lee (Richmond, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2003), p. 284. 174 Laura Doan, “Woman’s Place Is the Home”: Conservative Sapphic Modernity,” in Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women and National Culture, Laura Doan and Jane Garrity, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 91–108.

Conclusion Making Connections among Lay Catholic Women

Fletcher, Petre, Batten, and Hall’s personal interpretations of lay Catholic womanhood demonstrate a personal rethinking of the traditional tropes of “Catholic True Womanhood” – their Lived Catholicism – during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Church they found, or made, a space that was open to their understandings of themselves. Their experiences of the Church reflect contemporary influences from secular society, backgrounds of privilege, and demonstrate what I have termed pious transgressions. The intersecting lives of the case studies provide a view into the capaciousness of the Catholic Church for a multiplicity of thoughts and actions for lay women in England. Petre, the only born Catholic, was from a life of privilege which created opportunities beyond typical tropes of Catholic Womanhood. For the converts, this interpretation is a bit murkier. Fletcher’s Catholicism was both a reflection of her liberal Protestant upbringing in academic Oxford as much as it was a repudiation of what she felt was an imperialistic state supported Anglican church. Mabel Batten’s Anglican past is unknown, and her secular life was overshadowed by her class and life in society. Once Catholic, she behaved in many of the ways typified by the Catholic True Womanhood trope, while rejecting just as many simultaneously. In the Church she found a place to be all of her selves at once. Hall’s childhood left her with little sense of stability. Yet her conversion to Catholicism seems to have been more like a spiritual awakening that coincided with a deepening of her relationship with Batten. Her commitment to Catholic material culture, the Church itself and its practices, and her Catholic lovers gave her a foundation her life had lacked – and a sense of acceptance she did not readily find elsewhere. Moreover, she valued many aspects of traditional Catholic Womanhood and endeavored for her partner to fulfill those in their home. The women practiced and experienced their faiths in a multiplicity of ways: from deeply devotional in the case of Batten and Hall, to the academically theological of Petre, to the socially communitarian style of Fletcher. The Roman Catholic Church, rather than being monolithic or intractable, or, patriarchal or hierarchical, indeed contained a multiplicity of arenas (devotions, education, theology, etc.) for personal expressions of faith by lay women. These women DOI: 10.4324/9781003300861-6

Conclusion 159 were remarkable in many ways and provide valuable insight into what Catholic lay womanhood provided for some unconventionally religious women. This book represents an important step in reclaiming the lives of lay women in England by presenting their experiences in tandem to create a further understanding of modern Catholic history. This book is recuperative in many ways – finding stories of lived Catholicism and recording them through this lens. The voices of the exceptional – these pious transgressors – already show that myriad perspectives are further waiting to be uncovered. Christianity and Gender Inequality There is a long-standing tradition of linking Christianity and gender inequality. From the time of the Enlightenment, Deism was proposed as a “middle way” between a rationalized faith in God and new ideas about equality. Anti-Catholicism in mid-Victorian Britain resulted from a fear of patriarchal control from the Pope downwards. Not surprisingly, second wave feminist scholars often argued that Christianity was innately patriarchal. Daphne Hampson stated that “feminism represents the death-knell of Christianity as a viable religious option” due to its perceived discrimination of women.1 Academics Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ argue Christianity was “not simply sexist but racist, imperialist, ethnocentric, and heterosexist as well.”2 However, most recently more nuanced critiques of Christianity and gender have come to the forefront. Feminist liberation theologian Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza calls for intersectional analysis of debates surrounding faith, equality, and gendering, as well as rethinking patriarchal power.3 Indeed, it is hoped this book on Catholicism and lay womanhood represents a further step in unpacking the intricacies of gender, faith, and power historically. From the case studies, to their contemporaries in the Smallhythe circle, we see lay Catholic women in England living in an independent lifestyle while maintaining a robust faith life. We can now say these Catholic lay women, in their countless ways, laid the groundwork for moments such as secondwave Catholic lay feminists demanding “Rites for Women” at Westminster Cathedral in 1978.4 But the valued position of women in the Church has never been doubted by many adherents to the faith. The Ecclesiastical Record (1909) stated that the Catholic Church, Had done much to emancipate women, to raise her status, and to dignify and ennoble her position … emphasizing the sublime function of one woman as mother of God, but the number of women placed on her calendar of saints, and by the vigilance and care that she lavished on the female communities and devoted themselves to God.5 An idea of women’s exalted status in Catholicism is evident, but it seems that too often anti-Catholic sentiment, Catholic separatism, or hierarchical

