(?nrneU Hmuetattg ffiihrarg 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BX1777.T13 S52 
 
 Talbot case an authoritative and sued 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 029 407 685 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029407685 
 
t Cnlhnt Cast 
 
 AN AUTH0EITAT1VE AND 
 SUCCINCT ACCOUNT 
 
 FROM 1839, 
 
 TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR'S JUDGMENT. 
 
 BBitJr Sntes' irafr dDternittimts : 
 
 AND A PREFACE, 
 
 BY THE REV. M. HOBART SEYMOUR, M.A. 
 
 Whosoever is afraid of submitting any question, civil or religious, to the test of 
 free discussion, seems to me, to be more in love with his own opinion, than 
 with truth. — Bishop Watson. 
 
 When secresy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off. — Dr. Johnson. 
 
 iwkp. 
 
 FLEET STREET and HANOVER STREET 
 LONDON : MDCCCLI. 
 
 tblUffli » 
 
7L /? 
 
 l\S~°it llle 
 
TO 
 
 THE FATHERS AND MOTHERS OF THE 
 UNITED KINGDOM ; 
 
 AND TO 
 
 THOSE ROMAN CATHOLICS WHO SUPPORTED THE 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THEIR COUNTRY, IN 
 
 OPPOSITION TO PAPAL AGGRESSION, 
 
 THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED. 
 
THE NUNNERIES OF ENGLAND. 
 
 There are few subjects so little understood, indeed so 
 little known, in this country, as the conventual system, 
 especially with reference to what are called "religious 
 houses " for the reception of ladies. They have been so 
 long and so generally associated with the relics of by-gone 
 times, and with the superstitions of mediaeval religion, that 
 all accurate knowledge respecting them has been regarded 
 as more curious than useful, and has been neglected as 
 such. The result has been, that a Convent of Nuns is 
 ordinarily associated in our minds with some tale of dis- 
 appointed affection in mediaeval romance, or with some 
 fearful tragedy of dark and despotic times. The former 
 awakens an interest in their favour, the latter evokes a 
 prejudice against them. 
 
 The remoteness of the subject for the last three cen- 
 turies of the history of England, has naturally consigned 
 such establishments, with their real character and nature, 
 to oblivion among us. We know wonderfully little respect- 
 ing them ; and from the secrecy and mystery usually con- 
 nected with them, this ignorance is little likely to be dis- 
 sipated. A remarkable evidence of this has occurred in 
 
connection with the case now before the world. The three 
 persons, of all others the most competent in every way to 
 impart the required information, are hopelessly at variance 
 in their evidence. And when they might have been expected 
 to have given a fulness of light, they have only enveloped 
 the subject in inextricable darkness. Dr. Hendren the 
 titular Bishop at Clifton, and head and superior of the 
 Nunnery at Taunton, and many years its confessor, writes 
 in the most explicit terms, that Miss Talbot was not, and 
 could not be, received as a boarder ; that it was inconsistent 
 with the rules, and that he, as the Principal, — speaking 
 from personal knowledge — received her, and conversed 
 with her as a postulant, that is, as a novice of the white 
 veil, preparatory to her assuming the vows, resigning her 
 property, and becoming a professed nun. Dr. Doyle, the 
 titular Bishop at Southwark, the legal Guardian of the 
 young lady, states, on the other hand, that she was re- 
 ceived only as a boarder ; that she was never admitted, or 
 intended to be admitted, as a postulant, or novice, and 
 that she never designed to take the vows of a nun. And 
 Miss Jerningham, the Mother of the Sisterhood and 
 Abbess of the nunnery, states, with the most naive sim- 
 plicity, that Dr. Hendren, the superior of the convent, 
 was not wrong in asserting she was a novice, and that Dr. 
 Doyle, the Guardian of the lady, was not incorrect in saying 
 she was a boarder, for that really and truly she was both, 
 having something of both characters, being nominally a 
 novice and really a boarder ; and thus the system of 
 having " two faces under a hood," led the two Bishops 
 into a mistake. When three persons, the Superior, the 
 Guardian, the Abbess — the very three who in the wide 
 world must have been the most competent to know the 
 
IX 
 
 facts and impart the information — when these three dif- 
 fer so widely as to the facts in this case, whether from a 
 desire to mystify others, or from being mystified them- 
 selves, it must be felt to he no easy matter to ascertain the 
 certainty as to the true character of the interior of such 
 establishments. 
 
 It is impossible to consider these facts — the palpable and 
 broad variance in the statements of these three persons, 
 who must have been competent witnesses, if there be any 
 in the world, as to the realities of the case — without ar- 
 riving at one of two conclusions ; either the very painful 
 one, that these three persons combined to mislead and 
 mystify the public mind, so as to leave all men under a 
 sense of doubt and uncertainty as to the interior life of the 
 convent, thus keeping the world in darkness as to its mys- 
 teries and secrets ; or we are drawn to the more charitable 
 conclusion, that these three persons were themselves de- 
 ceived or mistaken ; that intending truthfully and honestly 
 to declare all they knew, they have given testimony which 
 proves that some things take place in the interior of these 
 convents which are unknown to the Bishops, the Guardians 
 and the Abbesses themselves ! and that too to such an ex- 
 tent, as that they are unable to give clear, consistent or 
 satisfactory testimony respecting them, even respecting 
 such a plain and simple matter of fact as the postulancy or 
 noviciate of one of the inmates ! 
 
 When such doubts and mystery hang about these es- 
 tablishments, it ceases to be a matter of wonder that the 
 public should, with certainty, know nothing respecting 
 them or their nature, and it is time to lift the veil and 
 open the interior of convent-life to the broad light of day 
 and to the searching eye of the people of England. 
 
 a 5 
 
The principle upon which " religious houses " are 
 founded is not peculiar to the Church of Rome, or even 
 to Christianity. Heathen Rome had its Vestal Virgins, 
 and Pagan Peru had its Virgins of the Sun. It has, from 
 time immemorial, and before all records of history, per- 
 vaded Egypt and all the regions of the East, being an 
 essential element of orientalism ; almost in the essence of 
 the oriental mind. It is the notion that celibacy is more 
 holy than marriage — that those who are unmarried are 
 more holy than those who are married. And on this prin- 
 ciple it is argued, that in order to attain to the highest 
 degrees of personal holiness, or religiousness, all persons, 
 and especially females, should remain unmarried. In order 
 to facilitate this, it is recommended that females should 
 become inmates of " religious houses," in which it is a 
 rule that every member of the sisterhood should vow a life 
 of celibacy. This system of " religious houses " is as 
 prevalent among the heathen of China and of Japan, as 
 among the Christians of Rome. 
 
 The answer usually made to this, is not only a denial of 
 the principle that celibacy is more holy than marriage, or 
 that the unmarried are, in the experience of the world, 
 more holy than the married ; but that even supposing that 
 this principle is correct — assuming that it is justified in 
 theory and practice, still a female may live in a state of 
 singleness — may live unmarried, and preserve her purity, 
 without entering a nunnery. If there be a peculiar and 
 superior holiness in the unmarried state, she can live thus 
 unmarried, and thus holy in the bosom of her family, or 
 in the circle of home-friends, as innocently and as purely 
 as within the walls of a nunnery. This is a matter of 
 universal experience among us. Every family in England 
 
may give an evidence of this, and therefore the evidence 
 of experience is against the alleged necessity for " religious 
 houses." 
 
 The reply, which the advocates of such establishments, 
 give to this argument of experience, is different on the 
 Continent from that given in England. 
 
 On the Continent it is at once asserted that it is impos- 
 sible, or at least, unusual, that any unmarried ladies, after 
 the age of marriage, should be seen in society. It seems 
 certainly to be an understood thing in the Roman Catholic 
 countries of the Continent, that those, who may be called 
 single ladies, — and who, after passing the natural or usual 
 age of marriage, are often regarded among us as among 
 the most useful members of the social circle — ought not 
 to be seen except within the walls of a convent. They are 
 practically excluded from the social circle both at home 
 and abroad. It would seem as if it was thought — and too 
 generally is thought — impossible, or at least, very difficult 
 to preserve female purity, if moving in society ; and as if 
 it was therefore necessary to shut a female up within the 
 precincts of some " religious house," to prevent her by 
 physical restraint from going astray. This peculiar idea — 
 almost universal in the Roman Catholic regions of the 
 Continent — consigns the plain, the portionless, the un- 
 marriageable, and the disappointed, to the destinies of a 
 conventual life. And thus is created a necessity for " reli- 
 gious houses." 
 
 In England, however, this argument would have no 
 weight, and therefore the reply of the advocates of this 
 system is different. It is argued, that neither the bosom 
 of the family-home nor the circle of society, is so suited 
 for the development of the religious virtues, or for the 
 
XII 
 
 exercise of the religious practice, as the retirement and 
 solitude of a " religious house." It is urged, that it is 
 amidst the converse of a sisterhood holy and religious, and 
 amidst the practice of the hallowed rites or ceremonies of 
 religion, that the Christian life of a female is best devel- 
 oped. And that therefore the vowed devotion of unmarried 
 ladies in the seclusion — the perfect and never-ending 
 seclusion — of the conventual life, tends to the growth of 
 religious feeling and the manifestation of religious practice. 
 To all this the answer is simple. The Continental 
 notion of excluding unmarried females after they attain a 
 certain age, from society, is as cruel as it is dishonouring ; 
 and is based on an assumption more false than either. 
 And the experience of society in England, more pure and 
 moral than elsewhere, shews that unmarried ladies can live 
 in the bosom of the family-home, and move in the circle 
 of society with purity, and in the possession of every 
 religious grace, and in the exercise of every religious prac- 
 tice. Self-denying, disinterested, active, they prove them- 
 selves to be invaluable labourers in every Christian work 
 and labour of love, infinitely more useful to themselves 
 and to others — incomparably more beneficial to the Church 
 and to society, than if they were immured within the 
 prison-like precincts of some convent ; where they are 
 removed for ever from the society they might adorn by 
 their virtues, and from the fields of usefulness which they 
 might bless by their activity and labours. One grand 
 purpose of true religion is, that we may labour to do good 
 to others ; while one great feature of the conventual 
 system is, to imprison its victims, so as to deprive them 
 of all means and opportunities of usefulness. And if, in 
 the judgment of the Great Day, the solemn words shall be 
 
Xlll 
 
 uttered — " Come, ye blessed children of my Father, in- 
 herit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of 
 the world : for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat : 
 I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, 
 and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me : I was 
 sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came 
 unto me." Matt. xxv. 34 — 36. — if, in that solemn hour, 
 the practical religion of those who stand before the throne, 
 shall be remembered to them, let us beware of any system 
 of religious profession that would systematically exclude 
 us from that which is so important and essential. The 
 convent-life, while it may minister to a morbid mysticism 
 or to nervous extacies, divests and deprives the inmates of 
 the power and opportunity of developing the practical 
 duties of a living Christianity. 
 
 The true principle upon which, universally, in Conti- 
 nental countries, our modern conventual system is founded 
 and sustained, is economy and not theology— it is social 
 and not religious. It is only a veil to blind the eyes of 
 the simple, and to find an excuse for the priests and for 
 the parents, and to allure the young, when the system is 
 commended on the ground of theology or religion. It is 
 almost, if not altogether sustained, as the most easy, the 
 most convenient, the most economical, and cheap way for 
 settling portionless and unmarriageable daughters. And 
 its extreme popularity throughout Europe, arose from the 
 elements of feudalism, which impregnate every part of the 
 social system. It was held necessary to sustain the wealth 
 and influence of the nobles — to concentrate all the family 
 possessions with all the family honours upon one, who 
 should be the head of the name and house. The younger 
 sons were consigned, of necessity, to an unmarried life, as 
 
XIV 
 
 being wholly portionless and unprovided for, except so far 
 as might enable them to enter the army or the Church. 
 In the former, they lived a reckless life, as if they would 
 not marry ; and in the latter, they lived in connection with 
 some convent, where they could not marry. And so too 
 with the daughters. If one could be provided for by a 
 suitable marriage, the others, being without portion or 
 provision, were destined to the nunnery. It was regarded 
 habitually as a matter of course. From their earliest 
 childhood they are educated to look forward to it as their 
 last resource. The fact of their being sickly, or plain, or 
 portionless, or in any way unmarriageable or unmarket- 
 able, led them to look forward to the life of the cloister, 
 as much as a matter of course — as much as an inevitable 
 destiny as an eastern girl anticipates the life of the harem. 
 As they cannot be married to the laity they must be con- 
 tent, — for there was no help for it, — to be married to the 
 Church, as it is usually styled. This is the real principle 
 which gives life to the conventual system, and there cannot 
 be a greater fraud upon the enlightenment of the present 
 age, than to attribute it to religious feeling. Religion is 
 no more than the cloak to hide the grovelling motives of 
 the system. 
 
 At the present day, and ever since the French Revolu- 
 tion raised her blood-stained hand and struck down the 
 barbaric genius of feudalism, this conventual system has 
 fallen into a sickly decline, and the degree and rapidity of 
 that decline in every country has been precisely in propor- 
 tion to the prostration or evanescence of the feudal element 
 in the national mind. But still it lingers in some places, 
 as there is still remaining in our world so much of the 
 feudal desires to heap the wealth and honors of a familv 
 
XV 
 
 name upon one member of a house. This tendency in 
 England is unimportant in this respect, that it does not 
 produce the same sad results, because the professional and 
 mercantile pursuits open the greatest wealth and the 
 highest honors of the state to a successful career. There 
 is here a wide and noble field for the younger sons of every 
 family, and therefore here is the fair and right opportunity 
 for the marriage of the younger daughters of the land. In 
 this favored land there is a theatre with " ample space and 
 verge enough " for both the elder and the younger to play 
 their part. And therefore there is all the less tendency 
 toward the conventual system. But it is far otherwise in 
 Italy, and in Spain, and in other lands, where professional 
 and mercantile pursuits have not yet been elevated to 
 the high and honorable distinction that befits them, and 
 that necessarily awaits thfim in every well-ordered common- 
 wealth, and where it is still deemed a degradation for 
 the younger daughters of the higher classes, however 
 impoverished, to intermarry with the professional or mer- 
 cantile families, however wealthy. It is, therefore, their 
 inevitable destiny to remain unmarried, inasmuch as their 
 equals — the younger sons of the higher classes — are left 
 portionless and unprovided for, except so far as a com- 
 mission in the army, or a post in the Church, under 
 circumstances precluding the possibility of marriage. It 
 is their inevitable destiny to remain unmarried, and they 
 grow from childhood to maturity in the unbroken expecta- 
 tion of that destiny. And this is fostered and cherished 
 with unwearied care on the part of the parents. They are 
 the victims of that absurd feeling that no unmarried lady 
 should be seen in society — that as she is not married, so 
 she ought to retire to a nunnery, as if an unmarried life in 
 
a nunnery was of her own choice, and not of necessity. 
 The parents make use of this. They feel that they provide 
 best and most safely for their younger daughters by placing 
 them in a nunnery. A sum of from ^6300 to afilOOO will 
 secure for life all that is deemed in Italy or Spain a suffi- 
 cient maintenance for a young lady in a nunnery. And 
 when the parent has paid this, which varies according to 
 the comforts and respectability of the establishment which 
 he selects for his daughter, he feels the utmost self-com- 
 placency, as having done all that is required of him for her 
 safe, happy and respectable settlement in life. He seems 
 to feel, in consigning her to the seclusion of the nunnery 
 for life, very similar to a father in England, when, conscious 
 of the suitableness of the marriage, he commits his daugh- 
 ter on her bridal-day to the husband of her choice. The 
 main difference between them is, that one is rejoicing in 
 the marriage and settlement of his child, whose happiness 
 he delights himself in anticipating ; while the other, without 
 one ray of hope for her happiness, congratulates himself 
 in having settled for life a daughter whom he could not 
 otherwise provide for. 
 
 But the object of nunneries in England takes a wider 
 range than this. They are established with a view to the 
 propagation of the religion of Rome, and they operate in 
 two ways towards the promotion of that end. In the first 
 place they are arranged in general as seminaries or board- 
 ing schools for the higher classes, and with some of the 
 nuns obliged to devote themselves to conducting schools for 
 the gratuitous education of the poor. This gives them the 
 means and opportunity for proselyting, to which they very 
 naturally, and indeed laudably, devote all their energies ; 
 while the facility which their schools give, of intercourse 
 
XV11 
 
 with the parents of the children, gives great and numerous 
 opportunities for success. In the next place, these nun- 
 neries in England lay themselves out to allure and attract 
 every young person who may be possessed of wealth, 
 or the expectation of wealth. Every wile and art that 
 subtlety can suggest is employed to lure such persons into 
 a convent-life. And one novice possessed of wealth is 
 regarded as more valuable than an hundred others. 
 Romance and religion, and love, and disappointments, and 
 affliction, are all alike made in their turn a means to 
 minister to the object to be attained. And the promises 
 of seclusion and tranquillity, and peace, in scenes of rural 
 retirement, and in the sweet converse of a holy sisterhood, 
 loving and loved, amidst the dream-like stillness of the 
 cloister, and the sweet music of the vespers — these pro- 
 mises, however unlikely of fulfilment, become powerful 
 arguments in the hands of subtle, experienced and in- 
 triguing priests. She becomes a nun, and they take 
 possession of her wealth. 
 
 Her after-destiny is a mystery. If she can be moulded 
 into a living machine to be used for any purpose, or 
 employed to any end at the principled or unprincipled will 
 of the superiors, she may live on in the round of ceremo- 
 nies and forms and duties assigned to her, as regularly, 
 and probably as uninterested, as a horse in its daily circuit 
 in the mill. She becomes hard and unfeeling as a marble 
 statue, and cold and lifeless as a working machine. But 
 if her heart is still gentle, and her pulse warm, and her 
 thoughts active, and her religion living — if she shews the 
 power to think for herself, or the desire to act for herself, 
 she is soon brought low indeed, and will, in all human 
 probability, become the victim of some intrigue by which 
 
XV1U 
 
 she will be inveigled to the continent, and there placed in 
 some convent where there is neither help nor hope. Her 
 after-destiny is indeed a mystery. 
 
 A few words, therefore, as to the nature of the conven- 
 tual system on the continent is absolutely necessary for a 
 full and fair understanding of the nunneries of England. 
 
 The principal class is that of the clausura. The in- 
 mates, after the usual noviciate of the white veil, look for- 
 ward as a matter of course, to the taking the vows of 
 poverty, celibacy and obedience. They accordingly vow, 
 on taking the black veil, that they will never retain any 
 property as their own ; that they will part with all that 
 they possess ; that they will never marry, and that in 
 every thing they will submit themselves in entire and 
 humble obedience to their superiors. They are then mem- 
 bers of the Sisterhood. They are confined within the walls 
 of the establishment as within the walls of Paradise. They 
 are precluded from the hurtful society of relatives or friends, 
 unless through an iron-grating, and in the presence of a 
 watchful and superintending sister, no conversation being 
 permitted unless in the presence of one belonging to the 
 convent, so as to preclude the possibility of any painful 
 truth being communicated even to the nearest and dearest 
 relative. She must not breathe a whisper even to her 
 mother, lest thus the interior life of the Convent might be 
 made known to the world ; all must remain for ever in 
 darkness and secrecy, and mystery. The buildings, be- 
 longing to this class of the clausura in continental countries, 
 are suited to this system. They have all that same ap- 
 pearance — all that peculiar appearance which characterizes 
 the prisons and penitentiaries of our own land. There is 
 the same dull, still, lifeless exterior — the same lofty walls 
 
XIX 
 
 and massive gates — the same barred windows and grated 
 openings — the same sombre jail-like exterior, with every 
 accompaniment that seems calculated to confine the in- 
 mates and prevent the possibility of escape. It is not 
 possible for an unprejudiced stranger to look on them with- 
 out the feeling, that the managers know that the inmates 
 instead of revelling in their interior Paradise, are longing, 
 yearning, watching to escape from it, and that every thing 
 must therefore be done to preclude the possibility of flight. 
 This is their appearance, even when situated, as they often 
 are, in the most lovely scenes of nature. They sometimes 
 look like fortresses amidst scenes of loveliness that surpass 
 description ; and mountain and valley, and forest and lake, 
 are all arrayed around tljem in all their richest loveliness, 
 but they only tantalize the caged and prisoned nuns, whose 
 hapless destiny forbid their ever treading among those 
 glorious scenes. They can look on them but can never 
 enjoy them. They are as birds in a cage, able to look out 
 upon the free sun and the free air, and the free world, and 
 feel that they all are beautiful and made for enjoyment, 
 and perhaps may flutter their wings till they hurt their 
 feathers and break their hearts, at the thought that they 
 are imprisoned things for their weary lives, and never can 
 enjoy such freedom. There they while away existence, 
 wearisome to themselves and useless to others, without 
 any object to interest or occupy them. They have not the 
 interest of mothers, for they have no children. They have 
 not the interest of daughters, for they have no parents. 
 They have not the interest of sisters, for they have no 
 brothers or sisters. They have not the interest of wives, 
 for they have no husbands. They are precluded from every 
 object that nature designed to give interest to the female 
 
XX 
 
 heart. They are in a state as unwholesome as it is un- 
 natural. It is against our nature that they should be sub- 
 jected to it. It is against our manhood to permit the ex- 
 istence of such an unnatural system. 
 
