NO. I RECORDS OF THE ABBEY OF OUR LADY OF CONSOLATION AT CAMBRAI , 1620-1793 CONTRIBUTED BY THE RIGHT REVEREND LADY CECILIA HEYWOOD, ABBESS OF STANBROOK EDITED WITH HISTORICAL NOTES BY JOSEPH GILLOW
THE Abbey of Benedictine nuns of the English Congregation was established in 1620 at Cambrai by Monks of that Congregation , chiefly through the instrumentalityof the president , Dom William Rudesind Barlow , and Dom William Benet Jones , who brought over from England nine English ladies to form the nucleus of the foundation , of whom Helen More ( Dame Gertrude ) is considered chief foundress, the pecuniary means having been mainly furnished by her father Mr. Cresacre More , lineal descendant of the blessed martyr Sir Thomas More . For the training of these postulants in the monastic life, three nuns were lent by the kindness of the abbess of the English Benedictine abbey at Brussels, Lady Mary Percy ; and their spiritual direction was entrusted to the eminent Father David Augustine Baker , who remained at Cambrai about eight years. Dame Frances Gawen of Brussels was appointed abbess of the infant communityuntil in 1629, at the first general chapter after their profession, one of their own number, Dame Catherine Gascoigne, was chosen abbess. Though their instructresses, the three Brussels nuns , were now free to return to their own convent, they begged to be allowed to form part of the community of Cambrai . Two of them , Dame Frances Gawen and Dame Pudentiana Deacons, remained till their death several years later, but Dame Viviana Yaxley eventually availed herself of her right according to the original stipulation , and returned to Brussels in 1650. The Cambrai community were from the first under the immediate jurisdiction of the president and general chapter of the English Congregation of Monks of the Order of St. Benedict , and this with the full consent and concurrence of the Archbishop of Cambrai , Francis Van der Burch, and the solemn approbation of Pope Urban VIII. In 1793 the Community of Cambrai , twenty- one in number , were violently ejected by the French Government, and carried in open carts to Compiègne, where they remained in close prison for eighteen months. They obtained their release at last in 1795, reaching Doveron May 3rd of that year. Befriended by the Monks of the English Congregation to which they belonged, they remained at Woolton in Lancashire , earning a small means of subsistence by teaching a school belonging to the Benedictine mission. In 1807, by the kindness of Mrs. Stanford , they removed to a mansion belonging to her in Warwickshire , Salford Hall, near Evesham, which they were to have free of rent , not only during her lifetime , but during that of the heirat-law, Mr. Robert Berkeley of Spetchley, who concurred generously in this negotiation . In 1838 they removed finally to Stanbrook Hall in Worcestershire, purchasing the house and property for themselves, and eventually, after severalyears, erecting a church, consecrated in 1871, and a considerable portion of a regular Abbey in 1880. The dearthof original early documents at Stanbrook Abbeyis owing to
XIII.
A