160  Conclusion (i.e. from the pulpit) pronouncements infringed on the public’s view of Catholic women in particular, creating an impression of total oppression by a male hierarchy. But it seems evident that lay women were both affected by and affected the Church in powerful ways in England if we take the examples of these four exceptional women in hand as an additional starting point for reconstructing lay female narratives. Latitude in Actions and Reactions I have presented examples of contradictions of thought and actions, which highlight the complexity and breadth of opinions within the Roman Catholic Church in England in the decades at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Catholicism provided a space for latitude in actions and reactions to ostensibly “transgressive” or “progressive” behaviors by lay women. This is not to say that Hall, for example, was not complicit at times in supporting a patriarchal, masculine-gendered power center while pushing boundaries elsewhere. Indeed, this further illustrates that the women at the heart of this monograph demonstrate ways in which Catholicism could be a space for more flexible interpretations of lay Catholic womanhood than previously considered in England. Their acceptance and rejection of Church teachings and traditions echo similar instances in American and European Catholic history that have been more closely studied by scholars such as Robert Orsi and Catherine Mooney, as evidenced in studies of lived Catholicism. On another level, however, the book uses the examples of these women as a platform to reconsider the meaning and legacy of the Catholic Church at its most flexible, during a time that it was simultaneously battling with debates between Ultramontanes and Cisalpinists and Modernists and antiModernists. I stress that the Catholic Church, is, was, and could provide a space for multiple interpretations of Catholicism. The perception of the Church as misogynistic, patriarchal, or unmovable is simply not applicable when viewed in light of the examples of these four women. On the contrary, the Church was a place where the Pope could meet with Radclyffe Hall and her lover. In this respect, telling the story of progressive lay Catholic women, who formed an important demographic segment of the Catholic Church in England, deserve to begin to have their stories unearthed as they contribute to a better understanding of the Church in the present. In the larger English Christian setting, scholars have likewise shown areas in which religion provided opportunities for women to break with contemporary cultural ideals, particularly in regard to the Victorian ideal of the Cult of Domesticity: Rather than holding religion culpable for the creation of the meek and dutiful female … institutional forms of Christianity arguably offered unprecedented opportunities for the public profile of women in the burgeoning of voluntary association and charitable campaigning.6

Conclusion 161 Although still linked to feminine ideals, these opportunities in a growing public sphere allowed for greater autonomy for some Catholic women, like Margaret Fletcher. For women like Maude Petre, recusancy, and Cisalpinist interpretations of the faith imbued her with the agency to embrace Catholicism on her own terms and speak out against hierarchical interpretations of the faith she felt were false. Devotional expressions of Catholic piety were empowering for Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall, because the women drew strength from what they believed to be direct spiritual access to God, His Son, and the intervention of all the saints in their daily life. This feeling of divine support provided constant spiritual validation and was a source of strength to the women to break with traditional tropes of gender. Filling a Lacuna It seems clear that Catholic lay women were involved in numerous renegotiations of Catholic womanhood over the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but the vast majority of their stories remain to be told. This book is a step toward locating and contextualizing the history of these women. It is telling that the majority of my subjects were converts, as it shows the voice of the Catholic “other” has been largely silenced. The women with voices are largely the women who already had agency in most areas. Accordingly, these women were all economically and geographically privileged. They have left traces due to their status in society, which points to another area where the vast majority of lay Catholic women are absent from the narrative of their country, their faith, and their sex. There is an additional area of advantage for my models and that is where they lived, in the prosperous South of England. The voices of the women of the North of England, the working classes, the immigrants, mothers (with the exception of Batten) are also missing, but so too are the narratives of lay Catholic women in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain. The goal of this project was to find lay Catholic women and unearth their stories. A further step is to uncover more voices and see how representative their experiences were within the Catholic Church in England. I have shown how Catholic convert Margaret Fletcher (1862–1943), founder of the CWL and The Crucible, worked to ameliorate the position of middle-class Catholic women by arguing for the idea of Christian feminism. Christian feminism rejected earlier manifestations of a domestic and obedient Catholic True Womanhood and called for “inalienable right[s] … including the free exercise of her religion.”7 In this, Fletcher demonstrated the potential of Catholicism in the Edwardian era to provide a space in which nonelite women could assert agency and autonomy, despite the desires of elite women such as Lady Talbot. Fletcher sought social, communitarian support for English Roman Catholic lay women and to connect them with the secular world. Despite initial concerns from the upper classes, Fletcher’s CWL provided middle-class lay Catholic women with a sense of agency and autonomy with the tacit support of the hierarchy. Fletcher, like many single women of