 It is a great objection to this class of Convents, that it 
 is their essential characteristic, that all is secret and un- 
 known. The inmates must not pass without the walls so 
 as to reveal that which passes within them. Their only 
 associates are the confessors, who are not unfrequently the 
 monks of some neighbouring convent, whose interest it too 
 often is, that much that passes within those walls should 
 never be heard in the outer world. The nuns must hold no 
 other intercourse with any living being beyond the pre- 
 cincts. They can write no letter_ unless under the eye of 
 the superior. They can receive no communication, even 
 from a mother or a sister, till it is read by the superior. 
 They cannot even see or converse with these near and dear 
 relatives at the convent-grating unless in the presence of 
 the superior, or one of the sisterhood of her appointment. 
 And no whisper and no sign can be made without being 
 observed. All is secreted between the nuns and their con- 
 fessors. And in some convents the system is so strict and 
 rigid that, as in the establishments of the Sepulte vive, the 
 nuns are never permitted to see any one whatever from the 
 moment they have taken the black veil. There is nothing 
 in all the prison system or penitentiary discipline of Eng- 
 land that can compare with the constrained seclusion and 
 forced confinement of the clausurse. Weeks and months 
 and years pass, and multitudes of these veiled prisoners 
 never see a being to whom they can open their hearts or 
 tell the story of their imprisonment. If they have im- 
 bittered their existence by having taken the veil, and have 
 
regretted and repented of it, they have no remedy. If 
 their religious opinions have undergone a change, and their 
 souls loathe the religion of the convent, they have no hope. 
 If they have been deceived, and found vice and sin and 
 ruin where they expected holiness and peace and love, 
 their cry can never be heard. If for any suspicion of re- 
 ligious change, or a desire to escape, they are subjected to 
 punishment, to starvation, to the dark and damp under- 
 ground cells, the sigh of the sufferer and the tear of the 
 mourner can be never known. And if the last sigh of the 
 poor imprisoned one is breathed on the rack or under the 
 torture, or if it be amidst the long and painful wasting 
 away of emaciated nature, or if it be groaned out amidst 
 horror and loathing at the scenes around, or if it be heard 
 mingled with the shriek of the maniac, there is nothing 
 known in the outer world but the customary narrative, that 
 sister Agnes or sister Agatha breathed her last in the 
 odour of sanctity, amidst the comforts of the Church, and 
 to the edification of the Sisterhood ! This is all that is 
 thought fitting to be -made known to the outer world, and 
 the outer world, if disposed to be credulous or otherwise, 
 must, for the present, be contented with this. Neither the 
 nuns within, nor the monks without, will give more than 
 this. And yet on the opening of the nunneries in Spain, 
 and the dissolution of the nunneries in Italy at the early 
 part of the present century, worse than the very worst 
 here supposed to be possible, was laid open before the 
 world ! 
 
 Nor could it well be expected otherwise. These nun- 
 neries are often under what is called " the spiritual direc- 
 tion " of the monks of some neighbouring convent of the 
 same order. These unmarried men of the convent are the 
 
XX11 
 
 only confessors, visitors, companions of the unmarried 
 women of the nunnery ; and under such circumstances 
 these establishments require great judgment and discretion 
 in their management and superintendence. The Abbess 
 is generally appointed less through judgment and discre- 
 tion than through family influence. Sometimes as being 
 a member of the family who founded or endowed the 
 establishment ; sometimes as being the relative of some 
 cardinal or noble ; sometimes as being connected with 
 some minister of state or some person of influence. They 
 are nominated — as is too generally the case with appoint- 
 ments in all lands — not because they are the most discreet, 
 but because they possess personal or family interest. And 
 these Abbesses are sometimes rather young — too young to 
 be trusted altogether as the dragons or duennas of such 
 establishments, surrounded as they sometimes are with ex- 
 ceeding difficulties and dangers. And yet with them rests 
 the rigidness or laxity of observance of many things. If 
 she is unsteady, giddy or indiscreet, the natural result is 
 developed in the unsteadiness, giddiness and indiscretion of 
 the nuns. If she is rigid, severe, or austere, the result is 
 manifested in the unhappiness and misery, the madness 
 and deaths of the inmates. And there is no redress for 
 anything. There are also external circumstances that often 
 increase the difficulty and danger. 
 
 It should always be remembered that into these nun- 
 neries are frequently drafted that class of unhappy persons 
 for whom in England there are establishments peculiarly 
 adapted. The Magdalene Asylums and Penitentiaries of 
 this country are appropriated exclusively to those fallen 
 ones, who, often " more sinned against than sinning," de- 
 sire the protection and the instruction of such a house. 
 
xxm 
 
 But in other lands these unhappy persons are drafted into 
 the nunneries, and the inmates must receive them and 
 associate with them as their sisters. And where the fallen 
 or erring one is a member of some more influential family, 
 she is forced not unfrequently — as with us a maniac would 
 be placed in a madhouse — into one of these nunneries. 
 And though still an unrepentant Magdalene, the other 
 sisters are compelled to receive her and associate with her, 
 perhaps wholly unconscious that she is other than them- 
 selves. This is a state of things calculated to introduce 
 an infinity of evil. It is the introduction of an element 
 of poison, and renders the management of such establish- 
 ments, an affair so delicate and difficult as to demand 
 something more than that amount of wisdom, judgment 
 and discretion which may be looked for in some of these 
 young ladies, whose family influence have placed them as 
 Abbesses over the nunneries. In England such an estab- 
 lishment would be thought to require a committee of ex- 
 perienced and motherly women, together with the judg- 
 ments of married and of thoughtful men. But in Roman 
 Catholic countries they are left to the wisdom of an un- 
 married Abbess, whose education in a nunnery precludes 
 all experience of the world, assisted in her difficulties by 
 consulting with an unmarried confessor ! How various are 
 the customs of various countries ! But such as they are, 
 they are legalized and established. The laws of Roman 
 Catholic countries cover and overlay every thing. The 
 law establishes the rules of the convent. The law confirms 
 the authority of the superior. The law enforces the 
 obedience and submission of the sisters. The law compels 
 the seclusion of all. And when once a year, or perhaps 
 once in ten years, a Cardinal or Bishop visits the nunnery, 
 
with a view to a visitation of its moral and religious con- 
 dition, the evidence of any great scandal is suppressed as 
 far as possible, lest by being made known, it might cause 
 greater scandal to the Church at large, and to the convents 
 in particular. But notwithstanding all that is done to draw 
 a veil over every thing, there creep out, from time to time, 
 into the light of day, such things as would lead in England 
 to the violent assault and destruction of the whole estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 There is a secondary class of monasteries that differ in 
 many respects from these, and does not carry out the 
 principle of the clausura to the same extent. This class 
 is not so rigid. It is true that the same noviciate is re- 
 quired ; and on assuming the black veil, the same vows of 
 poverty, and celibacy, and obedience are taken. But still 
 there is not the same strictness of rule ; there is not the 
 same stern seclusion. There is more access to the visits of 
 female friends ; there is more intercourse with priests and 
 monks ; and some opportunity for private conversation. 
 And this arises out of the necessity of their rule. Their 
 rule requires in general, that the members of the sister- 
 hood shall devote themselves, at least to a certain extent, 
 to the extension of education and to the instruction of the 
 young. Some of these convents, therefore, lay themselves 
 out for the education of the higher classes. And young 
 ladies are received, sometimes as boarders and sometimes 
 as scholars, to be educated in all that is supposed to con- 
 stitute a polite and finished education, for their station in 
 society. Other ladies are received, lodged, and boarded, 
 when perhaps their natural protectors or parents are travel- 
 ling, or abroad ; and the salaries for these constitute a 
 portion of the revenues of the establishment. They are 
 
XXV 
 
 in fact, boarding-schools and boarding-houses for ladies. 
 They also receive young persons to prepare them by reli- 
 gious instruction, within the retired seclusion of the nun- 
 nery, for the rite of Confirmation — a rite always deemed 
 absolutely necessary before entering the field of society. 
 Some of these nunneries, however, are appropriated to the 
 laudable purpose of keeping schools for the gratuitous 
 education of the children of the poor. And this task is 
 undertaken by some of the nuns, upon whom it is imposed 
 by authority, which they cannot refuse ; so that this class 
 of nunneries, by the very fact of its being engaged in 
 education, is necessarily open to a certain amount of ob- 
 servation. Most of the nunneries in France, since the 
 Revolution, are of this class. The former, which were 
 more secluded and secret, and therefore more liable to 
 greater evils and abuses, were very generally, almost uni- 
 versally, exploded in that country. And the same obser- 
 vation is generally applicable to those established in 
 England ; they are generally connected, at least nominally, 
 with education. 
 
 But there is a vast number of this secondary class in 
 Italy and Spain, though less in the latter than formerly, 
 that take no trouble with the work of education, whether 
 of the higher classes or the lower. They are more 
 correctly, associations of ladies — sisterhoods, constituted 
 under the canons of the Church, and the laws of the 
 State ; who, under the name of *' religious houses," re- 
 ceive any who, from disappointed affections, or from some 
 romantic fancy, or from some incurable and distressing 
 disease, or from some blight or taint on the name or cha- 
 racter, or from being left orphans and unprotected, or 
 from being widowed and unprovided for, or from being too 
 
 b 
 
poor to marry in their own rank, or from being from any 
 cause unmarried or unmarriageable — who, from any of 
 these motives, desire to withdraw from a cold and unsmiling 
 world, in the hope of finding retirement and seclusion ; 
 and yet enough of society in the circle of the sisterhood. 
 These give themselves no trouble about education, or any- 
 thing of the kind, useful to themselves or profitable to 
 others. And after a little — a very little time, awake to 
 discover that they have entered on a course of life, full of 
 sameness, weariness, dulness, without any object of in- 
 terest ; and with the embittering consciousness that, having 
 taken the three vows, they must live on without hope, as 
 the laws, both of the Church and of the State, would 
 pursue them as sacrilegious criminals, if they attempted a 
 change. They took the three vows. It is legal sacrilege 
 to depart from them, and the utmost rigor of the law 
 would pursue them as guilty j and therefore their destiny 
 is sealed. They see and hear just enough of the outer 
 world, to make them sigh for its occasional variety, to 
 break the dull monotony of their conventual seclusion. 
 And were it not that, on their taking the black veil, they 
 parted necessarily with all their property, whatever they 
 might have had — were it not that they thus vowed poverty, 
 and made themselves hopeless and helpless, as being without 
 any means whatever of existence, without the walls of this 
 establishment — were it not for this, there would probably 
 at least nine out of every ten withdraw from the dull and 
 wearisome monotony of the convent. But the vow is taken 
 — poverty is the result. And thus escape from the convent, 
 while punishable as sacrilege, would expose the unhappy ad- 
 venturer to be hunted down by the police, as well as plunge 
 her in all the hopelessness and helplessness of poverty. 
 
XXV11 
 
 In England, indeed, she would not be pursued by the 
 police, but having parted with all her property — having 
 been induced in an evil hour, to sign it all away on taking 
 the veil — having thus left herself helpless, what could or 
 would become of her ? 
 
 This vow respecting poverty is the most ingenious, and 
 subtle, and politic, of all the arrangements of the con- 
 ventual system. It brings, in a gradually-increasing stream, 
 into the convent, and so into the Church of Rome, all the 
 property possessed by every inmate. And as each inmate 
 dies, their property still remains, so as to constitute an 
 ever-increasing mine of wealth for the priests and monks 
 of Rome. And besides this, the vow of poverty strips the 
 individual of all independence, so as to render them per- 
 fectly helpless, and entirely dependent on the convent. 
 So far is this carried, that the very food they eat and even 
 the clothes they wear, are obliged to be supplied by the 
 funds of the establishment, as no nun can possess for her- 
 self the least possible amount of property ; thus reducing 
 her, however wealthy before, to a state of complete depen- 
 dence. She may have entered the nunnery with ^685,000, 
 but from the moment she has taken the black veil, she is 
 a dependent upon that nunnery for the bread she eats, and 
 for the clothes she wears. Such is the system. 
 
 The vow of poverty, however, is widely different in 
 reality from that whichit nominally appears to be. It requires 
 the person to surrender or part with all her possessions — to 
 retain nothing whatever ; and then, to use the favorite 
 phrase, " to accept the Lord as their portion." But, 
 although this vow seems to ensure an inheritance of poverty 
 to the person who takes it, yet it is to be recollected that 
 such an one, though poor as the most wretched of the 
 b2 
 
xxvm 
 
 children of poverty, so far as the individual is considered 
 solely and privately, yet the vow does not extend to her 
 corporate capacity. As an individual, she may be poor 
 indeed, stripped of all she once possessed, and now with 
 nothing whatever she can claim as her own. Yet as a 
 member of the sisterhood — as the member of a monastic 
 corporation, she may be one of the wealthiest in the world ; 
 and may live in the indulgence of every sense, and in the 
 enjoyment of every luxury : not indeed at her own choice, 
 but if such should be the taste of the abbess, or the prac- 
 tice of the convent. The individual nun must part with 
 all she has of her own. She must share it equally with 
 the members of the sisterhood ; she can never more 
 resume it ; they have now as much inheritance in it as 
 herself. And thus the nunnery may be a mine of wealth, 
 and the very altar of the worshippers of luxury, while the 
 individual nun may possess nothing she can call her own. 
 The convent may be rich ; the nun must be poor. 
 
 The nunnery, being thus enriched by frequent acquisi- 
 tions, soon becomes possessed of wealth far beyond right 
 or reasonable limits. The surplus, over and beyond what 
 is requisite for the establishment itself, may thus, and is 
 usually thus appropriated to establish and extend the 
 system by founding and endowing affiliated nunneries to be 
 conducted under the same rule. And sometimes, in case 
 the exigences of the Pontifical government require it, this 
 surplus is applied by the command of the Supreme Pontiff 
 to the passing necessities of the Church, or in more pre- 
 cise language, to the expenditure of the officials of the 
 Papal court. It is sometimes applied to the propagation 
 of Romanism, among all within reach of the influence of 
 the convent. The secular governments, as those of France, 
 
XXIX 
 
 Austria, Tuscany, Sardinia, Spain, &c, have frequently 
 confiscated and seized this superfluous wealth. 
 
 On the continent, where the convents are intended 
 mainly as a sort of retreat, or pension, or boarding-house 
 for the poor and portionless daughters of the noble and 
 middle classes, this wealth is seldom exorbitant as derived 
 through the admission of members. Ladies there are 
 seldom possessed of such large fortunes as to be in that 
 respect a very great object to the priests and monks of the 
 Church of Borne. And when a revenue is acquired by 
 any means, as by endowments made on death-beds in the 
 hope of being prayed out of purgatory, it very soon finds 
 its way to the officials of the Papal court. But in England, 
 the great object of nunneries is to lay themselves out for 
 obtaining a grasp of the vast wealth of this land, and so 
 using it as to enrich and endow the priesthood of the 
 Church of Borne. Everything is done to entrap and 
 ensnare those who are known to be entitled to large 
 possessions. And persons in all other respects unsuited 
 to the life of the cloister, are craftily beset and subtilly 
 allured within the meshes of the system, every art is prac- 
 tised to work on the romance of youth, and on the disap- 
 pointments of young hopes. Their ample possessions are 
 the precious object to be secured at every pains, and the 
 unhappy individual who, before profession and taking the 
 veil, seemed to be everything in the nunnery, the very life 
 and soul of the veiled sisterhood, is now, if the profession 
 and the veil is taken, regarded as a mere nothing — as no 
 more than any other, and perhaps only as an useless incum- 
 brance, to be shipped off as soon as convenient to one of 
 those poor and wretched establishments on the continent, 
 where something more than nominal poverty is experienced, 
 
XXX 
 
 and where the unhappy nun, now no longer flattered, 
 praised, admired, or loved, because no longer useful, is 
 made to experience in all its verity and bitterness, the 
 nature of the vow of poverty. The monks and priests 
 have secured the jewels, and the casket they fling as useless 
 away. 
 
 And this vow ministers to this very end. It must never 
 be supposed that they imagine that any special virtue, or 
 grace, or holiness, is necessarily attached to poverty. 
 Their definition of poverty in relation to such vows is the 
 absence of personal and private wealth. And when they 
 have induced any one to vow and embrace the profession of 
 poverty — to part with that which, in a world like this, 
 gave them independence — to make themselves the mere 
 dependents on the superior of the convent ; — when they 
 have done this they have succeeded in one great object 
 they have in view. As long as the person was possessed 
 of wealth, she was independent of the superior ; but when 
 in an evil hour she was induced to part with her wealth, 
 she then immediately became a helpless dependent on the 
 will of the superior. And once reduced to this state of 
 mere dependence, she can be broken or moulded into any 
 thing, or any tool, or any character, that may be desired 
 for the interest of the establishment. She becomes, or 
 she is made, the very abject and slave of the superior ; or 
 she pines and withers and dies ; her hopes have been blasted, 
 her heart has been broken, — she dies a maniac. 
 
 The unfeeling heartlessness of all connected with the 
 case so lately and prominently before the world, is the 
 truest illustration of the system. A young and gentle 
 lady, one whose orphanage, without a father to shield her, 
 or a mother to cherish her, might well be expected to 
 
XXXI 
 
 awaken every high and chivalrous feeling in her behalf, 
 has been made the victim of priestly intrigue and monkish 
 falsehood. And Peers, and Peeresses, and Bishops, and 
 Priests, and Abbesses, have all combined to ensnare that 
 helpless orphan within the walls of a nunnery, and to 
 prevail on her to renounce her fortune of 5685,000 into 
 the hands of the priests and monks of the Church of 
 Rome. That they have failed is owing to no want of 
 subtlety or absence of intrigue on their part, but to the 
 manly and chivalrous feeling of the people of England. 
 They would not permit this sacrifice on the altars of 
 Moloch, and they invoked in her behalf the free laws of 
 our country. 
 
 But if the intrigue had succeeded, her immediate destiny 
 would have been a nunnery in England, and her ultimate 
 destiny a nunnery on the continent. 
 
 This is an evil inseparably connected with these nun- 
 neries, whether of the principal or secondary class, even in 
 England — an evil little known or thought of by an un- 
 thinking world, but one of intense interest and importance, 
 and one demanding the immediate interposition of the 
 legislature. It is this. When a nun is located in England, 
 she has, in the protection of her free institutions, some 
 chance of escape. Every house in the land would be open 
 to receive her. And there are instances, even in the 
 history of the modern nunneries of England, where an 
 individual, whose religious impressions underwent a change, 
 succeeded in making her escape by flight before the supe- 
 rior was able to place her altogether under restraint. And 
 even where this is impracticable, so long as she has friends, 
 it is still within the sphere of possibility, that some of 
 them may find means to learn her wishes — to sympathise 
 
XXX11 
 
 with her feelings — to apply for a writ of habeas corpus, 
 and compel her release. But all this is applicable only so 
 long as the nun is retained in England. The. evil is, that 
 the moment she is suspected, or if she has proved refrac- 
 tory, or if she has shown a change of religious feeling, or 
 if she has attempted to escape, she is immediately placed 
 under restraint till measures can be taken to remove her 
 to some affiliated convent on the continent, thereby pre- 
 cluding the possibility of the free institutions of England 
 interfering — thereby placing her in lands where the eccle- 
 siastical laws justify any and every species of restraint, 
 and surrounding her by circumstances that secure her a 
 prisoner and a victim for life. 
 
 An example will illustrate this. 
 
 A few years since, a circumstance came to light which 
 seemed to involve a nun in one of the convents of the west 
 of Ireland in a swindling transaction, as least so far as 
 being a party to a fraudulent attempt to obtain goods from 
 a tradesman. It was soon ascertained that she was thus 
 implicated, in connection with a priest, for whom she had 
 conceived an attachment. The scandal which the exposure 
 of this, if once made public, was calculated to bring upon 
 the convent, led to the following device. The nun, uncon- 
 scious of what was intended, was induced to go on board 
 a merchant-vessel about to sail for Spain. To induce her 
 to this, and to disarm her of all suspicion, she was accom- 
 panied by the priest to whom she was attached. And 
 wholly unconscious of the intrigue of which she was the 
 unhappy victim, she sailed to Spain — was left in a Spanish 
 nunnery — and her family never heard of her again ! 
 
 Another fact may be added. 
 
 Another circumstance- of the same kind occurred in a 
 
XXX111 
 
 nunnery in the neighbourhood of Dublin. One of the 
 nuns formed an attachment for a remarkably handsome 
 priest, who had frequent access to the establishment, as 
 there was connected with it a school for girls who were 
 taught by the nuns. The moral character of the priest 
 was not high in public estimation. And, to prevent a 
 public exposure, the nun must be removed. She was 
 quite unconscious of the intrigue of which she was the 
 destined victim. She was induced to pay a visit to France, 
 to visit another establishment of the same order there. 
 And she had the less reluctance to undertake the journey, 
 as it was to be performed under the guardianship and in 
 the company of the very priest, her attachment to whom 
 was thus leading to her exile ! She was immediately placed 
 in a continental nunnery, where her destiny is unknown. 
 
 These cases, though possibly very unusual in their cha- 
 racter, are mentioned to shew the profound and refined 
 subtilty of intrigue that could suggest the removal of these 
 nuns in the company of the persons for whom they had 
 formed so unhappy an attachment, — thus making that 
 very attachment instrumental towards the success of the 
 design. All regard to the immorality of the transaction, 
 and the unfeeling heartlessness of the instrumentality, was 
 lost in the supposed necessity of freeing the convent from 
 public exposure. There are other cases, in some degree 
 less objectionable, but still resulting in the deportation of 
 nuns to the continent. 
 
 An instance will best illustrate this. 
 
 The daughter of a clergyman in the south of England, 
 
 became a proselyte to' the Church of Rome. She was placed 
 
 as a boarder in a nunnery near London. While there, or 
 
 anywhere in this free land, she might be within reach of her 
 
 b 
 
XXXIV 
 
 parents and friends, and any revival of the faith in which, 
 from her early and loving childhood, she had been educated, 
 might immediately be made known and bring assistance 
 from loved and loving friends ; and she could secure the 
 comforts of home on abandoning the convent. The mo- 
 ment she became of age -they induced her, on some pre- 
 tence, to go with them to the continent ; and she is now 
 an inmate of a nunnery abroad, where the freedom of 
 English institutions is no longer within her reach, and 
 where time alone can reveal her destinies, She is now 
 said to be a " teacher of English," and time alone can tell 
 to what state they may reduce her. 
 