162  Conclusion her generation, felt the pull of family ties but did not sublimate her life to the domestic, further rejecting the tropes of Catholic True Womanhood. In these ways, Fletcher demonstrated unconventional religiosity for a convert and a lay woman of her time. Maude Petre (1863–1942), an elite born Catholic and theologian, was actively involved in the Catholic Modernist movement – working to align Biblical exegesis, tradition, and modernity. Petre, like the other women featured, was a pious transgressor. Petre had “immense influence and power” in Britain. She was deeply aware of mainstream Catholic teachings, but despite assumed limitations on her sex, trusted her personal interpretation of Catholicism. In this, she rejected popular forms of piety, Church teachings on Papal infallibility, and contemporary notions of propriety surrounding friendships between men, especially with Jesuit George Tyrrell, SJ. Petre found in Modernism an outlet for a reinterpretation of the Church, and as she saw it, the necessity to utilize what she saw as an inherent flexibility in the religion. Traditions were important, yes, but obstinate dogmatism was to be vehemently prevented by the faithful. Petre was empowered by her deep faith, and position in society, to speak out against what she saw to be violations by the Church of its own values. The Church stopped short of excommunicating her, tacitly demonstrating the power of lay women to effect change in the Church through force of personality and theology.8 Her example of pious transgressions gives credence to the power of female autonomy, the constant need to rethink the Church in face of the contemporary world (whether or not the Church sees the value in it at that moment), and the innate importance of lay voices in the Church. Mabel Batten (c.1856–1916) and Radclyffe Hall (1880–1943), queer lay Catholics and converts, show through their Lived Catholic practices a deep level of devotion to their faith and that many members of the hierarchy at home and abroad implicitly supported their life together. Their lives as sexually “unorthodox” but devout Catholic women shows how lay Catholic women found in Catholicism a flexibility not commonly associated with an ostensibly patriarchal religion. Like other women of their time, their faith found its expression in devotional practices, both Marian and Christological. For many queer converts, the Catholic Church provided a haven for self-expression and “othering.” For Hall and Batten, it was a space that was adaptable enough to reconcile various strands in their lives – practicing their faith was an outward expression of rejecting Englishness and Anglican life for something more Continental and expressive. For Batten, Catholicism was a conservative identity that balanced an expansive sexual life, but also provided a framework for family life and spirituality. Batten and Hall’s sexuality and life together was accepted in their circles – Catholic, familial, and artistic. They, along with other queer Catholics, demonstrate that the Catholic Church provided a space for their love, as well, as acceptance. For Hall particularly, Catholicism informed much of her writing in a way that her self-styled “inversion” did in her writing, such as The Well of Loneliness.

Conclusion 163 These were lay Catholic women living unorthodox lives while maintaining a devout personal interpretation of Catholicism. For lay Catholic women the confluence of larger changes in English Catholicism, such as Catholicism’s restoration, middle-class conversions, and slowly increasing acceptance of the religion over the 19th century, may have in fact been more pertinent to their acting with pious transgression than some loosening of a “patriarchal yoke.” These developments in the faith, against the background of an international women’s movement, illustrate a historical moment where lay Catholic women engaged with their faith in new and exciting manners. Each woman found strength in certain aspects of the faith be it the Sacraments, atonement, divinity, devotions, or fellowship. Catholicism could be interpreted very differently by its followers, which meant it provided women with myriad ways in which to practice their faith. Petre wrote in The Soul’s Orbit (1904), “each apostle and saint was a Church in himself,” and the examples of Fletcher, Petre, Batten, and Hall emphasize just this point – that the Catholic Church, from its inception, has been of its people, with each member, lay or religious, male or female, finding their own space to practice their faith.9 Notes 1 Daphne Hampson, Theology and Feminism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), p. 1. 2 Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ, eds. Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1989), p. 2. 3 Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Transforming Vision: Explorations in Feminist The*logy (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2011). 4 Jenny Daggers “‘Working for Change in the Position of Women in the Church’: Christian Women/s Information and Resources (CWIRES) and the British Christian Women’s Movement, 1972–1990,” Feminist Theology, Vol. 9, No. 26 (2001), p. 45. 5 Irish Ecclesiastical Record, September 1909, pp. 295–303, quoted in C. Murphy, The Woman’s Suffrage Movement and Irish Society in the Early Twentieth Century (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1989), p. 143 and in J.D.F. Inkpin, Combating the ‘sin of self-sacrifice’?: Christian Feminism in the Women’s Suffrage Struggle: 1903–18 (Durham: Unpub. PhD, 1996), pp. 46–47. 6 Morgan, Women, Religion and Feminism, 1750–1900, p. 10. 7 Margaret Fletcher, Christian Feminism (1915). pp. 7, 9. 8 Gary Lease, “Odd Fellows” in The Politics of Religion (1994), p. 73. 9 Maude Petre, The Soul’s Orbit, or Man’s Journey to God (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1904), p. 180.

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Index

Abadam, Alice 46, 62, 72, 79 Act of Supremacy (1534) xvi, 23 Act of Uniformity (1559) xvi Adam’s Breed 145 Aethiopum Servus 101 Allen, Grant 44 Americanism xv Amigo, Peter 1, 12, 28, 92, 102, 107–13 Amoris Laetitia xiv Angel in the House 7, 37, 39, 95 see also Coventry Patmore Anglo-Catholic 27, 40, 127, 143, 145 see also Oxford Movement Anglican 13, 23, 26–29, 33–39, 44, 57–8, 61, 66, 75, 91–2, 111, 128, 131–3, 158, 162 see also Church of England Anti-Catholicism 14, 22, 28–32, 44, 48, 159 Anti-Suffrage 45, 98 Apostolic tradition xiii, 26, 109 Arcanum Divinae 70 Armenian Rite 136 Arnold, Matthew 27 Arnold, Thomas 45 Arundel 114 Arundell family 22 Ashburton, Lady Louisa 142 Aspenden, Herts 141 Atwood, Tony (Clare) 126, 143 Baptism xvi, 34, 131, 146 Barnes, Djuna 142 Barney, Natalie 143 Basilica of Santa Maria (Aracoeli, Rome) 138 Batten, Mabel 1–13, 22, 28, 32–5, 39, 43, 47, 114, 124–148, 158–163 Batten, George 132

Beguinage xvi, 91, 105 Belgian refugees 46–7 Belloc, Bessie Rayner Parkes 33 Benedictine 43, 135, 140–1 Bennett, Arnold 44–5 Bona Mors 135–6 ‘Born’ Catholics xvi, 11–12, 22–4, 29, 32–6, 48, 56–9, 69–70, 76, 88, 107, 133, 158, 162 see also Recusant; Cradle Catholics Boston House School (Eastbourne) 140–1 Boston Marriage 129 Boulton (Ernest) and Park (Frederick) 147 Bourne, Francis 60–4, 139 Bowden, Mrs. Elizabeth 132 Bowden, Sebastien 13, 131, 139 Brémond, Henri xii, 12, 91, 99, 101–6, 119–11 Brindle, Bishop Robert 134, 139 Brompton Oratory 13, 127, 132–3, 137, 141 Brooks, Romaine 142 Bull (papal) xiii–iv, 23 Burgon, John 57–8 Campbell, Mrs. Colin 141 Canary Islands 133, 138 Carnaval 14, 138 Carstairs, Marion Betty “Joe” 143 Casti Connubli 71 The Catechism of the Council of Trent 38 Catholic Committee xv, 12 Catholic Emancipation xvi, 12, 22, 25–6, 28 Catholicism and Independence 12, 88, 102, 114 Catholic social thought ix, 4, 11, 56, 61, 69, 77, 138