 Another instance may be given. 
 
 The daughter of a gentleman residing in the vicinity of 
 London, had become a convert to the Church of Rome. 
 She joined a nunnery as a boarder, and resided there for a 
 short time. The grief of the parents at the secession of a 
 beloved and only daughter, had some alleviation in the 
 hope, that as she was still in England, she was in a land of 
 safety and freedom, and where they might live in prayer 
 and faith that she might in time change her mind, with- 
 draw from the convent, and be restored to their arms. 
 But the Sisterhood soon induced her to visit the continent 
 with some of themselves, and they have left her there, 
 where her parents can never see her more, and where they 
 can never know, except by sufferance, whether she is dead 
 or alive, and where, at all events, she never more can escape. 
 It is only in the secrets of heaven to make known what 
 may yet be the destiny — perhaps the degraded and polluted 
 destiny — of this young creature trained in the lap of luxury 
 and comfort, and once breathing the pure and moral atmos- 
 phere of an English home. 
 
XXXV 
 
 These instances are stated to illustrate an important 
 fact, namely, that young persons when placed in nunneries 
 in this country, though supposed to be perfectly safe 
 under the broad segis of our laws, even within the iron 
 gratings and massive gates of a nunnery, are liable at any 
 moment, and for any purpose, to be removed beyond the 
 pale of our free and protective institutions, and may be 
 placed, not only without the sanction, but even without the 
 knowledge of parents or friends, in some conventual es- 
 tablishment in Italy or in Spain, or Syria, where any change 
 of religious opinions would be punished as heresy; where 
 any attempt at escape would be punishable as that of a 
 convicted felon, and where flight would expose her to be 
 hunted down by the police as eagerly as a murderess. 
 Once removed from the shores of England, an impene- 
 trable mystery may shroud her future. She may be placed 
 in those nunneries which profess education, and she may 
 then hope at the best to be a teacher of English, or 
 she may be reduced by the command of the Abbess to be 
 the mere serving-drudge — the chamber-maid — the laundress 
 — the scullion of the nunnery ; or worse than all, she may 
 be placed in those nunneries, where all is so shrouded in 
 secrecy, that were every vice of earth or crime of hell — 
 were every degrading propensity and ruffian violence rife 
 within the walls, as in the Spanish nunneries before the 
 French invasion, and as in the Tuscan nunneries at the 
 beginning of this century, — it could never be heard, and 
 injured innocence and ruined purity must live and die un- 
 pitied and unknown. 
 
 And is there no remedy for this ? None ! If once the 
 hapless girl, full of life and youth, and poetry and romance, 
 have taken the fatal and irrevocable vows, of which one is 
 
XXXVI 
 
 the vow of implicit and unhesitating obedience to the 
 superior, she must be ready to change her domicile at 
 any moment. And although the Abbess and the Con- 
 fessor may for their own purposes, intrigue so as to make 
 her change seem to be her own act, and with her own con- 
 sent, yet whether willing or unwilling, her removal, if de- 
 sirable, is certain and inevitable. She is removed. She 
 breathes no more the free atmosphere of England, and 
 lives and droops, and withers and dies, in some foreign nun- 
 nery ; perhaps pining away in hopeless sorrow at her sad 
 destiny ; perhaps bound in chains a raving maniac at her 
 fearful wrongs ; perhaps scourged or starved to death as a 
 refractory heretic in the dungeon-cell, or perhaps worse 
 than all — but we forbear to name it, — 
 
 It is the duty of parents in England to shield their chil- 
 dren from this. It is the province of the Legislature of 
 England to enact a remedy against the possibility of this. 
 And yet we see not how any remedy can be found, for even 
 if magisterial visitation were established, it could not bring 
 back and restore the departed nun. Some Bishop Hen- 
 dren would be found to swear, on his own knowledge, that 
 she went of her own voluntary choice to some convent in 
 Spain. Some Bishop Doyle would be brought forward 
 swearing that she never went at all, and was still under his 
 protection. And then some Abbess like Miss Jerningham, 
 would make affidavit that they both were right, for that 
 the nun had been nominally under the protection of one 
 in England, but really was located in a nunnery in Spain, 
 having been unwilling to leave the protection of one, but- 
 being afterwards persuaded to be willing to pay a visit to a 
 sister-establishment of Spain. Among them it would be 
 as difficult to ascertain the real facts as to a deportation, as 
 
xxxvii 
 
 in the case of Miss Talbot, to ascertain the truth as to her 
 postulancy. Lawyers -would have arguments enough on 
 all sides ; and judges and chancellors would confess them- 
 selves in a wilderness of douht. 
 
 And yet it is said to be a maxim in our laws, that there 
 can be no wrong without a remedy. To prevent by one 
 decisive enactment the establishment of any convents in 
 this land, would be the only remedy to meet this and all 
 the evils of the conventual system. But such an enact- 
 ment might seem to infringe too much on the great prin- 
 ciple of civil and religious liberty. And therefore we are 
 left to suggest such measures, as would not infringe on 
 that great principle, and yet would go far towards creating 
 a remedy for the wrongs and evils of the system. 
 
 I. The first remedial measure — and one that all right 
 and good feeling will dictate — is Visitation. Every " reli- 
 gious house " should be open to the public eye, not indeed 
 for every one to enter to satisfy an ill-regulated curiosity, 
 or to feed a controversial antipathy, but open to the legal 
 and formal visitation of all magistrates and justices of the 
 peace. It is not permitted in this land that an asylum, 
 public or private, for the reception or cure of lunatics, 
 should receive any person unless with certain certificates 
 to justify them, and unless with license making them liable 
 to be visited by the magistracy, to see that no person is 
 wrongly detained, under pretence or excuse of lunacy, 
 and to ensure that no person is unduly confined, or ill- 
 treated. If, therefore, any person has been fraudulently 
 entrapped, it is soon ascertained, or if he has been sub- 
 jected to starvation, or cruelty of any kind, it soon comes 
 to light. There is no knowing the frauds and the crimes 
 that might otherwise be perpetrated in these asylums, if 
 
xxxvm 
 
 they were not liable to -visitation. The same regulation 
 ought to be established in reference to convents. They 
 should be made subject to visitation at any moment by the 
 magistrates and justices of the peace. And it should be 
 their duty to see that no female whatever was detained 
 within the convent against her own will. This regulation 
 would not be inconsistent with due religious liberty, being 
 justified by the example of some Roman Catholic nations. 
 In Mexico, where the whole population was Roman 
 Catholic, they established a law for the frequent visitation 
 of nunneries. Certain visitors arrive unexpectedly. They 
 demand admission peremptorily. They take each nun 
 separately into a private apartment, and question her as to 
 whether she has any cause of complaint, or whether she 
 wishes to withdraw from the nunnery. Being in posses- 
 sion of her wishes, they communicate them to no one, but 
 complete their visitation after a similar enquiry in the same 
 private way in reference to every individual in the esta- 
 blishment. And then they take the requisite measures 
 for removing instantly any persons who desire to withdraw, 
 and conveying them to their friends. As these visitations 
 are at all times, and often when least expected, there can 
 be no effectual concealment. And the number of nuns 
 who avail themselves of the opportunity of retreat is said 
 to be considerable, while the very fact of the convents 
 being liable to such visitation has gradually, since the 
 enactment of the law some twenty years ago, led to a 
 great improvement in the character of such establishments. 
 This system of visitation, if established in England, 
 would prevent young persons being entrapped by those, 
 whose object it is to secure their property. It would 
 prevent their being exposed to those lingering deaths in 
 
XXXIX 
 
 semi- starvation and the underground-cells, to which they 
 are sometimes consigned. And it would ensure them 
 freedom and protection whenever they desired to withdraw. 
 II. But no visitation can avail without a further enact- 
 ment which will make every "religious house" liable for 
 the support of every nun who may desire to leave it — such 
 support not exceeding the amount of pension or dowry she 
 brought to the establishment. The necessity for this 
 enactment arises out of the vow of poverty which every nun 
 must take at her profession. In compliance with this 
 vow, she is obliged to sign away by deed either to the 
 nunnery, or to the Church, or some other institution, all and 
 every property she may be entitled to or possess. This 
 places her in a state of perfect and complete dependence. 
 And though on entering the convent she may have 
 possessed .3685,000, yet, if in one month afterwards she 
 withdrew or escaped, she would not possess one shilling for 
 her support ; and if she had no friends willing to receive 
 a runaway nun, she would have no recourse but exchang- 
 ing the nunnery for the poorhouse ! The parish would be 
 liable for her support, while the convent which entrapped 
 her was in possession of all her former wealth. Without 
 some enactment of this kind, making the convent either 
 disgorge the property — be it much or be it little — which it 
 received on the profession of the individual nun, or become 
 liable to an income for her support equivalent to that which 
 she brought with her — without something of this kind, a 
 visitation of the nunneries will be little, and a securing a 
 means of departure will be comparatively little. In many 
 instances the nunneries would gladly get rid of many of 
 their nuns. It not unfrequently happens, that they send 
 them to the foreign nunneries of the lowest and cheapest 
 
xl 
 
 kind, merely to get rid of them. They have secured all 
 their property, and care no more to retain them. Having 
 secured possession of j£85,000 — having so secured it that 
 it can never more be demanded of them — they will be 
 ready enough to fling wide their doors, and let the plucked 
 and defrauded bird take wing and flee away ; — the only 
 drawback is the fear of scandal by the exposure. And 
 then how is the deceived and plundered — the young and 
 inexperienced, here to live ? It is this more than anything 
 else that prevents a larger number of nuns attempting- and 
 effecting their escape. And a law ought to be enacted for 
 their protection, to the effect that whatever was the 
 amount of pension or dowry brought by the nun to the 
 nunnery, should be held payable, or its equivalent, to her 
 whenever she left it ; or at least that in any, and every such 
 instance, a provision should be made for her support, and 
 " the religious house" held liable for its payment. 
 
 An enactment like this, would give courage and comfort 
 to the nuns, ensuring them of an adequate support, when, 
 in reply to the inquiries of the visitation, they wished to 
 express a desire to withdraw from the nunnery, the vow of 
 poverty being imposed, not under the idea of any peculiar 
 sanctity in poverty, but with the view of making the nun 
 hopelessly and helplessly dependent on the managers of the 
 nunnery in all her after-life. 
 
 III. — Another law should deal with and regulate the 
 amount of pension or dowry to be brought to the convent. 
 It is very probable that any legislative enactment on such a 
 subject would be examined by astute lawyers, and dealt 
 with by unscrupulous priests, in order to find and practice 
 a way to evade it. It is more than probable, that while 
 a comparatively small sura, say j6500 or ^5000, would be 
 
xli 
 
 secured to the convent according as the provisions of such 
 an enactment might require or permit, yet the remaining 
 ^680,000 would be signed away to other and congenial 
 objects. Such an enactment, therefore, should be based on 
 the principle of the Tuscan law, that any property pos- 
 sessed by the nun over and beyond the amount required for 
 the pension or dowry, should revert to the heirs at law, as 
 if the nun were civilly dead. An enactment thus specify- 
 ing the amount requisite to secure reception in the esta- 
 blishment, and granting all property over and beyond this, 
 to the heir at law, would take away from the mana- 
 gers of convents and from the priests of Rome, all incen- 
 tive to impose on credulous and unsuspicious youth with 
 the view of trepanning them for the sake of their wealth 
 into their nunneries ; and it would at the same time prove 
 a very effectual statute of mortmain. The property of 
 the laity would not pass so rapidly into the hands of the 
 ecclesiastics ; and the Church of Rome would have a less 
 mighty hold upon the property of the country. 
 
 It is very true, that even this could be evaded, and would 
 be evaded, by inducing the novice, before her full profes- 
 sion, to dispose of all her property to affiliated objects ; 
 thus coming to her profession as one who had previously 
 parted with all, and was now no longer possessed of pro- 
 perty. The necessity for some measure by which this, 
 which even now is the usual arrangement or method of 
 procedure, might be prevented, is imminent. A.nd the 
 object would be effected, by rendering null and void any 
 act, or deed, or assignment of property, which was made 
 after the commencement of the noviciate or postulancy, in 
 case such noviciate or postulancy was followed by profes- 
 sion. This would effectually preclude the present system 
 
xlii 
 
 by which the fortunes of the young and inexperienced and 
 unsuspicious, are entrapped, and secured to the object of 
 the Church of Rome. And if thus the convents could 
 receive no more than was fairly and reasonably necessary 
 for the support of the nun, as for any other boarder in the 
 establishment — and if the priest could not touch any 
 overplus that might remain, and which ought to revert to 
 the heir at law, it would remove from both the convent and 
 the priests the temptation of deceiving and ensnaring 
 young and unsuspecting girls, for the sake of plundering 
 them of their property under the pretence of saving their 
 souls. 
 
 IV. But there is another measure, simple and natural in 
 itself, and strictly consistent with the analogies of the 
 Church of Rome herself — a measure that if enacted, would 
 go far towards supplying a remedy forall the evils. At pre- 
 sent it is the law of this land, that no man shall be capable 
 of full ordination till he has arrived at the full age of 24 
 years, and that he cannot even commence his diaconate 
 till 23 years of age. In the Church of Rome a similar 
 regulation is established. If the same rule were applied 
 to the conventual life, it would have the effect of prevent- 
 ing the noviciate or postulancy commencing before the 
 person was 23 years of age, and of requiring the age of 24 
 years, before the full profession could be made, or, in the 
 case of nuns, before the taking of the black veil. At such 
 an age all persons would know or at least might know the 
 nature of the step they were taking, and would be able to 
 form some judgment as to the world they were leaving — 
 the friends they were parting — from the independence they 
 were flinging away — the ties they were renouncing — the 
 vows they were assuming and the life they were commencing ; 
 
xliii 
 
 and it would rescue for ever the Priests and the Abbesses 
 of the Church of Rome, from the painful and loathsome 
 position of being liable to the suspicion of beguiling and 
 trepanning the young, confiding, weak, unsuspicious girl, 
 at the very moment perhaps when some disappointed 
 affection or romantic fancy of her girlish nature, had 
 made her more weak and unsuspicious than ever. 
 
 Nor would a law like this be altogether without pre- 
 cedent. There was such a regulation in this country before 
 the Reformation ; though it evidently was often violated. It 
 appears from the instructions given to the commissioners 
 for the visitation of monasteries under Henry VIII., that he 
 desired them to see whether this regulation had been duly 
 observed. Such a law, therefore, would not be against any 
 essential principle of the Church of Rome, especially as 
 the regulations respecting the age for becoming nuns varies 
 in various countries. In England it is twenty-one — in 
 Italy it is sixteen. At this moment there is a measure 
 before the legislature of Piedmont, proposing to enact 
 that the Italian regulation as to age shall be conformable 
 to that of England ; thus shewing that in Roman Catholic 
 countries the age for the noviciate and the profession, is 
 not thought beyond the proper sphere of legislative regu- 
 lation. And, indeed, they have gone further than this in 
 France. So keenly and bitterly did they feel the evils of 
 the old conventual system, by which the young and inex- 
 perienced were forced or entrapped into vows before they 
 knew their full consequence, and confined and imprisoned 
 for life within the walls of convents without hope of escape, 
 that they have enacted that no vow can be taken for a 
 longer period than five years. They may then renew 
 
xliv 
 
 them or withdraw. If France can legislate on the subject, 
 why may not England interpose ? 
 
 If nunneries are to be permitted in England, it may at 
 least be demanded that they be subject to such visitation 
 and such regulation as may ensure the freedom of every 
 inmate, as well as to secure to her the use of her own 
 property ; and at the same time prevent her removal from 
 this country — at least without her own consent, freely 
 given in the presence of one of the judges of the land — 
 [even as the consent of married women is now required to 
 be given in reference to some arrangements of property] ; 
 that she may not be removed from the protection of our 
 free institutions, and consigned to some of those close and 
 secret convents on the continent, where she becomes too 
 often the captive of the cell or the victim of vice. 
 
 M. H. S. 
 
THE TALBOT CASE. 
 
 " It is well that their conduct should be denounced, because it is well just 
 now that the practical meaning of their creed should be brought home to the 
 understanding of every man ; and what is of more importance, of every woman 
 throughout the country." — Times, March 31. 
 
 The Hon. George Henry Talbot, half-brother of the 
 present Earl of Shrewsbury, married, on the 6th of April, 
 1829, Miss Augusta Jones St. Paul, daughter of Sir 
 Horace St. Paul, Bart., and died on the 11th of June, 
 1839, leaving two children, John Talbot and Augusta 
 Talbot, the former born on Jan. 18, 1830, the latter on 
 June 5, 1831. 
 
 Mr. Talbot was a Romanist, and his lady a Protestant. 
 No stipulation, however, was made in the marriage-settle- 
 ment, or in any other manner, as to the faith in which the 
 children of the marriage should be educated. 
 
 For reasons which reflected not the slightest discredit 
 upon Mrs. Talbot, a separation took place in 1833, and by 
 the deed of separation it was stipulated that John Talbot 
 should remain with his father, but that his mother should 
 have the liberty of seeing him, and that Augusta Talbot 
 
 B 
 
should — until she attained her 10th year — continue under 
 the sole care and management of her mother. 
 
 Mr. George Keates Corfield had been for ten years and 
 upwards, Mr. Talbot's private solicitor ; but about May, 
 1838, as we learn from that gentleman's affidavit, made in 
 the course of the recent proceedings, a temporary estrange- 
 ment took place between them in consequence of his re- 
 monstrances with Mr. Talbot upon the impropriety of his 
 conduct, and his endeavours to bring about a reconciliation 
 between him and Mrs. Talbot. This estrangement lasted 
 but a short time, for at the end of July their friendly 
 intercourse was renewed ; and Mr. Corfield, we have reason 
 to know, paid him all the attention and care of a brother 
 during the long and painful illness which terminated in his 
 death. Through his influence, also, the dying husband was 
 reconciled to his wife, and his last moments were soothed 
 by her presence. There had been an unhappy enmity 
 between the Earl of Shrewsbury and his deceased half- 
 brother ; but Mr. Talbot, taught by the approach of death, 
 the hollowness and wickedness of hatred and malice, would 
 gladly have thrown the veil of oblivion over the past ; his 
 Lordship, however, rejected the olive-branch of peace, and 
 the dying man asked for a visit for mutual forgiveness, but 
 asked in vain. 
 
 During the temporary difference between Mr. Talbot 
 and Mr. Corfield, the Rev. Thomas Doyle — since more 
 notorious as Dr. Doyle, the pseudo-bishop of Southwark — 
 evinced no small degree of interest in Mr. Talbot's affairs. 
 
 We know not whether he had ever attempted to bring 
 about any reconciliation ; but we learn from Mr. Corfield's 
 affidavit, that on the 10th of June, 1838, and for the 
 
above reason, of course without the knowledge of Mr. 
 Corfield, he induced Mr. Talbot to make his will, which 
 was as follows : — 
 
 "In the name of God, Amen. I George Henry TalboL, com- 
 monly called the Honourable George Talbot, being of sound 
 mind and judgment, do hereby will and bequeath all my per- 
 sonal property to the Rev. Thomas Doyle, of the Catholic 
 Chapel, London Road, Southwark, in the County of Surrey ; 
 and do hereby also appoint him the Rev. Thomas Doyle, to 
 be the sole and entire guardian of my children, namely John 
 Talbot, and Augusta Talbot, and I do further appoint him the 
 said Rev. Thomas Doyle, to be the sole executor of my last 
 will and testament." 
 
 The wards- of this testamentary guardian were entitled 
 under the will of the late Charles, Earl of Shrewsbury, to 
 two sums of 30,000Z., contingently upon their attaining 21 
 years of age, or, in the case of the female, upon her mar- 
 riage ; with a gift over to the present Earl of Shrewsbury, 
 in the event of their dying under age, and as to Augusta 
 Talbot, unmarried. 
 
 The Romish Church, which ever and anon parades its 
 claim to supremacy in the guise of humility — " the seal of 
 the fisherman" being affixed to the most insolent and 
 audacious usurpations of power — whether temporal or spi- 
 ritual — on the ground that St. Peter was the first bishop 
 ofrRome (although that is a fact by no means clear) —with 
 strange inconsistency terms marriage a sacrament, and 
 denies to the priesthood its happiness and privileges ; 
 anathematizing, with the utmost virulence, all who follow 
 the example of St. Peter, St. James, and St. John, the 
 brethren of our Lord — each of whom, as we learn from 
 B 2 
 
St. Paul, was married.* One of the sophisms by which this 
 mischievous law of celibacy is upheld, is — that by avoiding 
 the social ties of domestic life, their minds are abstracted 
 from secular cares and pursuits. A testamentary guardian 
 is clothed by law with all the authority and power of a 
 parent ; but Dr. Doyle felt no reluctance in assuming 
 the quasi-parental charge of these two wealthy minors. 
 Of course it was as unexpected as the scarlet hat to Dr. 
 Wiseman. 
 
 As we have mentioned, Mr. Talbot died the 1 1 th of 
 June, 1839 ; and on the 5th of July, a fortnight before 
 the commencement of the holidays, John Talbot was 
 removed by Dr. Doyle from school to Alton Towers, the 
 seat of the Earl of Shrewsbury. In his affidavit, made 
 March 29, 1851, he states :— 
 
 " It was the dying wish of Mr. Talbot, that he should con- 
 sult the Earl of Shrewsbury, in every respect as to his children." 
 
 What is meant by dying wish, we know not : for Dr. 
 Doyle was undoubtedly not present at his death ; and both 
 Mr. Corfield and Dr. Greaves, state most positively upon 
 oath, that he never would have allowed either of his chil- 
 dren to have been placed under the care of the Earl of 
 Shrewsbury. 
 