186 Index Catholic “True Womanhood 3, 7, 36, 48, 106, 114, 158, 161–2 Catholic Women’s League (CWL) ix, xv, 1–5, 11, 28–9, 41, 46–7, 56–64, 69–70, 76–80, 102, 161 Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society (CWSS) 5, 46, 77 Catholic Workers’ College 60, 72 Celibacy xvii, 6, 12, 32, 39, 64–9, 80, 93–4, 98, 100, 105–7, 114 Chambers, Dorothea 129 Chicheley Plowden (family) 132 Christological 8, 14, 143–6, 162 Christian Family 65, 69, 71–4 Christian feminism xvii, 11, 14, 21, 33, 40–1, 46, 56, 62–5, 69, 74–7, 161 Church of England xvi, 22–7 see also Anglican Cisalpinism xv, 89–90, 137, 160–1 Clarendon, Lady Emma (Hatch) 130, 140 Class xviii, 1–12 see also middle-class; upper-class; working class Clutton family 103, 107 Cobbe, Francis Power 41, 67 Cohabitation xvii, 6, 88, 93, 102–5, 126 Confirmation xvi, 131, 141, 146 Contagious Diseases Act (CDA) 40, 68 Contraception 4, 59, 70–1 Conversion xvi–ix, 8, 13, 22–36, 41, 47–8, 58, 67–8, 124–38, 142–6, 158, 163 Corelli, Marie (nee Mary Mackay) 74 Cradle Catholics see also Recusant, ‘Born’ Catholics xvi, 22, 24, 33, 93 Craig, Edy 143 Crawford, Virginia 46 The Crucible 54, 57–63, 67–8, 76, 161 The Cult of Domesticity xvii, 7, 14, 36–9, 160 Cushman, Charlotte 142 De Alberti, Leonora 76–7 Decadence 127–32, 137 Dell, Robert 111 Del Val, Raphael Merry 112, 139 Despard, Charlotte 46, 77 Devotions 126, 135–8, 143–4, 148, 158, 163 Diehl, Dolly (Clarke) 125, 129, 141, 143 Doctrine ix, xiii, 31, 71, 80, 126 Dogma ix, xii–iv, 31, 38–9, 162

Edward VII 124, 130, 141 Egan, Beresford 147 Elgar, Edward 142 Elite 10–3, 22, 33–5, 56, 64, 90–8, 102–4, 127–34, 139–40, 161–2 see upper-classes Elizabethan Settlement (1559) xvi, 23, 27 Ellis, Miss Frances 132 Ellis, Havelock xviii, 9 Empire xviii, 34, 58, 75 Encyclical xiii–xv, 61, 71, 109–14, 135 see individually listed encyclicals ex-cathedra xiv Excommunication xiv, 23, 32, 109 Farm Street (Church of the Immaculate Conception) xv–i, 139 Fawcett, Millicent Garrett 96–8 Fawkes, Alfred 104, 108, 111 Feminism 11, 44, 46, 59, 68, 94, 147, 159 see also Christian Feminism Field, Michael (Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper) 128–9, 145 Filles de Marie (Daughters of the Heart of Mary) ix, 12, 91, 101–5 Fletcher, Carteret 58 Fletcher, Margaret 1–7, 11–2, 21–2, 25–9, 32–5, 38, 56–80, 88, 102, 112, 134, 138, 147, 158, 161–2 Franciscan Order 138 Frauenbund (German) 60 Fullerton, Lady Georgina 33, 131–3 Gasquet, Francis A. 1–2, 13, 47, 130, 139 Gray, Father John xviii, 10, 34, 127–8 Guiney, Imogen 60–1 Hall, Radclyffe (Marguerite Antonia “John”) 1–13, 22–3, 28, 32–6, 39, 43, 47–8, 124–48, 158–63 Hamilton, Cicely 37 Harris, Austin 130, 141 Harris, Catarina ‘Cara’ (Batten) 130, 140 Hatch family 140 Hecker, Isaac xv Hierarchy (religious) xii–v, 2–4, 11–3, 22, 27–33, 38, 48, 57, 60–1, 74–7, 80, 88, 91–4, 104, 108–14, 125, 139, 160–2 Hinsley, Arthur 113 Hoare, Phoebe 143 Holy Face 146 Holy Orders 27, 69