 Mrs. Talbot took immediate steps to make her children 
 wards of court,* hoping there to find some protection 
 from the cold, unsympathetic Dr. Doyle, whose authority 
 
 * See 1 Cor. ix. 5 ; Matt. viii. 14. 
 * The law of this country has reserved to the king as parens patrite, 
 the prerogative for the protection of infants. This jurisdiction is exercised 
 by the court of Chancery. — See Spencers Equitable Jurisdiction of fhe 
 Court of Chancery, vol. i. p. 614. 
 
was likely to be enforced with the less delicacy because 
 she was a Protestant and he a Romish priest. Then Dr. 
 Doyle filed a bill for the same purpose, and on the 15th of 
 August, 1839, and on the 23rd of August, 1839, two peti- 
 tions came before the Lord Chancellor Cottenham — one 
 from the Rev. Dr. Doyle, praying that John Talbot should 
 be allowed to reside with his uncle, the Earl of Shrewsbury, 
 and be educated under his inspection, visiting the continent 
 of Europe with him, &c, under the direction of the 
 Rev. Dr. Doyle ; the other from the infants by their next 
 friend, Sir Horace St. Paul, Bart., praying that Loru 
 Shrewsbury and the Rev. Dr. Doyle might be restrained, 
 from taking the children, or either of them, out of the 
 jurisdiction of the court; that John Talbot might be 
 allowed to reside with his mother, or that, if it were expe- 
 dient, he should return to school, and he might be allowed 
 to visit her, and that he should spend his holidays with 
 her; and that Augusta Talbot might remain under her 
 mother's care, and that it should be referred to the 
 Master, to draw up a scheme for the maintenance of the in- 
 fants, and the superintendence of their education, " regard 
 being had to the just claims of the petitioners to visit their 
 mother, and reside with her at all convenient times, and to 
 the necessity of cultivating those natural feelings of affec- 
 tion which existed between the petitioners and their mother, 
 and also to their present condition in life, and future pros- 
 pects." This part of the reference was in consequence of 
 it appearing that the brother and sister had not met for 
 two years, and that John Talbot had not been allowed to 
 spend any portion of the midsummer holidays with his 
 mother. 
 
The Vice-chancellor heard the case, and pronounced 
 an order on the 28th of August, 1839 ; but the Lord 
 Chancellor re-heard it on the 17th of September, in the 
 same year, and then ordered that John Talbot should 
 be allowed to reside and travel with the Earl of Shrews- 
 bury, and that his mother should be allowed " reason- 
 able access " to her son, at his lordship's residence. 
 The order was not actually drawn up until the 8th 
 of February, in the following year, but the Earl of 
 Shrewsbury forthwith acted upon it and took John Talbot 
 abroad. Meanwhile, Mrs. Talbot had married the Hon. 
 Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley. This marriage in no degree 
 lessened her maternal affection for her daughter, whom 
 she was anxious to retain at home, and desiring faithfully 
 to fulfil the arrangement with her deceased husband, 
 as to her religious education, in the month of October, 
 she communicated to Dr. Doyle her wish to engage as a 
 governess, Miss Croft, a lady who had been highly recom- 
 mended to her by the sister of Mr. Talbot, also a Roman 
 Catholic, and by a Roman Catholic clergyman. Already, 
 however, Dr. Doyle longed to exercise his power to separate 
 the mother and child. 
 
 He thus wrote to Mrs. Berkeley on the 19th of Nov. 
 1839:— 
 
 " My mind is decided on this point, that her education can 
 be better conducted according to my views in a respectable 
 public establishment, like New-hall or Spetisbury, where Lady 
 Harriet Searle and most of the Talbots have been educated, than 
 elsewhere. Miss Augusta requires much example from those 
 of her own age to bring her into docile and regular habits. 
 And I am decidedly of opinion that she should leave home, not 
 to be turned into the class-room regularly with the other young 
 
ladies, but to have her private governess with her, and to 
 attend occasionally the general instruction of the establish, 
 ment." 
 
 To this Mrs. Berkeley answered — 
 
 " I much regret to say that Augusta's health is by no means 
 established, as she is now under the hands of Dr. Barron, of 
 this place, and he assures me she requires the utmost care and 
 attention. Under these circumstances, I most decidedly decline 
 acceding to the arrangement you propose, of placing her at a 
 public school, as all the medical men under whose care she has 
 been concur in the opinion- that her health will not permit it. 
 If, after this letter, you still persist in your proposed plan, you 
 must apply to the Court of Chancery, for, without being com- 
 pelled to accede to your proposal by that Court, nothing else 
 shall induce me, as I am firmly persuaded that by so doing I 
 should be consigning my child to an early grave." 
 
 The Earl of Shrewsbury had a short time before this, 
 expressed his "views in a letter to Mr. C. Berkeley, dated 
 Sept. 17th, 1839. 
 
 " I have however never seen any reason why she should not 
 be educated under her mother's care, provided Mr. Doyle had 
 the appointment of, or at least a veto upon the appointment of 
 the governess. She might equally he paid by Mrs. Berkeley, 
 though of course all reasonable access must be allowed to Mr. 
 Doyle." 
 
 And to this proposition full assent had been given by Mr. 
 and Mrs. Berkeley. 
 
 Dr. Doyle however did apply to the Court of Chancery, 
 presenting a petition on the 13th of January, 1840, pray- 
 ing that Mr. and Mrs. Berkeley might be ordered to 
 deliver up the person of the infant Augusta to himself as 
 her guardian, and he then stated it to be his intention to 
 place her at Spetisbury with a private governess and servant, 
 
8 
 
 and with permission to spend her holidays with her mother. 
 This act of aggression (for so it appears to have been 
 considered by Mrs. Berkeley) on the part of the Bev. Dr. 
 Doyle, was met in a similar spirit, by a petition on the 
 part of that lady, in the name of her children, praying, not 
 only that the entire care of the daughter, " regard being 
 had to her delicate state of health," should be given to the 
 mother, but also that " the son might be allowed unre- 
 stricted intercourse with, and be allowed to visit his mother 
 at her own residence, at reasonable and proper times," as 
 Mrs. Berkeley alleged that she had not been allowed 
 proper access to her son whilst he continued in England, 
 after the order of the 17th of September had been pro- 
 nounced ; the petition moreover prayed for a scheme as to 
 the education of John Talbot otherwise than by the Earl 
 and Countess of Shrewsbury, under the following peculiar 
 circumstances. By an act passed in the 6th George I., the 
 estates of the Duke of Shrewsbury were annexed inalienably 
 to the earldom of Shrewsbury, with limited powers of 
 leasing by the tenant for life. It was, however, provided, 
 
 " That no person nor the heirs male of the body of any person 
 to whom any estate of inheritance should come by force of the 
 act of Parliament, who should within six months after attaining 
 the age of eighteen years take the oaths appointed to be taken, 
 instead of the oaths of supremacy and allegiance by 1st. William 
 and Mary, c. 8., and also subscribe the declaration set 
 down and expressed in 14th. Charles II. c. 4., to be by him 
 or them made, repeated and subscribed in the Courts of 
 Chancery, or King's Bench, or Quarter Sessions of the county 
 where he or they should reside, and who should thenceforth con- 
 tinue a Protestant until he or they attained the age of twenty- 
 one years, should after he or they should attain the said age and 
 while he or they continued a Protestant, be disabled from alien- 
 
ating the estates, but might alien the same asfreely and abso- 
 lutely as if the act had never been made." 
 
 The petition stated — 
 
 " That the present Earl of Shrewsbury held the estates men- 
 tioned in the act of Parliament under the limitations therein 
 contained, and that he had no issue male, and that, in the 
 event of dying without issue, the infant petitioner, John Talbot, 
 would succeed to the title, and would also succeed under the act 
 of Parliament, to the estates before mentioned. It was intended 
 by the act that the infant John Talbot, should have an oppor- 
 tunity of exercising his private judgment, whether he should 
 become a Protestant at the age mentioned in the act of Parlia- 
 ment, and should afterwards continue a Protestant ; but that 
 Dr. Doyle and the Earl of Shrewsbury, under whose exclusive 
 power and control the petitioner was placed, were bound by the 
 obligations of conscience, as members of the Roman Catholic 
 persuasion, and were determined to educate the petitioner in 
 the religious tenets of the Church of Rome."* 
 
 Contradictory affidavits were filed as to the state of 
 health of Miss Talbot, but the Lord Chancellor was satis- 
 fied that she needed great and constant attention. He 
 further said — 
 
 " Then I have also an act of the father, which, though not 
 
 * By a private act of Parliament obtained in 1843, by the Earl of 
 Shrewsbury, the chief apparent purpose being to enable him to sell a por- 
 tion of his estates and invest the proceeds in the purchase of other estates, 
 the proviso enabling a Protestant heir to alienate was repealed ; so that 
 now one of the wealthiest peers holds his estates without any power of 
 alienation whatever, and, therefore, not chargeable with his debts. It be- 
 comes indeed practically a fief of the Pope, The granting to a Romanist 
 peer, a favour which has long since been taken away from the rest of her 
 Majesty's subjects, is only another instance of the flagrant impropriety of 
 the present system of legislation ; for we will undertake to say that not five 
 members of either house understood that this was the effect of the statute. 
 B 5 
 
10 
 
 binding, is entitled to the greatest attention, as being evidence 
 of his desire that the said infant should remain with her mother 
 until she should have attained a certain age, and of his confi- 
 dence that that would not be abused ; and that period has not 
 arrived. I rely upon that as evidence of the confidence he felt 
 that the child might up to that age remain in the custody of 
 the mother, and that she would pay that attention to the educa- 
 tion and health of the child which he desired. As to that the 
 testamentary guardian (Dr. Doyle) thinks that there should 
 be an alteration ; but I have a right to look at the opinions of 
 that gentleman himself ; for I know that, when he first took 
 upon himself to interfere, he did not think it necessary to take 
 the child out of the mother's care. If, therefore, he was of 
 that opinion in September, I must assume that he saw nothing 
 in the religious education or care of the child which was a 
 reason for interfering. It is perfectly clear that since that time 
 the event has taken place — it had, indeed, taken place before, 
 but was not known to me, and I believe not known to him — that 
 the mother had contracted marriage ; but there is nothing to 
 show that anything is likely to result from that circumstance to 
 prevent the child being as properly attended to as before." 
 
 His Lordship however, refused, to grant the prayer of 
 the petition as to John Talbot. After observing, that 
 as the expectant heir of the Earldom, it was most natural 
 for him to reside with the Earl of Shrewsbury, he said — 
 
 " As regards the faith in which the infant John Talbot was 
 to be brought up, his Lordship said, ' I have a Roman Catholic 
 parent appointing a Roman Catholic guardian, and I am asked 
 to interfere as to the religion of the child. I should also observe 
 that the father, in making his appointment, knew of the provi- 
 sions of the act of Parliament which has been referred to."* 
 
 Parents and daughters should ponder well this case, and 
 open their eyes betimes to the risk of future unhappiness 
 incurred by marriages with Romanists. Not only will the 
 
 * See 4 Mylne and Craig, 672. 
 
11 
 
 father have the almost absolute control over their educa- 
 tion during his life,* but by appointing a testamentary 
 guardian — especially if that guardian be a priest — the 
 wife and mother may be debarred from all opportunity of 
 forming those endearing associations between her children 
 and herself, which are the chief joy of the mother, and 
 soon will she become to them as though she were not. 
 
 His Lordship says : — 
 
 " I had considerable reason to believe that there was much 
 misapprehension in the mind of the mother, as to her rights as a 
 mother; and I thought it necessary to explain that, in point of 
 law, she had no power to control the power of the testamentary 
 guardian. It is proper that mothers of children thus circum- 
 stanced, should know that they have no right as such to inter- 
 fere with testamentary guardians, and if under the peculiar 
 circumstances, I think it proper now to leave the child in the 
 custody of the mother, it is not in respect of right in that 
 mother, but it is in consequence of that power which the court 
 has of controlling the power of testamentary guardians." 
 
 The principle here laid down is undoubted law — and 
 the difficulty of establishing a case sufficient to obtain the 
 removal of that guardian, will best be appreciated by the 
 perusal of the following pages. 
 
 Miss Talbot continued to reside with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Berkeley, until the death of that lady in April, 1841. Dr. 
 Doyle forthwith removed her from her deceased mother's 
 residence in Mansfield Street, and placed her in " The 
 Lodge," a Convent at Taunton, but without any private 
 governess or servant. We have already seen, that Dr. 
 Doyle had thought that the delicate child should not be 
 
 * At this moment it is said there are children in the Lodge at Taunton 
 directly against the will of their mother. 
 
12 
 
 " turned into the class-room ; " and Mrs. Berkeley had de- 
 precated that course, with all the earnestness of a mother's 
 fears. Miss Talbot's only brother was resident with the Earl 
 and Countess of Shrewsbury ; and Dr. Doyle tells us : — 
 
 " He never wished Miss Talbot to become a nun or to take 
 the veil, or to enter a religious life, by reason of her not being 
 in his judgment fitted for or called to that state." 
 
 The simple way to prevent this, would have been the cul- 
 tivation of home affections. Deprived of both her parents, 
 the society of her only brother would have been a solace and 
 delight, and the associations of early years spent together, 
 would have been of infinite value and pleasure to both.; 
 and had his life been spared, a brother's affectionate 
 counsels might have supplied the absence of parental 
 guidance. 
 
 In the first instance, Dr. Doyle acted in accordance with 
 these natural feelings ; for we learn from himself — 
 (Affidavit, March 29, 1851.) 
 
 " That on the death of the mother of the said Augusta Talbot, 
 in 1841, he requested the Countess of Shrewsbury to take charge 
 of the last-named infant; but that the said Countess intimated 
 that she was unable at that time to do so, but would do so at 
 any future period." 
 
 However, he soon preferred the conventual school, 
 without any private governess, the better perhaps to ensure 
 docile habits. (See his letter supra, 6.) 
 
 The following is the prospectus of 
 The Lodge, Taunton. 
 " The age of admission to 13 years old inclusive. 28 young 
 Ladies only are admitted. They must be children of Roman 
 Catholic parents. (Miss Talbot was not.) 
 
 " For hoard, washing, sheets, towels, stationary and school 
 books, 40 Guineas per annum ; half of which is always paid in 
 advance, and 2 Guineas entrance. 
 
13 
 
 " Education comprises the principles and practice of the 
 Catholic Religion, the English and French languages, History, 
 Geography, Writing, Arithmetic, plain and fine needle-work. 
 
 " Music, Drawing, Dancing, form separate charges ; each a 
 Guinea entrance. 
 
 *' Music, 7 Guineas per annum, for 2 lessons per week. 
 
 " Drawing, 6 Guineas per annum, 3 lessons per week. 
 
 "Dancing, 4 Guineas per annum. 
 
 " Other extras are clothes, making ditto ; wine if required ; 
 medical attendance, medicine, postage, pocket-money and all 
 casual expenses. 
 
 " Also the harp, guitar, singing, and the Italian language. 
 
 " A bill is sent half-yearly to parents or guardians. 
 
 " The uniform dress on Sundays, white muslin and blue sash ; 
 every day in summer, a gingham, procured at Taunton Lodge ; 
 in winter, a dark blue merino — straw bonnet trimmed with blue 
 ribbon — other articles of dress as each young lady may have 
 been accustomed to. No vacation, and no deduction is made 
 for absence if by way of indulgence— if absence is occasioned 
 by illness, a deduction is then made. If parents take their chil- 
 dren home, it can only be for a month once in the year. 
 
 " Three months warning is requisite previous to children 
 quitting school." 
 
 At this time the young lady's allowance was £540 ; and, 
 if all the extras had been included, £125 would have been 
 the outside expense. Dr. Doyle did not go to the court 
 for any direction, but we believe funded or accounted for 
 the balance not expended. As to the education at the 
 Lodge, we do not give an opinion ; but it is most note- 
 worthy that but for one month in the year was a pupil 
 allowed to be absent. Miss Augusta Talbot was, unhappily, 
 an orphan : no vacation could be spent at the residence 
 of her guardian ; and yet, as far as we can learn, during 
 the whole period of seven years, she visited Alton Towers 
 but once, and the sea-side (see infra 15) not once ; while the 
 
14 
 
 Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury once saw her at the 
 Convent. Was this treating her with common kindness ? 
 Was it acting like a parent towards one whose rank and 
 fortune destined her under ordinary circumstances to take 
 a distinguished position in society ? If indeed the Earl 
 and Countess of Shrewsbury had wished, what Dr. Doyle 
 says he did not, that she should in due course become a 
 nun, this cold indifference was well calculated to prejudice 
 her against life in the world. 
 
 Mr. C. Berkeley was dissatisfied with this proposed 
 mode of education ; but believing it to be a temporary 
 arrangement only, did not interfere until January 1843, 
 when he presented a petition for inquiry ; and we pray our 
 readers to weigh attentively all the circumstances under 
 which the order subsequently made upon that petition 
 was obtained, and then let them judge of the conduct of 
 Dr. Doyle, the testamentary guardian, the quasi-parent. 
 
 The petition prayed — 
 
 " That it might be referred to the Master to inquire and 
 report whether the convent was a fit and proper place for Miss 
 Talbot to be brought up at, regard being had to her fortune and 
 station, and her future prospects in life. The Master was also, 
 in the event of his finding that it was a fit and proper place, to 
 report what sum ought to be allowed for her future maintenance 
 and education of the said infant, Augusta Talbot, regard being 
 had to the prospectus and terms of the said convent, and if the 
 said Master should be of opinion that the said convent was not 
 a proper place at which the said infant, Augusta Talbot, ought 
 to be brought up and educated, then that the said Master might 
 be advised to settle and report to the court a scheme for the 
 future maintenance and education of the said infant, Augusta 
 Talbot." 
 
 Dr. Doyle, in his affidavit, April 19, 1840, stated, that 
 
15 
 
 Miss Talbot had been placed at the nunnery at the express 
 
 recommendation of the Countess of Shrewsbury, and he 
 
 also swore as follows : — 
 
 " That the health of Miss Talbot is very delicate, and that it 
 will be necessary to take her occasionally to some watering- 
 place to reside with proper attendants, and that the expenses of 
 travelling to and from the coast, and during her residence there, 
 will amount to a large sum ; and I further say, that previously 
 to the presenting the petition of Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley, 
 in the month of January, 1843, and since that time, the said 
 Countess of Shrewsbury has said tp me, that as soon as the 
 education of the said Miss Talbot was more advanced, (did this 
 mean in 1850?) the said Countess of Shrewsbury would take her 
 to reside permanently with her Ladyship and the said Earl of 
 Shrewsbury, in which event the expenses of her maintenance 
 and education will be much increased." 
 
 It came on for hearing April 29, when the Vice-Chan- 
 cellor of England said he should not interfere as to the 
 education of Miss Talbot, but the matter of the allowance 
 was to be referred to the Master. But a final order was 
 not then drawn up. How far Mr. Berkeley was satisfied 
 with this is thus stated by him in his affidavit, March 
 29, 1851 :— 
 
 " When Mr. Corfield, my solicitor, informed me that he was 
 of opinion that the Vice-Chancellor of England would not 
 make an order to remove the above-named infant, Augusta 
 Talbot, from the convent in the said petition mentioned, 1 
 stated I should appeal to Lord Chancellor Cottenham, who 
 had already refused to allow the said infant to be placed in a 
 convent; and I instructed my said solicitor, Mr. Corfield, to 
 inform all parties that if the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury 
 could not undertake the care and management of the said 
 infant, then that the said Thomas Doyle must send her to the 
 convent called Newhall, with a governess and private servant, 
 as first proposed by the said Thomas Doyle. 
 
16 
 
 " I believe much negotiation took place, and that it was pro- 
 posed by Mr. Rhodes, on the part of the said Earl and Countess 
 of Shrewsbury, and assented to by the said Thomas Doyle, that 
 the said infant, Augusta Talbot, should. immediately be placed 
 under the care of the said Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, 
 without waiting till the education of the said infant, Augusta 
 Talbot, was further advanced." 
 
 Accordingly, further affidavits were filed by Mr. Craven 
 Berkeley on the 3rd of May, in which, after stating that he 
 had had several interviews with Miss Talbot in the latter 
 part of 1841 and 1842, but had not been allowed to see 
 her alone, he deposed ; — 
 
 " That I was informed by the said infant, Augusta Talbot, in 
 reply to my enquiry, that the said infant's brother, John Talbot, 
 had not visited the said infant, Augusta Talbot, since she was 
 placed at the said convent. 
 
 " That I was also informed by the said infant, and verily 
 believe, that neither the Earl nor Countess of Shrewsbury have 
 visited the said infant, Augusta Talbot, since she has been at 
 the said convent. 
 
 " That I was informed by the said infant, and verily believe, 
 that the said infant, Augusta Talbot, has not been taken from 
 the said convent for even one week's change of air or recrea- 
 tion since she was first placed there by the said Thomas Doyle, 
 and that she has not been invited to Alton Towers, or else- 
 where, by the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury for even one 
 day, to see her said brother, John Talbot. 
 
 " That I have been informed, and verily believe, that neither 
 the said Earl nor Countess of Shrewsbury have ever seen the 
 said infant, Augusta Talbot, since she was born." 
 
 The petition was to be heard again on the 5th of May, 
 1843, and the following instructions then given to Mr. 
 Bethell we copy from his brief now before us : — 
 
 " Mr. Berkeley will be content to take an order in the alterna- 
 
17 
 
 tive, viz. that if the Countess of Shrewsbury declines taking th' 
 infant to reside with her at Midsummer, then the said Thomas 
 Doyle shall place the infant at Newhall, or Spettisbury, and find 
 her a private governess and servant, as stated in his affidavit." 
 
 No order was made in open court, but much negotiation 
 ensued, in which a most active part was taken by Mr. 
 Rhodes (whose death has unfortunately deprived us of his 
 evidence) who then acted for the Earl and Countess of 
 Shrewsbury. 
 
 In the name of common sense, if the simple question 
 was the amount of allowance only, why should either they 
 or Mr. Berkeley have given themselves so much trouble ? 
 That question did not in the least affect them, for neither 
 had any pecuniary interest in the matter. Bearing in. 
 mind the previous disputes between the parties, and the 
 prayer of the petitions, let us see what the terms of the 
 order were. Here it is verbatim et literatim : — 
 
 After reciting the petition, (see supra 14) it went on thus : 
 
 " The Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury by their counsel 
 undertaking, with the consent of the said Thomas Doyle, the 
 legal guardian of the said infant Augusta Talbot, the care 
 and management of the said infant, subject to the unlimited 
 legal control of the said Thomas Doyle as such guardian, this 
 Court doth order that the said infant be placed under the care 
 and management of the said Earl and Countess, with liberty to 
 them to take the said infant abroad, the said Earl by his coun- 
 sel undertaking to bring the said infant back within the juris- 
 diction of this Court at such time as the Court should direct; 
 and it is ordered that the sum of £270 per annum (to commence 
 from the 24th day of June last) be paid by the trustees under the 
 will of the late Charles Earl of Shrewsbury or any of them to the 
 said Thomas Doyle, from time to time until the further order of 
 this Court, without prejudice to any application which may be 
 made for an increase of such allowance, the said Thomas Doyle 
 
18 
 
 undertaking, so long as the said infant shall reside otherwise than 
 with the said Earl and Countess, after deducting his (the said 
 Thomas Doyle's) expenses, to be incurred from time to time, to 
 apply the same for her maintenance and support in such way as 
 the said Earl and Countess may approve; and also undertaking, 
 so long as the said infant shall reside with the said Earl and 
 Countess, to pay over to the said Earl and Countess for her 
 maintenance and support the balance of such allowance, after 
 deducting therefrom his (the said Thomas Doyle's) expenses to 
 be incurred from time to time in respect of the said infant 
 Augusta Talbot. And it is ordered that the costs of all parties 
 of and incident to that application he taxed as between solicitor 
 and client, and paid ; and it was ordered that the amount of 
 such costs, when paid, be allowed to the said trustees in passing 
 their accounts before the Master." 
 
 Can any one doubt that Mr. Berkeley, and his legal 
 advisers, understood this order to mean that Miss Augusta 
 Talbot was to be chiefly with the Earl and Countess of 
 Shrewsbury ? Can any one doubt that Dr. Doyle and the 
 Earl and Countess intended that they should so understand 
 it ? If it did not mean that she should reside with them, 
 was it not a mockery, delusion, and snare 1 
 
 Dr. Doyle is upon the horns of this dilemma ; let him 
 choose which he pleases. In the Tale of a Tub, the 
 three brothers search their father's will for his permission 
 to wear shoulder-knots, and unable to find one express 
 authority, seek it, totidem verbis and totidem syllabis in vain, 
 and at last discover their foregone conclusion totidem Uteris : 
 and it is only by some such legerdemain that this order 
 can be understood, as it seems to us, with all respect to the 
 Lord Chancellor, to authorize the Earl and Countess of 
 Shrewsbury to leave Miss Augusta Talbot in a convent for 
 six-and-a-half years, exposed to the exclusive influences of 
 
19 
 
 the lady abbess and the sister nuns, at a period of life 
 when the simplicity, inexperience, and enthusiasm of 
 youth would quite unfit her to perceive the real nature of the 
 lure held out to her to sign the death-warrant of all her 
 social duties, and of all healthful enjoyment of life. 
 
 Are lady Abbesses and their Chaplains quite incapable 
 of exerting improper influence to number among their 
 " professed " a noble and wealthy heiress ? It is said, 
 they are forbidden to allow a minor to take the veil ; but 
 presently we shall give one, among the numerous instances, 
 which, doubtless, might be found, where the prohibition 
 has been disregarded, and we should like to see any record 
 of an ecclesiastical censure of the lady Abbess, for allowing 
 a breach of the rules. 
 
 Even at the risk of being thought a little prolix, we 
 must give the conflicting statements of the parties as to this 
 order, and to our minds, the language used by Dr. Doyle 
 and Mr. Norris, proves that the plain, simple meaning of 
 the order of July, 1843, is what Mr. C. Berkeley believed. 
 
 Mr. Norris, the solicitor for Dr. Doyle, thus deposes in 
 his affidavit, March 29, 1851 : — 
 
 " I have no recollection whatever that it was any part of the 
 said arrangement in 1843, that the said infant should be taken 
 permanently to the house of the said Earl and Countess, and 
 educated with them, or, if necessary, taken abroad with them ; 
 and I was informed by Mr. Corfield, the solicitor of the said 
 Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley, that it was understood to be the 
 chief object of the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley in 
 presenting his said petition to secure that the said Earl and 
 Countess should have the care and management of the said 
 infant, and that they should exercise their own judgment re- 
 specting the mode and place of her education, and that there 
 
20 
 
 was no understanding, so far as I can recollect and tell, that 
 the said infant should be removed from the said convent in 
 case the said Earl and Countess and said guardian should not 
 think it necessary to have her removed therefrom. 
 
 " I further say, that so far as I can recollect and believe, the 
 said part of the said order of July, 1843, which related to the 
 taking of the said infant abroad was inserted therein to meet 
 the case of the said Earl thinking it expedient that they should 
 with the consent of the said guardian, take her abroad with 
 them, and to provide for her being brought back if so taken 
 abroad, the said Earl and Countess having been in the frequent 
 habit of visiting their daughters who resided in Italy." 
 
 He also denies id terms similar to those presently cited 
 from Dr. Doyle's affidavit, that the order was a juggle. 
 The pseudo-Bishop of Southwark himself deposes thus : — 
 
 " And I say, that to the best of my recollection and belief, 
 after the said judgment had been so pronounced, negociations 
 were carried on only with reference to the amount of allowance 
 and to the costs, and which were arranged as mentioned in the 
 order of July 27, 1843. And I further say, that I was informed 
 by my solicitor, and verily believe, that the chief object which 
 the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley had, in presenting his 
 said petition, was to get the said infant placed under the care 
 and management of the said Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. 
 And I further say, that on the suggestion of the said Earl of 
 Shrewsbury, and to avoid further litigation, I consented to the 
 said order of July 27, 1843, being made, and by which the 
 costs of the said petition so presented by the said Craven Fitz- 
 hardinge Berkeley, were directed to be paid out of the said 
 infant's fortune. And I further say, that I consented to the said 
 order on the strict understanding that the said Craven Fitz- 
 hardinge Berkeley, and his solicitor, Mr. Corfield, would ab- 
 stain, in future, from interfering further as regarded the said 
 infant. And I further say, that conceiving that the said Con- 
 vent at Taunton was the place the best suited for the education 
 of the said Augusta Talbot, I left her there until the month of 
 
21 
 
 May, 1850. And I say that I, and, as I believe, all parties, 
 considered that the effect of the said order was to leave me in 
 the full exercise of my legal authority as guardian, but to allow 
 the said Earl and Countess to have, subject to my authority, 
 the care and management of the said infant according to the 
 best of their judgment, and that it was not intended or under- 
 stood that the said infant should reside with the said Countess, 
 but that their judgment was left entirely unfettered as to the 
 mode of education. And I say, that the portion of the said 
 order as to carrying the infant abroad, was inserted, not with 
 any view of having the said infant taken abroad, at all events, 
 but with a view of authorizing the said Earl and Countess to 
 take the said infant with them abroad, in case it should be 
 found expedient to them to do so, but with my express permis- 
 sion, they having before that time been in the frequent habit 
 of going abroad, where their only two children resided ; but, 
 according to the best of my judgment, if it had ever been pro- 
 posed to me by the said Earl and Countess to take the said 
 infant abroad, I should have greatly hesitated in consenting 
 thereto. And I say, that the reduced allowance of £270 per 
 annum, provided by the said order, was based upon a calcula- 
 tion of an education at the said Convent, and would have been 
 wholly inadequate for an education at the house of the said 
 Earl and Countess. And I deny as stated in the affidavit of 
 the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley, sworn in this cause on 
 the 25th of March, hist, that the said order of July 27, 1843, 
 was a mere juggle on the part of me, the said Thomas Doyle, 
 and the said Earl and Countess, or was an imposition practised 
 upon the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley and the Court, or 
 was resorted to by me and the said Earl and Countess for the 
 sole and only purpose, or with any purpose, of stifling the 
 inquiry prayed for by the petition of the said Craven Fitzhard- 
 inge Berkeley in 1843, touching the said Convent, and for pre- 
 venting the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley from proceeding 
 further in the matter. And I further say, that the said infant 
 was continued as a pupil at the said Convent for her education, 
 by the direction of the said Earl and Countess, but with my 
 full approbation ; I being under the conviction, which I still 
 
22 
 
 am, that the said place and mode of education were, under the 
 circumstances of the said infant, the best which could be 
 adopted for her benefit. And I say that, from time to time, 
 during the said interval, that is to say, from 1843 to 1850, I 
 paid frequent visits to the said Convent, to see the said infant. 
 And I say, that the said Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury 
 went down to Taunton Lodge to see her, and judge for them- 
 selves as to her health and condition ; and as I verily believe, 
 and have no doubt, were perfectly satisfied therewith. And I 
 say, that the said Earl and Countess did not go abroad until the 
 month of October, 1845, when they went to Naples with the 
 said infant, John Talbot, who was then in a deep decline, of 
 which he died at Naples, in the month of April, 1846, and they 
 returned to England in the summer of 1847. 
 
 Mr. Corfield, in his affidavit, states r — 
 
 " After much negociation the order of July 27, 1843, was 
 consented to by all parties, on the express understanding that 
 the said infant should be taken from the convent and placed 
 under the roof of the Earl of Shrewsbury ; and I would not 
 have consented to the order if such understanding had not been 
 clearly and decidedly the basis of the order. I say that a friend 
 of mine, Mr. Thomas Rhodes, who then acted as the solicitor of 
 the Earl of Shrewsbury, and who was on all occasions a peace- 
 maker, would, had he been now living, have verified my 
 assertion ; and knowing the sentiments and feelings of the 
 father and mother of the said infant, I would not for one mo- 
 ment have sanctioned the conduct of the sard Thomas Doyle 
 and the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, in allowing her to 
 remain even as a pupil in the convent. And I consented that 
 she should be taken abroad by said Earl and Countess of 
 Shrewsbury at the request of said Mr. Thomas Rhodes, with 
 whom I was in frequent communication, and who stated to me 
 that they could not undertake the constant care of the said in- 
 fant, unless permission was given to them by the order to take 
 her abroad with them, as they were in the habit of passing a 
 great portion of the year in Italy, and that they would not know 
 
23 
 
 how to dispose of her during their absence. It was in the firm 
 belief and conviction, founded upon the often-repeated asser- 
 tions of the said Thomas Rhodes, that the Earl and Countess of 
 Shrewsbury would, notwithstanding the differences that had 
 existed as aforesaid, cherish and protect the orphan child of my 
 deceased friends, George Henry Talbot and his wife, that I 
 acquiesced in the order, and that if I had had the remotest 
 ground for believing to the contrary, and that she would have 
 been allowed to remain in the convent after the order, I should 
 have persisted in obtaining a reference to the Master to settle 
 a scheme for the maintenance and education of the infant. 
 
 Mr". Berkeley also says : — 
 
 " When I consented to the order I was informed by Mr. 
 Corfield, and verily believed, that the said Earl and Countess 
 of Shrewsbury had determined to take the said infant under 
 their own roof. I would not have consented to the said 
 order if I had for one moment supposed that the said infant 
 was to have been left, or again placed, at the convent; and 
 I say that it was in the firm conviction that the said infant 
 was residing with the said Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, 
 that I did not make further inquiries respecting her ; and I say 
 that I was not aware until the end of January, 1851, that the 
 said infant had been again placed at the said convent, and I was 
 not aware she had been in the said convent for a period of nine 
 years until I read on the 24th of March inst, a copy of her 
 letter to the Lord High Chancellor in which that fact is stated. 
 And I say, that as it appears that the said infant has since the 
 date of the order of July, 1843, been brought up and educated 
 at the said convent, the said order was a mere juggle on the 
 part of the plaintiff Thomas Doyle and the said Earl and 
 Countess of Shrewsbury, and was an imposition upon me 
 and the Court, and was consented to by the said Earl and 
 Countess of Shrewsbury for the sole and only purpose of stifling 
 the inquiry prayed for by my said petition touching the said 
 convent, and for preventing me from proceeding further in the 
 matter. And I say that I have no personal interest whatever 
 
24 
 
 in these proceedings, which have been instituted by me in obe- 
 dience with the dying injunctions of the mother of the said 
 infant, who had during her lifetime resisted every effort of the 
 said Thomas Doyle and of the said Earl and Countess of 
 Shrewsbury for taking away the said infant from her and placing 
 her in a convent, and although the said Doyle proposed to pro- 
 vide a private governess and servant for the said infant." 
 
 Further, the Lord Chancellor thus expressed himself, 
 March 27 :— 
 
 " When I got the order, I found that it was to the effect that 
 the young lady was delivered over to the care of Lord and Lady 
 Shrewsbury, with the view of going abroad. 
 
 " Mr. Rolt.— With liberty. 
 
 "The Lord Chancellor.— With a view, I say, because it 
 points to her going abroad. Certainly, when I foun.d that the 
 ward had been handed over to Lord and Lady Shrewsbury in 
 general terms, with liberty to take her abroad, it did not appear 
 to me that the convent was an arrangement contemplated by 
 the order." 
 
 Such are the circumstances under which the order of 
 July 27, 1843 was made ; and we unhesitatingly assert, tha 
 it either meant that Miss Talbot was to be chiefly with the 
 Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, or it was a juggle and 
 imposition on the Court, as well as Mr. Berkeley. 
 
 For several years she remained in the Convent, Mr. C. 
 Berkeley having trusted in the honour of the parties, that 
 the order of 1843 would be carried out. It does not appear 
 that Miss Talbot, during this period, had any private 
 governess or servant, or more than one vacation at Alton 
 Towers or elsewhere ; although the Earl and Countess were 
 
25 
 
 only absent from October 1845 to the summer of 1847, 
 in consequence of the illness of her brother, John Talbot. 
 
 The allowance of £270, however, appears to have con- 
 tinued, of which not more than a£125 at the outside, could 
 have been spent in her education, according to the rules. In 
 the spring of 1850, the considerate Dr. Doyle — " who never 
 wished her to become a nun," — transplants her suddenly to 
 London. The inexperienced girl steps from the cloister- 
 school, into the glare and gaiety of a London season. From 
 the Court to the Opera, from the Opera to balls and 
 parties — for twelve weeks the recluse is thus educated, to 
 fit her for life. Did not the cunning conclave know that 
 satiety gives place to disgust? What surer method could have 
 been adopted to excite a morbid longing for the sequestered 
 Lodge ? But press we on with the narrative. At the end 
 of the season she returned upon a visit to the Convent, 
 and thence to Alton Towers. 
 
 It would be impertinent and useless to speculate upon 
 the various fluttering emotions which may have agitated 
 her mind ; and but that it would be false delicacy in 
 such a case as the present, to omit any material fact, 
 we might well refrain from naming him who now appears 
 on the scenes. Still here, as in every part of the trans- 
 action, are odd coincidences. By the death of her brother, 
 and by the accumulations, Miss Augusta Talbot was enti- 
 tled to £85,000. 
 
 Mark Anthony Aldobrandini, Prince Borghese, married 
 Lady Gwendoline Catherine the daughter of the Earl and 
 Countess of Shrewsbury, who died in 1 840 ; * and the 
 
 * The present visit of the Earl and Countess to Italy, is understood tobe 
 C 
 
26 
 
 Prince then married Theresa Louisa Frances Alexandrina 
 de la Rochefoucault, daughter of the Due d'Estissac, of 
 France. 
 
 The foreign nobleman, whose pretensions to the hand of 
 the wealthy Romanist heiress were favoured by the Earl 
 and Countess of Shrewsbury, was the brother of the present 
 Princess Borghese. 
 
 When, where, how often, and by whom they were thrown 
 into each other's society, is not known ; suffice it to say, 
 that Dr. Doyle was not informed of the marriage being in 
 contemplation, until his return from the Continent, in 
 September, 1850. His affidavit is as follows : — 
 
 "I was abroad for some time from about the month of 
 August until about the beginning of September last. 
 
 " On my return, my solicitor, Mr. Anthony Norris, informed 
 me that a proposal of marriage had been made to the said 
 Augusta Talbot, by a foreign nobleman, (whose name is 
 alluded to in the affidavit of the said Craven Fitzhardinge 
 Berkeley, sworn in this cause on last Feb. 25,) and the said 
 Mr. Anthony Norris further informed me, as the fact was, that 
 the said foreign nobleman was a person of high rank and 
 connection in France and elsewhere. I at once, on being 
 informed thereof, declared to the said Mr. Norris, that I did 
 not wish the said Augusta Talbot to form a connection with a 
 
 chiefly for the purpose of using their influence with the Pope to give this 
 lady a place in the calendar of Saints. It was in a. u. 933, that Pope 
 John XV. first exercised alone the right of creating a new tutelary deity, 
 and canonized one saint Udalric. Pope Alexander III., in the twelfth 
 century, declared saint-making to he the peculiar prerogative of the Pope. 
 Among the ceremonies is the appointment of a " Devil's advocate " to 
 oppose the admission. Let every one recollect that the essential character 
 of Popery is unchangeableness, because of its assumed infallibility. 
 
27 
 
 foreigner, and that I must not be taken as a party assenting to 
 the said proposed marriage in any way. 
 
 " I was informed, and verily believe, that an order of refer- 
 ence had been made during my absence for referring it to the 
 vacation Master, to enquire whether the said marriage was fit 
 and proper ; and I was afterwards informed, and verily believe, 
 that the said reference, by reason chiefly of my strong objec- 
 tions to the said proposal, was not proceeded with." 
 
 The Lord Chancellor thus stated what took place upon 
 the subject with him : — 
 
 " What took place in reference to myself was this : — When 
 I left Alton Towers last autumn there had been a proposition 
 for a marriage between Miss Talbot and M. Rochefoucault, 
 which, upon being brought to my knowledge, I said could only 
 be entertained in the regular way by means of a reference to 
 the Master, to inquire as to the propriety of it. This I caused 
 to be communicated to Lord Shrewsbury, and also intimated 
 that, from the inquiries I had instituted into the matter, I did 
 not think it was an advantageous offer. Shortly afterwards 
 I received a letter * from Lord Shrewsbury respecting his taking 
 abroad a ward of the Court, Bertram Talbot, and he therein 
 stated that he had taken my hint respecting the marriage of 
 Miss Talbot, and that it had been broken off, and that the 
 young lady was at last reconciled to the step, although she had 
 very much felt it at first ; and the letter went on to state that 
 Miss Talbot was quite resigned, and felt entirely disposed to 
 yield to the will of God in preference to following the dictates 
 of her own feelings. I also had a conversation with the young 
 lady at Alton Towers respecting the offer of marriage, and she 
 certainly expressed no unwillingness to accept it, or intimated in 
 any way that ifwas being forced upon her. I told her that I 
 
 * The Tablet, the Romanist organ, conveniently altered this state- 
 ment in its report, thus — " He (the Lord Chancellor) wrote to the Earl on 
 the subject of the young lady being in the convent." Totidem i 
 again ! 
 
 C 2 
 
28 
 
 should take care that, in a case of that kind, her wishes should be 
 consulted, as I had the power to decide upon her marriage while 
 she was a ward of the Court ; and, far from intimating any re- 
 pugnance to the gentleman, / inferred that she would be quite 
 willing to accept him ." 
 
 Somewhat strange is this conversation, if the foreign 
 nobleman in question had achieved the high honor of being 
 her spontaneous choice. Leaving, however, this subject 
 for speculation, we enter for a brief space the domain of fact. 
 
 In September 1850 the projected marriage was entirely 
 abandoned. Such an event must, under any circumstances, 
 entitle a young lady to more than ordinary consideration 
 and affectionate interest from those who are her natural or 
 legal protectors. But Dr. Doyle's notion of his duty was 
 different. He made no further inquiries, and appears to 
 have known nothing and cared nothing about his ward, 
 thus placed at the early age of nineteen in a most delicate 
 and embarrassing position. He had disapproved of the 
 person selected and patronized by the Earl and Countess 
 of Shrewsbury, (their relative too,) and yet he leaves her 
 entirely in their hands. And how then did they perform 
 their trust ? 
 
 To complete her education, an autumnal tour on the 
 continent would have been both natural and agreeable. 
 
 Under the peculiar circumstances, change of scene, the 
 keen enjoyment of the beauties of nature, the cheerful 
 society of her cousin Bertram Talbot, miglifrwell have been 
 chosen to refresh and gladden her spirits, and enlarge her 
 mind. Such attractions indeed might not suit so well, if 
 already the eternal solitude of the Lodge was contemplated 
 as her destiny. 
 
29 
 
 From whatever cause, Dr. Doyle was not consulted upon 
 the subject, the order of 1843 was disregarded, and the 
 Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, and Bertram Talbot, 
 went to Italy for an indefinite period. 
 
 Dr. Winter, the Chaplain of the Earl, and doubtless, the 
 Confessor and director of the Countess, had just before 
 been commissioned to negociate the return of Miss Talbot 
 to the Convent. And now we will essay the difficult task 
 of unravelling the tangled web ; and ere we conclude, we 
 will establish beyond all moral doubt, that Miss Talbot 
 returned there as a postulant ; at least, in the eyes of her 
 ecclesiastical superiors. 
 
 Mr. Rolt, in his speech, said : " It was insinuated that 
 the Roman Catholic, and especially the priest,* is not 
 
 * Is the truth, the whole truth spoken, when the subject is the con- 
 duct of ecclesiastics ? 
 