Index  187 Homosexuality xviii–ix, 128, 139 see also Queer, “Inversion,” Lesbianism Hope, Mabel 46 Hopkins, Gerard Manley xv, 26 Hosmer, Harriet 143 von Hügel, Baron Friedrich xii, 12, 31–2, 36, 91, 101, 104, 112 Hull Convent Scandal 30 Humani generis redemptionem xiii Hymns 47, 142 Immaculate Conception xiii–v Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Forbidden Book Index) 12 “Inversion” xviii–ix, 8–9, 126, 129, 144, 147–162, see also Homosexuality, Queer, Lesbianism Ireland xvi, 5, 14, 23, 25, 28–9, 33–4, 47, 77, 107, 129 Irish Catholics 5,25, 28–34 Jackman, Monsignor Charles 139 Jesuits (Society of Jesus) ix, xv, 14, 22–3, 42–3, 58, 72, 90, 98–105, 11, 136, 162 Johnson, Alice 63, 79 Keary, Eliza and Annie 128 Keble, John 26 Kerr, Father R.F. 141 Ladies of Charity 11, 41, 63–4, 113 Ladies of Llangollen (Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby) 129 Lamentabili sane exitu xiii, 109, 113 Lancaster, Cara ix Lee, Vernon (Violet Paget) 147 Leo XIII, pope xv, 9–10, 13, 125–9 Lesbianism xix, 9–10, 13, 125–9 see also Homosexuality, “Inversion,” Queer Levy, Amy 129 Linton, Eliza Lynn 147 Lisieux 138 Lived Faith/Catholicism xiii, ix, 2, 5, 125, 159–60 Liverpool 28–9, 34, 60, 91, 137 Loisy, Alfred xii, 12, 31, 91, 101 Lourdes 135 Lowther, Barbara “Toupie” 129, 141, 143

Luard, Mary 103 Lytton, Lord Robert (Viceroy of India) 125 Maddison, Adela 141, 143 Magisterium xii–iv, 59, 75, 91, 94, 114 Malvern (Worcs.) 135, 138–9, 143 Manners, Violet (Duchess of Rutland) 141, 143 Manning, Cardinal Henry Edward 26, 31, 38, 56 Marianism 3, 14, 33, 39, 64–5, 131, 134–5, 143–4, 162 Marriage xvii–iii, 3, 6, 13–4, 32, 36–45, 59, 64–75, 80, 93–6, 108, 124–5, 128–9, 135, 140–2 The Master of the House 144–5 Material culture 136, 158 see also Lived Catholicism Matrilineal kinship 140–1 Maturin, Basil W. 58 Maynard, Constance 128 Meynell, Alice 46 Middle-class xii, 6, 11–2, 21, 27–9, 36, 40–4, 56–68, 73–4, 96–7, 102, 132, 161–3 Mill, John Stuart 37–8 Miller, Mary 601 Mirae Caritatis 135 The Mirror of True Womanhood 3 Modernism (Catholic) xiv–v, 11–2, 31–2, 88–114, 148, 162–8, The Month 92, 95, 98, 101 Motherhood 3, 33, 38, 56, 64–6, 77, 103, 129, 144, 147 motu proprio xiv Mulberry House 103–4, 107–8 Naming 146–8 National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) 45 Newman, John Henry 25–7, 127 New Woman xviii, 3, 14, 32, 37–45, 47, 64–6, 90, 94–5, 108, 126 Nuns, Sisters, and Women Religious xvi, 2–6, 38, 41, 63–7, 128, 134, 139–2 Oath Against Modernism see Sacrorum Antistitum 112–3 Odd Women xvii, 39, 66, 103 see also Single Women, Spinsters The Olympia, Kensington 131 O’Dwyer, Edward 77