 On this point we extract the following from Taylor's " Law of 
 Evidence," i. 816: — 
 
 " The law of Papal Rome has adopted this principle, (privileged commu- 
 nication,) in its fullest extent, not only, as already intimated, excepting 
 such confessions from the general rule of evidence, but punishing the 
 priest who reveals them. It has even gone further ; for Mascardus, after 
 observing that in general persons coming to the knowledge of facts under 
 an oath of secrecy, are compellable as witnesses to disclose them, states 
 that confessions to a priest are not within the operation of the rule, since 
 they are made not so much to the priest as to the Deity whom he repre- 
 sents ; and he thence draws the Jesuitical conclusion, that the priest, when 
 appearing as a witness in his private character may lawfully swear that 
 he knows nothing of the subject. Hoc tamen restringe, non posse proce~ 
 dere in sacerdote producto in testem contra reum criminis, quando in con- 
 fessione sacramentali fuit aliquid sibi dictum, quia potest dicere, se nihil 
 scire ex eo / quod illud, quod scit, scit ut Deus et ut Deus non producitur in 
 testem, sed ut homo et tanquam homo, et tanquam homo ignorat Ulud super 
 quo producitur. — Mascardus, de Probat., vol i. Qusest. v. p. 51. 
 
30 
 
 under the same obligations to tell the truth as Protestants 
 and Englishmen." The moral obligation is one and the 
 same ; but the question is, is that obligation fulfilled. 
 Are not " sad blanks " left, because, if filled up, they 
 would be confirmative of the whole of the charge ? But 
 to proceed. "Was Miss Augusta Talbot a postulant or 
 not ? Now a postulant is one who is passing through a 
 preliminary period of probation, without which she cannot 
 be allowed to assume the white veil as a nun. 
 
 The rules of the Convent at Taunton prescribe that no 
 person shall be allowed to return to the Convent as a 
 boarder, after having once left it ; — to use Mr. Rolt's lan- 
 guage, "to prevent a person who had mixed with the 
 world from communicating her notions and ideas to the 
 young pupils." 
 
 Mark, by the way, reader, it is Miss Jerningham, Dr. 
 Winter, and Dr. Hendren. All who thus assume to decide 
 upon the fitness of the young and innocent for self-immo- 
 lation, are themselves cut off from all the sacred charities 
 of life ; men and women who know not the meaning of 
 that exquisite line — 
 
 " The kindred points of heaven and home." * 
 
 * We cannot forbear citing the following eloquent and truthful passage 
 from M. Michelet's work :— " What 1 most pity in a man condemned 
 to celibacy, is not alone his lack of the heart's sweetest joys, but what a 
 thousand things in the world of nature and morality are and will ever be 
 to him, a dead letter. It imparts a restless activity to study, to politics, 
 to intrigues, to business— and above all, a disposition for keen, narrow- 
 minded and bitter pedantry and controversy. Our terrorists of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, were monks ; and monastic prisons were 
 
31 
 
 Miss Jerningham then says : " It was against the rules 
 for Miss Talbot to be received otherwise than as a postu- 
 lant except by the permission of the Bishop." Dr. Winter 
 makes no affidavit, nor are his letters produced, but the 
 Pseudo-Bishop of Clifton, chuckling over the prospect of 
 the prize, hastily unfolds the curtain, and tells the truth : 
 for which, as we shall presently see, he receives no thanks 
 from Dr. Doyle. A word, however, upon Dr. Hendren. 
 He is one of the new band selected by the Pope, by the 
 aid of the Jesuits working in secret, to " change into 
 burnished gold the silver links of the chain which is to 
 connect this country with the See of Peter ;" * and we ex- 
 pect, therefore, that he would know what he was writing 
 about, and that he would not assert what he did not know. 
 And what does he say ? Just after the presentation of 
 Mr. C. Berkeley's petition to parliament, (see infra 42,) 
 Dr. Hendren wrote to the " Times " as follows : — 
 
 always the most cruel. A life systematically negative, — a deatb-like 
 life, — develops in man, instincts inimical to life. He who is content to 
 suffer, willingly makes others suffer. Sad indeed, is it to think, that these 
 unsympathetic men, soured moreover by contention, should hold within 
 their grasp the gentler portion of the human race ; that portion in which 
 most feeling dwells, which remains most true to nature, and which even 
 in the general corruption of morals is still the least corrupted by interest 
 and hateful passions. In order to understand how they use this power 
 over women, which tliey claim as their privilege, we must not confine our- 
 selves to the soft and wheedling manners they employ with women of 
 fashion, but enquire after those poor women whom there is no necessity 
 to humour, those especially who, shut up in convents, are at the mercy of 
 their ecclesiastical superiors, who have constituted themselves, at once, 
 their gaolers and sole protectors. We are not quite satisfied with this 
 protection." 
 
 * See Cardinal "Wiseman's Pastoral. 
 
32 
 
 ' Sir,— I beg to be allowed to rectify some of the many mis- 
 statements of the Hon. Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley relative 
 to Miss Augusta Talbot, which your anti-Popery zeal (I pre- 
 sume) has led you incautiously to adopt. 
 
 '' In the year 1841 Miss Talbot was placed by her legal 
 guardian for education at the convent called " The Lodge," 
 Taunton. She continued there, with the exception of occa- 
 sional visits to her relatives, the Earl and Countess of Shrews- 
 bury, until the 8th of May, 1850. I know that while there she 
 expressed some wish to become a nun ; but I know also that not 
 the slightest encouragement was given to that wish. On leaving 
 the convent-school she was introduced at once to the fashion- 
 able world, presented at Court, kindly noticed by the highest 
 nobility, and produced, I believe, what is called a sensation. 
 
 " But amidst all the charms and flatteries of the distinguished 
 society to which she belonged, she seems not to have found 
 happiness. In the month of August last, the Earl of Shrews- 
 bury, intending to go to the south of Europe, and not being 
 able to take his niece with him, the question arose how she, a 
 minor, was to be disposed of. The Lord Chancellor decided 
 that she should return as a boarder to the convent where she 
 had been educated, if they would receive her.* But this was 
 refused, because at that convent no boarders are received. 
 Miss Talbot then proposed to beg admission as a postulant, 
 that is, as one intended to become, in due time, a nun, if con- 
 sidered to be properly qualified ; and, accordingly, she wrote a 
 most earnestly-supplicating letter to that effect. The proposal 
 created some consternation in the convent, and many of the 
 nuns objected to it strongly, for the reason that they would be 
 accused of having inveigled her to enter among them on ac- 
 count of her worldly advantages. It was necessary to apply to 
 
 * Upon this the Lord Chancellor says : — When I was on a visit last 
 autumn to the Earl of Shrewsbury I had a conversation with MiBs Talbot, 
 and a very intelligent person she appeared to be. I afterwards heard 
 from Lord Shrewsbury that she had gone to a convent, aud I see it is 
 stated that she went there with my consent. There is no foundation at 
 all for that statement, for I was not even aware of it until I was informed 
 of the fact. 
 
33 
 
 me, as the ecclesiastical superior. On the day that I first 
 heard of the affair, I wrote to Miss Talbot, and told her honestly, 
 that I did not consider her at all fitted for the conventual life, 
 but that I might be wrong in my judgment, and therefore would 
 not oppose her wish if the community were willing to give her 
 a trial;* that before she became of age there would he ample 
 time both for her to ascertain whether such a life would be 
 agreeable to her, and for the community to determine whether 
 she was fitted for it. To the Lady Abbess I wrote in a similar 
 style, but adding, that in such a case the censures of the world, 
 which they apprehended, must be disregarded. Accordingly, 
 she was admitted somewhere about the beginning of September." 
 
 The comments of this ecclesiastical superior upon Mr. 
 Berkeley's conduct will be given bye and bye. At present 
 we wish, if possible, to bring out the facts into full relief. 
 But, says Dr. Doyle, through his counsel, Mr. Rolt : — 
 
 " The letter is open to the strongest animadversion ; it is 
 one written by a vain -glorious, presumptuous polemic, who had 
 rushed into an arena of discussion with things that he was un- 
 acquainted with, and with parties to whom he was inferior in 
 capacity. [Is capacity necessary to tell the truth?] If he 
 were the superior of a convent, as he stated himself to he, he 
 was, in his (Mr. Rolt's) opinion, unfit to hold such an office. 
 Such a letter might emanate from a hold and reckless priest, 
 but was not the production of a crafty and subtle mind, as had 
 been insinuated, seeking to throw around his victims his insidi- 
 ous nets." 
 
 Indeed ! Is it thus that Dr. Doyle, the so-called Bishop 
 of Southwark, speaks of the so-called Bishop of Clifton ? 
 O unity and harmony of the Romish Church ! Well 
 
 * In the Secret Instructions of the Jesuits, the following rule occurs : 
 " The more earnestly they desire admission into our Society, the longer 
 let the grant of such favour be deferred, as long as they seem stedfast in 
 their resolutions ; but if their minds appear to be wavering, let all proper 
 methods be used for fixing them immediately." 
 
 C 5 
 
34 
 
 may each say, Save me from my friends ! But is 
 Dr. Hendren unacquainted with these matters ? Dr. 
 Hendren was the so-called Bishop of Clifton and the 
 ecclesiastical superior over the Taunton nunnery. He was 
 the person by whose permission alone Miss Talbot could 
 remain at the nunnery otherwise than as a postulant. 
 Nay more, he was for several years the Chaplain to the 
 nunnery, and the Father-Confessor of Miss Augusta 
 Talbot. Surely then he speaks of what he knows. Nay 
 more, he refers to an " earnest supplicatory letter in which 
 she proposed to beg admission as a postulant," *— that is, 
 as one intended to become, in due time, a nun, if consi- 
 dered to be properly qualified. That letter is not produced. 
 But if there was time for all this correspondence, why was 
 not Dr. Doyle consulted 1 What right had Lord and 
 Lady Shrewsbury thus to immure in the convent her whom 
 they should have loved and cherished as their own child ? 
 Although they are not here to answer the charge, can any 
 thing be clearer than that they both did what they ought 
 not to have done, and left undone their plainest duty? 
 
 But to return to the question, was Miss Talbot a postulant 
 or not ? 
 
 The following is Mr. Craven Berkeley's statement of 
 what took place when he was at the Convent : — 
 
 " I further say that having a great regard, for the reasons 
 alleged, for the said infant, Augusta Talbot, I was desirous to 
 ascertain the truth of the said information, and with that 
 object went to Taunton on the 14th of Feb. instant, and called 
 at the said convent, called the " Lodge," for the purpose of 
 
 * Beg indeed' How condescending and charitable of Dr. Hendren, 
 to listen to her entreaties, although she had 85,000?., and although she 
 would upon taking the black veil vow perpetual poverty. 
 
35 
 
 seeing the said infant, Augusta Talbot. And I further say, 
 that I was introduced to Miss Jerninghain, the Superior of the 
 said convent, who, in talking over matters with me, admitted 
 that the said infant, Augusta Talbot, was placed at the said 
 convent in the month of September, 1850, by the said John 
 Earl of Shrewsbury, with the full intention that the said infant, 
 Augusta Talbot, should take the veil ; and the said Miss 
 Jerningham also admitted, that the said infant, Augusta 
 Talbot, was at that time a postulant for that purpose. And I 
 further say, that after waiting some, time, the said infant, 
 Augusta, was introduced into the room where I, and the said 
 Miss Jerningham were conversing, whereupon I entered into 
 conversation with the said infant, Augusta Talbot, about the 
 gaieties of the last season in town, when the said infant 
 entered fully in the same; and upon my putting the question 
 to the said infant, Augusta Talbot, as to her wishes for remain- 
 ing for ever in the said convent, and taking the veil, the said 
 infant, Augusta Talbot, replied, that there was plenty of time 
 to determine upon that matter, as it would he eighteen 
 months before she could become eligible. And I further say, 
 that after further unimportant conversation with the said 
 infant, Augusta Talbot, I requested the said Miss Jerningham 
 that I might be left alone with the said infant, Augusta Talbot, 
 for a short time, as I wished to have a free and unrestrained 
 conversation with her — I being fully convinced from the man- 
 ner and appearance of the said infant, Augusta Talbot, and 
 from the anxious glances which she, from time to time, directed 
 towards the said Miss Jerningham, before she replied to my 
 questions, that the said infant, Augusta Talbot, was not a free 
 agent, and was evidently labouring under great fear and undue 
 restraint, and that it was utterly hopeless to extract the true 
 wishes and feelings of the said infant, Augusta Talbot, from 
 her while in the presence of the said Miss Jerningham ; and 
 whilst the said infant, Augusta Talbot, is allowed to remain in 
 her present position as a postulant in the said convent. And I 
 further say, that the said Miss Jerningham positively refused to 
 allow me to converse with the said infant, Augusta Talbot, alone. 
 
36 
 
 Such is the plain straightforward statement of Mr. C. 
 Berkeley. No English gentleman accustomed to use words 
 in their natural sense, without equivocation or hidden 
 meanings, could have dreamed that two versions would be 
 given of this interview, or could have doubted that Miss 
 Talbot was then a postulant. His solicitor, however, Mr. 
 Corfield, taught by the experience of a profession which, 
 of necessity, entails an acquaintance with the moral diseases 
 of man, and the varied forms of trickery and subterfuge, 
 prudently advised Mr. Berkeley to make notes of the con- 
 versation, and not trust to his memory merely. This he 
 did immediately after leaving the convent, not then fore- 
 seeing the value of the precaution, which the reader will, 
 ere long, fully appreciate. 
 
 Mr. Craven Berkeley was resolved, as far as in him lay, 
 that such a gross breach of duty on the part of Dr. Doyle,* 
 and the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, should not be 
 concealed from the Lord Chancellor ; but, as by law he 
 had no right to institute a suit, and as he was desirous, if 
 possible, that publicity should be avoided, he availed him- 
 self of what is an ordinary practice in matters affecting 
 the personal liberty of any of her Majesty's subjects, and 
 applied to the Lord Chancellor in private. He drew up 
 the following petition, being in form the petition of the 
 infant by him as her next friend, founded upon information 
 which he had received, and principally from Roman Catho- 
 lics, and handed it to his Lordship's secretary on the 25th 
 of February, accompanied with an affidavit by himself. 
 
 The petition after reciting the proceedings in 1843, and 
 the order then made, stated : — 
 
 * See infra 95—97. 
 
37 
 
 "That since the date of the order of the 27th day of July, 
 1843, the said infant, Augusta Talbot, has resided and travelled 
 abroad with the said Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, up to 
 the month of September, 1850.* That the said Countess of 
 Shrewsbury has exercised an undue degree of control over the 
 said infant Augusta Talbot, and has on various occasions im- 
 portuned the said infant, Augusta Talbot, to intermarry with a 
 Frenchman named Rochefoucault, who is connected by marri- 
 age with the said Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. That the 
 said infant, Augusta Talbot, having declined to accede to the 
 proposition of the said Countess in favour of the said Roche- 
 foucault, threats and intimidations were resorted to by the 
 said Countess of Shrewsbury, which, notwithstanding the re- 
 monstrance of the said infant, Augusta Talbot, resulted in the 
 said Countess of Shrewsbury declaring, that if she did not fall 
 into her wishes and marry the said Rochefoucault, the said 
 infant, Augusta Talbot should take the veil. That the said 
 Rochefoucault being a Frenchman, and disagreeable and re- 
 pugnant to the feelings of the said infant, Augusta Talbot, she 
 persisted in her refusal of contracting marriage with him. That, 
 accordingly, in the month of September aforesaid, the said 
 Countess of Shrewsbury being determined to carry her threat 
 into effect of compelling the said infant Augusta Talbot to take 
 the veil, sent her back, accompanied by the Earl of Shrews- 
 bury, to the said convent, called the ' Lodge,' situate at 
 Taunton, in the county of Somerset, and in the said order of 
 the 27th day of July, 1843, mentioned, — not as a pupil or visitor, 
 but as a postulant, with the avowed object of compelling the 
 said infant, Augusta Talbot, to take the veil and become a 
 Nun, she having no desire so to do. That the said Thomas 
 Doyle, the guardian of the said infant, Augusta Talbot, has 
 not exercised his legal authority, or interfered in any manner 
 whatever, or remonstrated with the said Countess of Shrews- 
 bury on her unkind conduct towards the said infant plaintiff, 
 Augusta Talbot, and has silently acquiesced in all the proceed- 
 ings that have taken place with regard to the said infant 
 
 * It was not until the publication of Miss Talbot's letter, that Mr. 
 Berkeley learned that she had been in the convent from 1843. 
 
38 
 
 plaintiff, Augusta Talbot, although he was well acquainted with 
 all the circumstances." 
 
 " That the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley intermarried 
 with the mother of the said infant plaintiff, and that by the order 
 of this honorable Court, the said infant, Augusta Talbot, re- 
 sided with the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley and her 
 mother until the death of the latter, which took place previous 
 to the said order of the 27th day of July, 1843." 
 
 The prayer of the petition was as follows : 
 
 " Your Petitioner, therefore, humbly prays your Lordship, 
 that Miss Jerningham, the Superior of the said convent, may 
 be ordered to deliver up the person of your petitioner, the said 
 infant, Augusta Talbot, to the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berke- 
 ley, or that a writ of Habeas Corpus may issue out of this hon. 
 Court, directed to the said Thomas Doyle, or the said Miss 
 Jerningham, the said Superior of the said convent, thereby 
 commanding him or her to bring the body of your petitioner, 
 the said infant plaintiff, Augusta Talbot, into this honourable 
 Court, on Friday next, the Twenty-eighth day of February 
 instant, in order that your petitioner, the said infant plaintiff, 
 Augusta Talbot, may be orally examined by your Lordship 
 touching the matters aforesaid, and may be declared to be at 
 liberty to proceed whither she desires within the jurisdiction of 
 this hon. Court ; and that your Lordship will be pleased to sus- 
 pend the said Thomas Doyle from his office of guardian, and to 
 appoint a fit and proper person to act as guardian to your 
 petitioner, the said infant plaintiff, Augusta Talbot, during the 
 remainder of her minority with whom your petitioner may reside. 
 And that the allowance for the maintenance of your petitioner 
 at present ordered to be paid to the said Thomas Doyle the guar- 
 dian of the said infant plaintiff, may be ordered to be paid to the 
 said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley or to suchotherpersonasyour 
 Lordship may appoint. And that the costs of, and incident to, 
 this application, may be paid by the trustees of your petitioner, 
 the said infant plaintiff, Augusta Talbot, out of the trust funds 
 in their hands belonging to your petitioner, or that your Lord- 
 ship will make such other order in the premises as to your Lord- 
 ship shall seem meet, and your petitioner will ever pray," &c. 
 
39 
 
 The affidavit was an echo of the petition, Mr. Berkeley 
 stating the different facts from his information and helief. 
 It then set out the account of his visit to the convent, and 
 proceeded thus : — 
 
 " And I further say, that I believe it is one of the doctrines 
 of the church of Rome, that no member of that church shall be 
 permitted to exercise his private judgment in religious matters, 
 but that in all such religious matters he is bound to submit to 
 the authority of the said Romish Church and to the direction 
 of the priesthood thereof. And I further say, I have been 
 informed and believe, that a certain book or work in two 
 volumes, under the title of ' Lectures on the Principal Doc- 
 trines and Practices of the Catholic Church,' delivered at St. 
 Mary's, Moorfields, during the Lent of 1836, by Nicholas 
 Wiseman, Doctor of Divinity, Professor in the University of 
 Rome, Foreign Member of the Royal Society of Literature, 
 Corresponding Member of the Royal Asiatic Society, and pub- 
 lished by Joseph Booker, of 61, New Bond-street, London, in 
 the year 1836, is the work and production of the said Nicholas 
 Wiseman, and that the said Nicholas Wiseman is a high eccle- 
 siastical authority in the Romish Church. And I further say, 
 that at page 16 of the first volume of the said book or work, 
 and under the head of ' Lecture I.,' Introduction, the following 
 passage occurs : — ' The Catholic Church is thus a city to which 
 avenues lead from every side, towards which men may travel 
 from any quarter by the most diversified roads, by the thorny 
 and rugged ways of strict investigation, by the more flowery 
 paths of sentiment and feeling, but, arrived at its precincts, all 
 find that there is but one door to' the sheepfold — narrow and 
 low perhaps, and causing flesh and blood to stoop as it passes 
 in. They may wander about its outskirts, they may admire the 
 goodliness of its edifices and its bulwarks, but they cannot be 
 its denizens and Children if they enter not by that one gate of 
 absoluteunconditionalsubmissionto the teachingof the Church.' 
 And I further say, that in the said work, under the head of 
 Lecture III., page 76, the following passage occurs. — ' For the 
 moment any Catholic doubts, not alone the principle of his 
 
40 
 
 faith, but any of those doctrines which are thereon based, the 
 moment he allows himself to call in question any of the dogmas 
 which the Catholic Church teaches as having been handed down 
 within her, that moment the Church conceives him to have 
 virtually abandoned all connexion with her, for she exacts such 
 explicit obedience that if any member, however valuable, how- 
 ever he may have devoted his early talents to the illustration 
 of her doctrines, fall away from his belief in any one point, he 
 is cut off without reserve, and we have in our times seen strik- 
 ing and awful instances of this fact.' 
 
 " And I further say, that I verily believe that the above 
 opinions and declarations of the said Nicholas Wiseman are the 
 true doctrines of the Romish Church, and that the said infant 
 Augusta Talbot has had them instilled into her mind to the 
 exclusion of all other principles, and that the said infant, 
 Augusta Talbot, is bound to submit to the will and dictation of 
 the priesthood of the Church of Rome and of the said Miss 
 Jerningham. And I verily believe, that if the said infant, 
 Augusta Talbot, is allowed by this Court to remain a Pos- 
 tulant at the said convent, that the said infant, Augusta Talbot, 
 will be compelled to take the veil and become a nun, and that 
 the said sum of £80,000 will thereby become forfeited to the 
 ecclesiastical revenues of the said Church of Rome, or to the 
 endowment or enrichment of the said convent,* or that the 
 said infant, Augusta Talbot, will be compelled on her attaining 
 her majority, by some assurance in the law, or by some other 
 means or instrument, to transfer all her right and interest in 
 the said sum of £80,000 for and towards the endowment or 
 maintenance of some bishoprick or deanery or other ecclesias- 
 tical benefice of the said Church of Rome." 
 
 The ministerial crisis probably occupied all his Lord- 
 ship's spare time, for he was unable to see Mr. Berkeley 
 until the 10th of March. At that interview at the House 
 of Lords, his Lordship informed Mr. Berkeley that he was 
 
 * A religeuse takes a triple vow, of poverty, chastity, and obedience. 
 See the interesting case of Fulham v Mc Carthy, noticed in the appendix. 
 
41 
 
 wrong in some of the statements contained in the petition 
 and affidavit, and especially with respect to the intended 
 marriage having been forced upon the young lady. Mr. 
 Berkeley replied, his information came from Roman 
 Catholics ; that he considered it his duty to bring the 
 matter to his Lordship's notice, and he requested his 
 Lordship to appoint an officer of the Court, or his Lord- 
 ship's own solicitor, to conduct the matter. His Lordship 
 stated he could not do that. Mr. Berkeley then said he 
 had no interest in the matter ; that he had other ties, 
 &c, &c. ; and that unless he had presented such a case 
 as would entitle him to his costs, he would not proceed 
 further. His Lordship continued : " Mr. Berkeley, I 
 can give no assurance on the subject of costs — that 
 question will depend on the case made out by the guardian. 
 When the matter is regularly before me, I will give it my 
 best consideration." Mr. Berkeley then added, " If that 
 is your Lordship's view of the case, I shall not proceed in 
 Chancery, but shall present a petition to the House of 
 Commons." Mr. Berkeley's conduct was here perfectly 
 correct. To plunge headlong into the vortex of Chancery 
 proceedings, to attack persons whose purse-strings, once 
 untied for the vindication of their character, and for the 
 defence of a priest and pseudo-Bishop of Southwark, would 
 not be closed again until every hope of victory was gone, 
 would have been foolhardiness. To have allowed the 
 transaction to be hidden in the thick gloom of darkness, 
 so well befitting its character — to have permitted the young 
 lady to be thus severed, once and for ever, from all the 
 innocent pleasures which a bountiful Creator has spread so 
 lavishly around — to be debarred from all social joys, all 
 
42 
 
 cheering hopes of domestic happiness, all home-scenes and 
 household memories — in a word, to have kept silence while 
 Miss Talbot remained in the nunnery, would have been to 
 have shared in the guilt of the " Hendren-cum-Jerning- 
 ham " clique, and to have aided and abetted the Popish 
 plot. Accordingly, on the evening of March 14th, Sir 
 Robert Inglis presented the following petition from Mr. 
 Berkeley to the House of Commons : — 
 
 "That he intermarried with Augusta Talbot, the widow of 
 George Henry Talbot, who was the half-brother of the present 
 Earl of Shrewsbury. That the said George Henry Talbot left 
 two children him surviving, namely, John, who was heir pre- 
 sumptive to the earldom, and Augusta, an infant, now of the 
 age of 19 years and upwards. That the said infant, Augusta 
 Talbot, resided with your petitioner and her mother up to the 
 time of the death of the latter, which took place on the 25th 
 day of April, 1841. That since that period and up to the 
 month of September last the said infant, Augusta Talbot, has 
 resided with the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. 
 
 " That in consequence of the death of the said John Talbot 
 the said infant, Augusta Talbot, became absolutely entitled to 
 a sum of £80,000, or thereabouts. That the said infant, Augusta 
 Talbot, is a ward of the Court of Chancery. That in September 
 last the said Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury placed the said 
 infant, Augusta Talbot (notwithstanding she is a ward of 
 court, as aforesaid), at the convent called the Lodge, situate 
 at Taunton, in the county of Somerset, not as a pupil or 
 visitor, but as a postulant, with the avowed object of allowing 
 the said Augusta Talbot to take the veil and become a nun. 
 
 " That in the month of September next the period of probation 
 or postulancy will have expired, and the said infant, Augusta 
 Talbot, will be compelled by the rules and regulations of the 
 said convent, and by the priesthood of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, to take the white veil during her minority, and not- 
 withstanding the said infant, Augusta Talbot, is a ward of the 
 Court of Chancery. That having taken the white veil, there 
 
43 
 
 is no retreat for the said infant, August Talbot, and she will be 
 compelled to take the black veil in September, 1852, or shortly 
 afterwards. That on the 6th day of June, 1852, the said infant, 
 Augusta Talbot, will attain her 21st year, when she will be- 
 come entitled to receive the said sum of £80,000. That being 
 a nun at that period, the £80,000 will become confiscated to the 
 said convent, or to the ecclesiastical revenues of the Church of 
 Rome, or to the endowment, enrichment, or maintenance of 
 some bishopric or deanery, or other ecclesiastical benefice of 
 the said Church of Rome, or the said infant, Augusta Talbot, 
 will be compelled by some assurance in the law to transfer all 
 her right and interest in the said sum of £80,000. 
 
 " That it is one of the doctrines of the Church of Rome that 
 no member of the said Church shall be permitted to exercise 
 his or her private judgment in religious matters, but that in all 
 such religious matters he or she is bound to submit to the 
 authority of the said Romish Church, and to the direction of 
 the priesthood thereof. 
 
 The petition set out the passages of Dr. Wiseman's 
 work as in the affidavit, and proceeded thus : — 
 
 " That the above opinions and declarations of the said 
 Nicholas Wiseman are the true doctrines of the Roman Catho- 
 lic Church, and that the said infant, Augusta Talbot, has had 
 them instilled into her mind to the exclusion of all other prin- 
 ciples ; and that the said infant, Augusta Talbot, is bound to 
 submit to the will and dictation of the superior of the said 
 convent, and the priesthood of the Church of Rome. 
 
 " That your petitioner is deprived of all communication and 
 connexion with his step-daughter, the said infant, Augusta 
 Talbot ; and your petitioner's daughter, the half-sister and only 
 near female relative of the said infant, Augusta Talbot, is also 
 prevented from cultivating those natural feelings of affection 
 which but for the reasons aforesaid would exist and grow up 
 between them, to their mutual comfort and support. 
 
 " That your petitioner therefore humbly prays that the 
 honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great 
 Britain and Ireland will be pleased to take his petition into 
 
u 
 
 their serious consideration, and that they will be pleased to 
 engraft a clause in the bill entitled the ' Ecclesiastical Titles 
 Assumption Bill,' now before their honourable house, which will 
 prevent such practices as are detailed in the said petition from 
 taking place; and that they will introduce a clause enacting 
 that no infant, whether a ward in Chancery or not, shall be per- 
 mitted to be placed by her parents or guardian, or any other 
 person whomsoever, in any convent or seminary, or place of 
 education, or other institution attached to the Church of Rome, 
 as a postulant during the minority of such infant, for the pur- 
 pose of enabling or compelling any such infant to become a nun : 
 and that in the event of any infant or infants being now or 
 hereafter placed within the walls of any convent, seminary, 
 place of education, or other institution attached to the said 
 Church of Rome, as a postulant, for the purpose of becoming a 
 nun, that the property, whether absolute or contingent, of any 
 such infant or infants shall vest in and enure to the use of her 
 Majesty, and shall and may be disposed of as her Majesty shall 
 be pleased by warrant, under her sign manual, to direct or 
 appoint; or that a clause may be introduced into the said bill 
 for throwing protection round young persons who are now, or 
 may be hereafter, placed in convents with a view of taking the 
 veil therein, and appropriating their property thereto, either by 
 placing such establishments under the supervision of inspectors' 
 appointed by government, or by such other means as to the 
 honourable house may seem best calculated to put a stop to the 
 aforesaid practices. 
 
 " And your petitioner will ever pray, 
 
 '' Ckaven Fitzhardinge Berkeley. 
 " Berkeley House, Spring Gardens." 
 
 To the astonishment of Mr. Craven Berkeley, on the 
 following evening, Mr. Reynolds, one of the members for 
 Rome, rose in his place in the House of Commons and 
 stated that it was untrue, that Miss Talbot was in the 
 convent as a postulant. 
 
45 
 
 Most opportunely, the letter from Dr. Hendren, already 
 cited, appeared in the Times of Friday, March 21. On 
 that evening, in the House of Commons, the following 
 discussion took place : — 
 
 Sir R. H. Inglis said, in reference to the statement 
 which he made some days ago when presenting a petition 
 from the Hon. Craven Berkeley, the hon. member for 
 Dublin had made a contrary statement. He begged at the 
 outset that hon. gentleman would recollect that he had not 
 made any statement whatever as from himself ; his state- 
 ments were merely those which were contained in the 
 petition that he presented to that House : that petition set 
 forth that Miss Augusta Talbot was at the time a postulant 
 at a nunnery in or near Taunton. He understood that 
 from the petitioner ; and, as he had not since then had 
 any opportunity of contradicting the statement of the hon. 
 member for Dublin, he would now avail himself of the 
 present occasion to read two letters which he had received 
 from Mr. Craven Berkeley : — 
 
 " The truth of the statements contained in my petition has 
 been impugned. That petition was not drawn up without due 
 consideration. I adhere to, and am ready to verify on oath, 
 every statement contained in that petition. I beg to refer 
 you to a letter which appears in The Times newspaper of this 
 day, bearing the signature of ' J. W. Hendren,' calling himself 
 Bishop of Clifton, in which he admits that Miss Talbot is a postu- 
 lant in a convent called the Lodge, at Taunton, and confirming 
 another fact — that she was admitted at the time stated by me in 
 the said petition. In fact, 1 rejoice to add that this bishop, as 
 he calls himself, completely confirms every statement I have 
 ever made, and will therefore place that censure and ignominy 
 upon those who have had the temerity to attempt to cast the 
 odium of falsehood upon myself. I therefore look forward to 
 
46 
 
 your kind assistance this evening in placing the matter in its 
 true light." 
 
 He also quoted from another letter from Mr. Berkeley, 
 repeating his account of the conversation at the Convent. 
 
 Mr. Reynolds, in reply to Sir R. H. Inglis, observed, 
 that he wished simply to state the facts out of which this 
 inquiry arose, and he did rely upon the intelligence of the 
 House, for taking a fair view of the matter which had been 
 laid before them. The hon. baronet had read to the House 
 letters from Mr. Craven Berkeley, and, so far from those 
 letters setting that gentleman right, they set him more 
 wrong than he was before. Now, he (Mr. Reynolds) had 
 it from the best authority — he had it from the guardian of 
 Miss Talbot — that that young lady was not now a postu- 
 lant. What did Mr. Berkeley say in his petition 1 He 
 said that Miss Talbot was not a pupil, but a postulant, 
 with the avowed object of taking the veil and becoming a 
 nun. That was misstatement No. 1. 
 
 He then referred to the letter of Dr. Hendren, but only 
 quoting the part as to Mr. Berkeley's statement, that he 
 had been deprived of all communication with Miss Talbot. 
 He concluded by saying — he had authority for stating that 
 Miss Talbot had never become a postulant. 
 
 Admiral Berkeley trusted the House would bear with 
 him for a short time. The hon. member for Dublin had 
 stated, in distinct terms, not merely that the statement 
 put before the House, by the hon. member for Oxford 
 University, on the part of his (Admiral Berkeley's) 
 brother, was a misstatement, but went further, and said 
 that it was a falsehood. But, if that brother now had the 
 seat he once had in that. House, the hon. member for 
 
47 
 
 Dublin would not have dared to make that assertion. He was 
 not about to bandy words with that honorable member, or 
 with the reverend person whose letter had been quoted, 
 because he was sure that if he were so to lower himself he 
 should be beaten by unfair weapons. But this he would say, 
 that the man who insinuated that his brother went to the 
 convent, and took these proceedings because of this young 
 lady's fortune, and not because his daughter was this young 
 lady's half-sister, stated that which was absolutely and 
 totally without foundation. 
 
 Mr. Reynolds begged to say that in the observations 
 which he had addressed to the House, he did not use the 
 word "falsehood." (Cries of Oh ! Oh ;) He begged to state, 
 also, that he did not say that the object of the gallant 
 admiral's brother in going to the convent was this young 
 lady's money. He said merely that he thought, and he 
 was still of this opinion, that it would be found an ingredient 
 in the operation. 
 
 The Earl of Arundel and- Surrey deprecated further dis- 
 cussion, as a petition had been brought into the Court of 
 Chancery. 
 
 Sir B. Hall called the attention of the House to the fact 
 that the statement of the petitioner to that House (Mr. C. 
 Berkeley) had not only been once before impugned in the 
 House, but that this contradiction was now again asserted 
 to be true. He would now show the value of the contra- 
 diction of the hon. member (Mr. Reynolds). If that hon. 
 gentleman had had the candour and fairness to give the in- 
 formation contained in the letter signed " J. W. Hendren," 
 calling himself the Bishop of Clifton, he would have in- 
 formed the House that Miss Talbot really was a postulant. 
 
48 
 
 Having read part of Dr. Hendren's first letter (see supra) 
 he continued : — Mr. C. Berkeley in his petition to this 
 House stated that his step -daughter was a postulant. The 
 hon. member for Dublin denied it. He (Sir B. Hall) now 
 told him, on the authority of this letter, signed by the 
 bishop, that what he (Mr. Reynolds) had stated was with- 
 out foundation. 
 
 But the reader of these pages, if there be one, who sees 
 these statements for the first time, will exclaim — Surely 
 Mr. Reynolds did not know who Dr. Hendren was, and 
 none can now doubt the postulancy of Miss Talbot. If 
 further proof be needed, the candid affidavit of the afore- 
 said Miss Jerningham affords ample corroboration. That 
 lady does not inform us whether she shared in the con- 
 sternation of the Lodge, at Miss Talbot's " begging " 
 epistle, but her evidence is thus given, on paper, not in 
 the witness-box. 
 
 " I, Louisa Jerningham, of the Lodge, Taunton, in the 
 county of Somerset, spinster, make oath, and say that I am the 
 superior at the convent, at the said Lodge, and at which there 
 is also a school kept for young ladies, and at which school the 
 above-named Augusta Talbot has received her education. And 
 I say that in the month of September last, I was applied to 
 and, as I best recollect and believe, through the medium of 
 Dr. Winter, the chaplain of the Earl of Shrewsbury, to allow 
 the said Augusta Talbot to pass some time as a boarder at the 
 said convent, and that I replied, as the fact was, that it was 
 against the rule of the said convent to receive any young lady 
 there as a boarder, or otherwise than as a postulant, or person 
 who wished to make trial of a conventual life, with a. view of 
 forming an opinion respecting the same, and that I could not 
 receive the said Augusta Talbot as a boarder, or otherwise than 
 as a postulant, without the sanction of the bishop : and I re- 
 ferred the said Dr. Winter to the said bishop, Dr. Hendren ; 
 
49 
 
 and I say that I was, and am under the impression that the 
 said Dr. Hendren gave permission that the said Augusta Talbot 
 might be received at the said convent ; but that, by reason of 
 the said rule, she should, though an inmate, only be nominally 
 a postulant. But, I say, that / never did in fact consider, nor 
 did the said Augusta Talbot suppose, or consider, that the said 
 Augusta Talbot went to the said convent as an ordinary or 
 usual postulant, or in any other capacity than as an inmate, and 
 for a temporary purpose, though nominally, /or the reason afore- 
 said, as a postulant. And, I say, that every person who goes 
 to the said convent as a postulant, is required to undergo, and 
 does within a fortnight of coming undergo, certain religious 
 ceremonies, which constitute the admission of such persons 
 into their postulancy ; but, I say, that the said Augusta Talbot 
 has never in fact gone through any such religious ceremony, 
 and has never been admitted into any postulancy, and has 
 never been required to wear, and has never worn, any dress as 
 a postulant, or any other than a secular dress since she so went 
 to the said convent. And I say, that the said Augusta Talbot 
 neither went nor was sent, to the said convent in September 
 last, as a postulant or with the avowed object, by compulsion or 
 otherwise, of taking the veil and becoming a nun, or with any 
 other object as aforesaid. And I further say, that I perfectly 
 well remember the visit of the Hon. Craven Fitzhardinge 
 Berkeley to the said convent on the 14th day of February ; and 
 I say that the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley did not on 
 that occasion speak to the said Augusta Talbot, in my presence 
 or hearing, about any dying injunction of her mother; nor 
 did he ask her if she was a postulant, nor did she reply that she 
 was; but he asked her if she really intended to be a nun, and that 
 the said Augusta Talbot replied to the effect, that there was time 
 enough to think of that. And I further say, no mention what- 
 ever was made by the said Augusta Talbot to the effect that she 
 had still six months' time before her postulancy would expire ; 
 and I say that no opposition was offered, either by the said 
 Augusta Talbot or by myself, to the proposal of the said Craven 
 Fitzhardinge Berkeley to come again and bring his little daugh- 
 ter, the half-sister of the said Augusta Talbot, with him ; and 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 I deny that I admitted to the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berke- 
 ley that the said infant was placed at the said convent by the 
 said Earl, with the full intention that she should take the veil, 
 or that she was at that time an ordinary postulant for that 
 purpose, or to that effect ; and I deny that the said Augusta 
 Talbot, during the said interview, evinced by her manner or 
 appearance, or that it was the fact, that she was not a free agent, 
 or that she from time to time directed anxious glances towards 
 me before she replied to the questions of the said Craven Fitz- 
 hardinge Berkeley, or that she laboured under any fear or 
 undue restraint, or that it was utterly impossible or hopeless to 
 extract the true wishes or feelings of the said infant while in 
 my presence ; for I say, according to the best of my judgment 
 and belief, the said infant, during the said interview, spoke 
 her mind with perfect freedom and uninfluenced by me to the 
 said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley ; and I further say, that I 
 did not state to the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley that the 
 said Augusta Talbot would take the white veil in September 
 next, or that she would take the black veil in September, 1852 ; 
 but I say that during the said interview the said Craven Fitz- 
 hardinge Berkeley asked me various questions in respect of the 
 rules of the said convent, and in particular what were the usual 
 periods at which the black and white veils could respectively 
 be taken, and that I replied, the period varied in different 
 orders ; that with us (meaning at the Lodge at Taunton) there 
 were no fixed periods, that it was sometimes three months, but 
 it might be six months, or a year, or more, and depended on 
 age and circumstances, and the wishes of friends, or to that 
 effect ; and I also stated that a year must elapse between taking 
 the white and black veil j but I say that the said conversation 
 between me and the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley took 
 place with reference to the general rules of the said convent, 
 and not with reference to the said Augusta Talbot, or with any 
 particular reference to her, as alleged or insinuated by the said 
 Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley, and although I think it probable 
 and believe that I may have said to the said Fitzhardinge 
 Berkeley ' that no young lady was admitted to the convent a 
 second time except as a postulant,' or to that effect, yet I have 
 
51 
 
 no doubt that if I used any such phrase (/ .') I did so for the purpose 
 of explaining to the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley that 
 the said Augusta Talbot, though nominally a postulant (by 
 reason of the said rule), was in fact an inmate only. And I 
 positively deny that I stated most unreservedly to the said 
 Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley that the said Augusta Talbot was 
 placed at the said convent in September, 1850, by the said Earl 
 with the full intention that she should take the veil, or to that 
 effect, or otherwise than as aforesaid, or that the said Augusta 
 Talbot replied or said that she was not eligible for the black 
 veil for eighteen months and upwards, or to that effect. And I 
 further say that I knew that the said Augusta Talbot was a ward 
 of Court, and that on that account I would not have allowed her 
 to become a postulant, or to take the white veil, or to become a 
 novice in the said convent, until she had attained her full age 
 of twenty -one years, unless with the special permission of the 
 Lord Chancellor, and that I should not have considered myself 
 authorized so to do had I even been asked by the said Earl or 
 Countess of Shrewsbury to consent thereto. And I further say 
 that I deny it to be true that I have exercised any kind of con- 
 trol or influence over the said Augusta Talbot or attempted in 
 any way to induce her to become a nun. And I further say 
 that I told the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley during his 
 said visit on the 14th of February last that we called the said 
 Augusta Talbot a postulant. And I say that upon my so say- 
 ing the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley asked if the said 
 Augusta Talbot was likely to become a nun j that I replied that 
 it was as likely as not, or words to that effect. And I say that 
 when the said Craven Fitzhardinge Berkeley asked me to see 
 the said infant alone, I replied, as the fact was, that the said 
 Earl had requested that no person, except with the authority of 
 her guardian, Dr. Doyle, or his solicitor, should see the infant 
 otherwise than in my presence, or to that effect." 
 
 The Tablet, a high Romanist journal, calls this a "plain 
 
 and simple" statement ; but fain would we forget that it 
 
 was made by a lady entrusted with the responsible duties 
 
 of education, and gladly would we believe that it was the 
 
 D 2 
 
52 
 
 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.* Little 
 as the transaction redounds to the credit of any of the 
 clique, we cannot believe her capable of framing it herself. 
 Such evasions, such double meanings, such roundabout 
 phrases, such contradictions alike to Mr. Berkeley and to 
 Dr. Hendren, can only be accounted for by supposing that 
 the affidavit was drawn by others, and sent to her for 
 signature. Plainly there is a juggle somewhere. 
 
 The obligation to tell the truth is the same upon all — 
 Protestants or Romanists — aye, and upon Jesuits too ; but 
 after the perusal of these statements can any one say, that 
 this obligation has been fulfilled both by Dr. Hendren and 
 by Miss Jerningham ? 
 