188 Index O’Reilly, Bernard 3, 14, 36 Oxford (town) xv, 57–8, 158 Oxford Movement 22, 26–7, 29, 33, 58 Oxford (university) 43 Pascendi Dominici Gregis 31, 109, 113 Patmore, Coventry 3, 37, 95 see also Angel in the House Paulist xv Plater, Charles 60, 72 Praesantiae Scripturae 108–14 Pius X, pope 12–3, 31, 91, 109, 113–4, 130, 134, 138–9 Pius XI, pope 71 Polignac, Princesse (nee Winnaretta Singer) 143 Poor Servants of the Mother of God 132 Premonstratensian (Prémontré) 104–5 Petre, Maude 1–2, 6, 11–3, 22, 28–33, 38, 43, 62, 77, 79, 88–114, 126, 134, 138, 158–163 Pugin, A.W.N. 26, 58, 132 Puseyism see Oxford Movement 26 Queer Catholics xii, xviii–ix, 4, 9, 13–4, 34, 105, 125–31, 137–140, 145, 162 see also Homosexuality, “Inversion,” Lesbianism Raffalovich, Marc-Andre xix, 10, 34, 105–6, 128 Raj, The 124, 131 Rampolla, Cardinal Mariano 112, 134, 139 Recusants xvi, 7, 22, 28, 63, 78 see also “Born,” and “Cradle” Catholics Reinhardt (Max) and Vollmoller (Karl) 131 Regnans in Excelsis 23 Rerum Novarum xiv, 41 Respectability 6–9, 11–13, 24, 26, 36, 43, 64–88, 98–104, 107–8, 126, 129, 132 Richmond (N. Yorks) 101–4 Ripon, Lord George (Viceroy of India) 131 Rome xv–i, 13, 60, 90; City of 103, 133–9 Royal Academy 68 Rye (E. Sussex) 125, 137–9, 143–4 Sackville-West, Vita 128 Sacraments xiii, 69, 73, 112–3, 140, 163 Sacrorum Antistitum see “The Oath Against Modernism” 112–3 St. Aloysius Church, Oxford 58

St. Anthony 135 St. Helen’s Church, Southendon-Sea 132 St. James, Peckham Rye 132 St. Joan’s Alliance 46, 76 see CWSS St. John, Christopher (Christabel Marshall) 10, 46, 77, 126, St. Mary’s, Chelsea 141 St. Mary’s, Oxford 57 St. Mary Magdalene, Oxford 58 St Simon’s and St. Jude’s, Streatham 132 St. Veronica 145–6 Sceberras, Fr Bonaventure 139 The School of the Heart 66, 69 Sexual Inversion xviii Single Women 6, 39, 65–7, 94, 102–4, 161 see also Odd Women, Spinsters Sisters 4–5, 38–41, 65, 134, 142 see Nuns, Women Religious Smallhythe 143, 159 Smith, Eleanor 57 Smyth, Ethel 10, 143 Society for Psychical Research (SPR) 125 Songs of Three Counties 145 Southwark Cathedral 58 Southwark, Diocese of 92, 103, 107–12 Spinsters xvii, 36, 39, 66, 100 see ‘Odd Women’ Stanley, Monsignor Algernon 134–6, 139 Stations of the Cross 133 Stebbins, Emma 142 Steele, Francesca M. (Darley Dale) 3 Stopes, Marie 71 Storrington 92, 97, 103–14 Suffrage (women’s, Britain) 3–5, 11, 14, 36, 45–6, 57, 60, 76–7, 96–7, 102, 126 Sweetman-Powell, Adela 103–7 Symonds, John Addington 145 The Tablet 77 Talbot, Lady Mary (m. Edmund) 63–4, 130, 141, 161 Tasker, Countess Helen 132 Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae xv Tilley, Vesta 147 Tractarianism 22, 26–7, 56, 132 see Oxford Movement Troubridge, Lady Una Vincenzo 124–5, 137–8, 143, 146 Turner, Reggie 128 Tyrrell, George 6, 12, 31–2, 38, 44, 89–95, 98–114, 147, 162

Index  189 Ultramontanism xv, 12, 137 Universalis Ecclesiae 27–8 Upper-classes 11, 29, 40, 57, 64, 94, 101–4, 124, 131–3, 137, 148 see elite Urquhart, Harriet 104 Vatican xiii–vi, 12, 31, 90, 112 Vatican I xiv, 31 Vatican II xv, 88, 92 Vaughan, Father Bernard 60, 139 Vaughan, Cardinal Herbert 38, 77 Viareggio 146 Vocation 65, 69–72, 79, 91, 103, 106, 114, 147 Ward, Josephine 77 Ward, Mrs. Humphry 44–5 Ward, Wilfrid 77

The Well of Loneliness 8–9, 13, 138, 144–7, 162 Westminster Cathedral 1, 47, 139, 159 Wilde, Dolly 142 Wilde, Oscar 10, 34, 127 Women’s Congress 92, 98 Women’s Freedom League 45, 70, 77 Women religious 5 see Nuns, Sisters Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) 45–6 Woolf, Virginia 128 Working women 79 Working-class Catholics 63, 70–2, 79, 137 World War I xii, 14, 32, 45–6, 60, 71–2, 78 Worsley-Worswick, Dom Peter 139 Zanetti, Frances 63