 No casuistry, no shuffling can reconcile them, To any 
 one who should gravely say, that he was satisfied with 
 both, we should answer, 
 
 " Doubtless the pleasure is as great, 
 Of being cheated as to cheat." 
 
 Was there a child in the convent who did not treat her 
 as a postulant ? Was she not there spoken of as an in- 
 tended nun ? Was there not a plan in contemplation, nay, 
 was there not a contract at least in the course of negocia- 
 tion for the building of some magnificent additions to the 
 Lodge — possibly a cathedral for the future see of Taunton ? 
 Was not £\ 500 paid for a site of three acres? Such a 
 
 * In the course of the argument several statements were made as to 
 Dr. Doyle's affidavit, and the Solicitor-General remarked : — 
 
 ' He did not doubt that what he said was true ; but what he thought 
 right to keep back he could not possibly say ; he only took the affidavit 
 as it was before him.' 
 
 The Lord Chancellor : ' I don't assent to that proposition. The de- 
 ponent is bound to tell the whole truth, and his keeping back a part might 
 give a fahe colouring to his statement.' 
 
53 
 
 report has reached our ears, and if true, it would explain 
 Dr. Hendren's meaning when he wrote : — " One thing I 
 know, that this property will not he given to the convent 
 where she is." 
 
 Before proceeding to give Mr. Berkeley's answer to this 
 affidavit, some assistance in interpreting these words of 
 doubtful import, may be furnished by an attentive perusal 
 of the sayings and doings of the Sisterhood of Ranelagh 
 Convent, in Ireland, as detailed in the case of Whyte v. Read. 
 (2 Irish Equity Rep. 420.) It was a bill filed to set aside 
 a conveyance to the convent, obtained under the following 
 circumstances. 
 
 Miss Whyte, in 1825, being then eighteen years of age, 
 went to reside at Ranelagh Convent, in Ireland, whether 
 as a postulant for the order of nuns, residing therein, or as 
 a pupil, was controverted ; but it was clearly proved, that 
 her friends were very averse to her becoming a nun ; and 
 the bill charged, and some witnesses deposed that the 
 defendants, in order to induce them to agree to plaintiff's 
 residing in the nunnery, expressly promised that she 
 should not be professed until she attained the age of 
 twenty-one years, and that her friends should be apprised 
 previously, and that it was upon that express condition 
 the consent of her friends was obtained ; that it was 
 agreed that she should pay £600 for all her expenses in 
 the convent for her life, if she should remain ; that in 
 1827 the defendant induced her to become a nun, under 
 twenty-one, and in the absence of, and without apprising 
 her friends ; that she was professed privately in the even- 
 ing ; but plaintiff admitted she was then willing to become 
 a nun ; that being under age, the .£600 was not paid, but 
 
54 
 
 that £60 a year was paid until 1829, when £1000 three 
 and a half per cent stock was transferred by her for the use 
 of the defendants ; that in March 1 829, being very ill, she 
 was induced to make over her real property for the benefit 
 of the Society ; and accordingly by deed of lease and re- 
 lease, she granted to these defendants the lands of Trudder 
 and part of the lands of Woodpark, for her interest there- 
 in, upon trust as to the latter, for the use of the Society, 
 .and as to the former, for herself for life ; and after her 
 death, upon trust, that the defendants should retain for 
 the Society £\ 7 per annum, and to pay the residue to her 
 sister and her sister's children, the other defendants in the 
 cause ; that upon this occasion Terence Dolan, the attorney 
 of the said Society, and the brother of the defendant, 
 Catherine M. Dolan, prepared the deed, and plaintiff had 
 not the assistance of any professional friend, although one 
 John Mills was at this time her attorney. She admitted 
 she privately left the convent in 1827, and after remaining 
 with her friends a week, voluntarily returned to the con- 
 vent. The bill further charged, and evidence was given in 
 support of the allegation ; that plaintiff was excluded from 
 the society of her friends; that she finally quitted the 
 convent in 1836, and had been since in receipt of the rents. 
 The defendants, in their answer, denied the agreement 
 not to profess her until she attained the age of twenty-one 
 years ; insisted that they wrote word to her sister in time 
 to be present at the profession, or to have interfered to 
 prevent it, and did not write to her other friends, because 
 plaintiff did not express any wish that they should do so ; 
 and relied on the statute of limitations in bar of the ac- 
 count ; that the cause of refusing some of her friends was, 
 
55 
 
 that they had assisted her in privately withdrawing from 
 the convent, and as to the others, that by the rules of the 
 convent, only certain days were set apart for receiving visit- 
 ors, and all persons calling on the other days were excluded. 
 
 Mr. Dolan, in his depositions stated, that he had been 
 employed by Miss Whyte as her attorney at least four 
 times since she came to reside at Ranelagh, in the manage- 
 ment of her property, and specified the occasions ; that she 
 was not under any restraint of any person whatsoever ; that 
 she communicated to him fully and freely her own free and 
 unbiassed wishes respecting such professional business ; that 
 Mr. Mills during this time acted for plaintiff's sister, and 
 not for the plaintiff. In further depositions on the part of 
 the defendants, it was stated that they always treated the 
 plaintiff with great kindness and attention ; that they never 
 endeavoured to induce her to dispose of her property con- 
 trary to her own inclination ; that the cause of excluding her 
 friends was, that visitoi'S are only admitted on certain days by 
 the rules of the society ; and that she stated, on her return 
 to the convent, that while away, a Mr. Meekings proposed to 
 marry her. After argument the following very powerful 
 and consistent judgment was given by Baron Pennefather. 
 
 "In the year 1825, this young woman entered into the 
 establishment of the defendants as a lodger, and unques- 
 tionably not as a person who had irrevocably bound herself 
 to take the veil. That this was so is quite manifest, in- 
 dependent of the express evidence of what was stipulated 
 at the time she entered the convent. And what is that 
 which was stipulated, and which ought to have been done 
 without express arrangement? namely, that she was not 
 to be professed until she attained the age of twenty-one, 
 
56 
 
 nor even then, without communicating with her friends ; 
 that is the evidence of one of the witnesses (Mr. Henry) ; 
 it is not denied, nor can there be a doubt thrown upon it. 
 Under that stipulation she entered the convent, and it was 
 further agreed that she was to pay £40 a-year until she 
 took the veil, and £600 afterwards ; the defendants have 
 no pretence to claim the £600, until she took the veil. 
 When the case, therefore, is put upon contract, there is 
 no foundation for it ; — the contract was violated in every 
 material point by the defendants ; because the petitioner 
 took the veil, and we must suppose by the influence of the 
 defendants, while she was under age — contrary to the duty 
 of the defendants — even without any agreement upon the 
 subject ; but also in direct violation of the express agree- 
 ment they entered into with the petitioner and her friends. 
 In February, 1827, she remains under the same influence, 
 it must be supposed ; which, give me leave to say, is con- 
 testable proved by her having taken the veil ; and so she 
 continues until 1829, when she becomes unwell. Her 
 brother-in-law is denied access to her ; her sister is allowed 
 to see her, but never without a member of the convent 
 being present ; and, in such circumstances as these, she 
 transfers £1100 to the defendants, and the whole of her 
 real estate, with the exception of some small portion of it, 
 which she gave to her relations. Can it be seriously said, 
 that a transaction like this ought to stand ? that a deed, 
 executed by a person placed at a convent like this person — 
 placed in a situation where that undue influence is more likely 
 to be exercised than in any other which Courts of Equity 
 should interfere to prevent ;. and shall it not be presumed, 
 beyond almost a doubt so strong as not to be rebutted, 
 
57 
 
 that the documents in question were executed by the peti- 
 tioner under undue influence ? But this is not all ; the 
 deed was got up by Mr. Dolan, the professional friend of 
 the convent, without the presence of any professional 
 friend, or of any friend at all of the infant ; and this 
 gentleman takes upon himself to swear that these ladies are 
 so incapable of erring, that all this young woman has done, 
 was done without the slightest influence having been exercised 
 over her — the spontaneous effusion of her own mind! When 
 we find him thus volunteering to swear what the Searcher 
 of hearts alone could tell, is it not plain that he gave his 
 heart and mind, not to the unfortunate victim upon whom he 
 was about to practice as far as he was able, but to the de- 
 fendants in this cause ? He is not called upon to say 
 whether the deed was technical or not, or whether counsel 
 drew it ; we do not want to know what Miss Whyte said 
 to him ; what we seek to know is this, if she had an in- 
 tention to make this disposition of her property, how it 
 was produced ? And no man can doubt that it was pro- 
 duced by the influence of young ladies over a young person, 
 secluded from every friend ; her nearest relatives excluded 
 front her. Can we hesitate for one moment to believe, 
 that the intention was produced by an exercise of influence 
 on the part of those who ought not to be engaged in secular 
 pursuits, but ought to have been devoted to the instruction 
 of the petitioner's mind ? Upon the whole we think, with- 
 out any doubt, that we ought to decree a re-conveyance." 
 And a decree was accordingly made. 
 
 We might well leave the case here ; but anxious to put 
 all the documents before the public, we proceed to give 
 D 5 
 
58 
 
 Mr. C. Berkeley's statement, and also those of Dr. Doyle, 
 Mr. Norris, and the letter of Miss Talbot herself. 
 
 First, however, we pray our readers to turn back and 
 re-peruse Miss Jerningham's candid affidavit, and reflect 
 upon the resemblances between the Ranelagh and the 
 Lodge schemes ; which, but for Mr. C. Berkeley's inter- 
 ference, would have been coincident to the end. 
 
 Mr. C. Berkeley's affidavit, in answer to Miss Jerning- 
 ham's, is as follows : — 
 
 " I, Craven Berkeley, &c, make oath and say, that I have 
 a distinct and vivid recollection of all that transpired on the 14th 
 day of February, 1850, during my visit to the convent called 
 the ' Lodge,' situate at Taunton, in the county of Somerset, 
 and more especially from the fact of my having, immediately 
 after I left the said convent, reduced to writing, by the advice 
 of my solicitor, Mr. Corfield, the conversation that took place 
 between Miss Jerningham and myself, and also between the 
 infant, Augusta Talbot, and myself; and I further say, that in 
 talking matters over with the said Miss Jerningham, she stated, 
 ' that no young lady was admitted a second time to the said 
 convent, except as a postulant.' And I further say, that the 
 said Miss Jerningham stated most unreservedly, ' that the saiu 
 infant, Augusta Talbot, was placed at the said convent in the 
 month of September, 1850, by the abovenamed John, Earl of 
 Shrewsbury, with the full intention that the said infant, 
 Augusta Talbot, should take the veil ; ' and the said Miss 
 Jerningham admitted that the said infant, Augusta Talbot, was 
 a postulant at that time for that purpose. And I further say, 
 that when the said infant, Augusta Talbot, was introduced into 
 the room, in consequence of what had been stated by the said 
 Miss Jerningham, I asked her distinctly, ' Whether it was her 
 wish to remain for ever in the said convent? ' when the infant, 
 Augusta Talbot, replied, 'Oh, there is time enough yet to de- 
 cide that, as I am not eligible for the black veil for eighteen 
 months and upwards.' And I further say, I requested of the 
 
59 
 
 said Miss Jerningham to be left alone with the said infant, 
 Augusta Talbot, for a short time, as I desired to have a little 
 unrestrained conversation with her, when the said Miss 
 Jerningham informed me ' that Lord Shrewsbury had given 
 positive instructions in September last, when he left her there, 
 that she never was to see any one for an instant, unless in the 
 presence of a Superior or Vicaress.' And I further say, that 
 the above language was made use of by Miss Jerningham and 
 the said infant, Augusta Talbot, and the above words within 
 the inverted commas were written by me, immediately after 
 the said interview, on the said 14th day of February, 1850, and 
 that I could not by any possibility be mistaken. And I further 
 say, that notwithstanding the petition which was presented on 
 the 7th day of January, 1843, and notwithstanding the order 
 made thereupon by his Honour the Vice-Chancellor of Eng- 
 land, I have been informed, and verily believe, that the said 
 Earl of Shrewsbury, and the said Thomas Doyle, or one of 
 them, again placed the said infant, Augusta Talbot, at the said 
 convent, or allowed her to remain as a pupil there for a period 
 of five years or thereabouts." 
 
 The only other evidence upon the question, is that which 
 is quite beside the point ; — we mean, that Dr. Doyle and 
 Mr. Norris were informed by the Earl of Shrewsbury, 
 that they had placed her there with her own consent as a 
 boarder ; and that Mr. Norris visited the convent on tJie 
 1 7th of March, which he thus describes : — 
 
 " The said Augusta Talbot was in a secular dress and not in 
 the dress of a novice or postulant ; and that I requested the 
 Superior of the said convent to leave the room (it is not said 
 she did leave the room) in order that I might ask said Augusta 
 Talbot, as representing her said guardian, whether she was 
 then at said convent by her own free will and consent, and to 
 which the said Augusta Talbot replied that she was, and that she 
 was willing to return to London in the spring to be placed 
 under the protection of some lady of suitable position, as the 
 
60 
 
 Lord Chancellor might direct; and the said Augusta Talbot 
 informed me that the said C. F. Berkeley had been lately at the 
 convent to see her. The said Superior of the convent expressed 
 to me, in the presence of said Augusta Talbot, her extreme 
 desire that the said Augusta Talbot should not become a nun, 
 but should be introduced into society. I say, that to the best 
 of my belief, the allegation that the Earl and Countess placed 
 her at the said convent " not as a pupil or visitor, but as a pos- 
 tulant, with the avowed object of allowing her to take the veil 
 and become a nun," is not true, but that the said Augusta Talbot 
 went to the convent in September last by her own wish and 
 desire, and as a visitor only, and not as a postulant; I am 
 further informed, that she never has worn the dress of a pos- 
 tulant since she returned to the convent in September last. I 
 am informed, and believe, that previously to the recent visit 
 of C. F. Berkeley, the said Augusta Talbot had determined in 
 consequence of the state of her health to shorten the period 
 during which she had previously purposed to remain as a 
 visitor at the convent ; and that the said Thomas Doyle had 
 advised her not to become a nun, and that at my interview 
 with the said Augusta Talbot on the 17th of March, instant, 
 she expressed her wish and desire to comply with the wishes of 
 the Lord Chancellor in her regard." 
 
 This letter confirms Dr. Hendren's statement, inasmuch 
 as it shews that it had been proposed that she should 
 become a nun, or why did Dr. Doyle dissuade her ? 
 
 We would also ask why the Lady Abbess did not at all 
 refer to her intention to shorten her residence there as a 
 visitor ?* Dr. Doyle's affidavit is only a statement of what 
 he had heard from the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, 
 and is really worthless as evidence, but we will give his 
 own words : — 
 
 " I was informed, and verily believe, and have no doubt 
 whatever, that the said infant went back to the said convent 
 
 * See also Dr. Hendren's Letter, infra. 
 
61 
 
 of her own will, and that she had very great pleasure and 
 
 satisfaction in doing so. 
 
 " That on the said Earl and Countess going abroad, in the 
 
 month of September, 1850, they informed me that they had 
 
 placed the said Augusta Talbot, with her own consent, as a 
 
 boarder at the said convent at Taunton. 
 
 " I say, that the said proposal was so abandoned chiefly by 
 
 reason of the opposition (see supra 26) ; and I say that I have 
 reason to believe that the proposed marriage was abandoned 
 with the approbation of the Earl and Countess, inasmuch as 
 while they were passing through London, on their way to the 
 continent, I saw the Earl in London, and he stated to me that 
 he thought it was as well that the same had gone off, or to that 
 effect ; and I say that the Earl and Countess had previously 
 told me that the marriage was agreeable to the said infant, and 
 I say that on the last-mentioned occasion while in London, the 
 said Earl informed me, and I believe and have no doubt that it is 
 the fact, that the said infant had been sent by him to the convent 
 at Taunton Lodge, and placed there as a boarder, and that she 
 had gone there at her own particular request, and by reason of 
 her having many friends there, or to that effect." 
 
 It remains only to add Miss Augusta Talbot's own 
 letter to the Lord Chancellor : — 
 
 " Tuesday, March 18, Taunton. 
 " My Lord, — You will, of course, see what I have written,* 
 in answer to Mr. Craven Berkeley's false statements, and I am 
 sure in such a case you will think it only just for me to express 
 myself what is the pure truth, as I have done. It is scarcely 
 credible how a gentleman can act as Mr. Craven Berkeley has 
 done ; for, I assure you, my Lord, he was down here at the con- 
 vent himself on the I4th of February. He then asked me a 
 numerous set form of questions, as if he had some object in 
 view, but wished to get a little information beforehand ; and, 
 
 * This refers to a petition to Parliament sent up at the same time as 
 the letter, and intended to have been presented, but which has not been 
 made public. Was that too written by herself? 
 
62 
 
 at his departure, he said he should come again, and bring with 
 him a little half-sister of mine. No opposition was made, for 
 how could we know how Mr. C. Berkeley intended to act ? But, 
 after the manner in which he has spoken of the convent at 
 Taunton, where I have spent the happiest days of my life, and 
 where I have experienced for nine years the most unchanging 
 kindness, — how could I read his petition, and not feel a just 
 indignation at such conduct? So that it is now, my Lord, my 
 own free and deliberate wish never again to see Mr. Craven 
 Berkeley. Should I meet him anywhere, he would not surely 
 be the first to address me, and, most assuredly, I should not. 
 He has disgraced himself for ever in my eyes, and I should 
 think in the eyes of every just and reasonable person. Believe 
 me, my Lord, it is I alone in this house who have shown any 
 feeling of indignation; for all under this roof are too good to 
 let any feeling rise but that which every one must naturally feel, 
 compassion for so weak and dishonourable a man. This letter 
 your Lordship is at liberty to show to whom you please. I do 
 not feel to have said more than I ought. I may have spoken 
 strongly of Mr. C. Berkeley's conduct, but I have not passed 
 the limits of truth and justice. I must add, that every word of 
 this letter is from myself. I am alone while writing it ; and, 
 therefore, no one can allege that I have been prompted by any 
 one; every word is the result of my own thoughts and reflection. 
 
 " Mr. Norris, whom I saw on Monday, told me of your 
 Lordship's wish that I should go up to town again and see a 
 little more of the world. It will cost me much certainly to 
 leave Taunton, where are all my dearest and truest friends; 
 but your Lordship acts for the best, and I would not therefore 
 on any account oppose your wishes. After Easter I shall be 
 ready to yield myself, and again enter a world whose charms 
 I can never value. 
 
 " Thanking your Lordship for the kind interest you have 
 taken in my welfare, 
 
 " 1 remain, yours respectfully, 
 
 " Augusta Talbot." 
 
 It would be unfair and unmanly to criticize this letter. 
 
63 
 
 It is sufficient to bear in mind where and when it was 
 written, and many may agree with Mr. Berkeley, who, in 
 his affidavit of March 25, after setting out Dr. Hendren's 
 letter, (see supra 32 and infra 66) thus proceeds : — 
 
 " And I further say, that I verily believe the statement 
 therein contained,' the Lord Chancellor decided that she should 
 return as a boarder to the convent,' is utterly false and untrue. 
 And I further say, that every statement concerning me in the 
 said letter, except that, ' had not seen his step-daughter, nor 
 seemed to trouble himself about her,' as to which I have 
 already given an explanation, is wholly false. And I further 
 say I have read a second letter from the said J. W. Hendren, 
 published in ' The Times ' on the 22d of March, inst., and, as I 
 am the only person specifically calumniated in that said letter. 
 I content myself with saying that the statements therein affect- 
 ing myself are wholly false and untrue. And I further say, 
 that I verily believe that if, on the occasion of my visit to the 
 said infant, Augusta Talbot, more particularly mentioned in my 
 former affidavit, I had been allowed an unrestrained conversa- 
 tion with her, 1 should have ascertained the whole truth from 
 her own lips, of matters, which, for reasons best known to her- 
 self and the said Countess of Shrewsbury, the said Earl of 
 Shrewsbury prevented coming to light, by ordering the superior 
 not to allow any person to communicate with the said infant, 
 Augusta Talbot, except in the presence of herself or the 
 vicaress of the said convent. And I further say, that I verily 
 believe the said infant, Augusta Talbot, has been trepanned 
 into writing the letter to the Lord High Chancellor by the said 
 J. W. Hendren, who states that he is the ecclesiastical superior 
 of the said convent, and who in that capacity has almost daily 
 visited the said infant, Augusta Talbot, or by some person act- 
 ing under his authority, and I verily believe that the said J. W. 
 Hendren, together with the superior of the said convent, exer- 
 cise absolute and unconditional control over every feeling of 
 the heart of the said infant, Augusta Talbot, and over every 
 motive and action of her life; and I further say that for the 
 
64 
 
 reasons aforesaid the said J. W. Hendren is wholly unworthy 
 of credit; and I further say that for the reasons contained in 
 this and my former affidavits, it is of vital importance to the 
 interests and future prospects in life of the said infant, Augusta 
 Talhot, that the remainder of her minority should be spent 
 under the auspices and roof of some noble family other than 
 the said Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, who have evinced 
 such a thorough want of affection towards the said infant, 
 Augusta Talbot, and who have utterly disregarded the said 
 order of the 27th day of July, 1843 ; and I further say that the 
 fortune of the said infant, Augusta Talbot, amounts to the sum 
 of £85,000, and upwards, and that by the said affidavit of 
 Anthony Norris, filed the 21st day of March, 1851, it appears 
 that the Master to whom this cause stands referred has found 
 that in the event of the death of the said infant, Augusta 
 Talbot, under the age of twenty one years, and without having 
 been married, the said fortune of £85,000 would belong to the 
 Earl of Shrewsbury." 
 
 The evidence may be thus summed up. The rules of 
 the convent prevent Miss Talbot being there, except as a 
 postulant, without the permission of Dr. Hendren. Dr. 
 Hendren states she was there as a postulant. Mr. Berkeley 
 states that Miss Jerningham described her as a postulant. 
 
 Miss Jerningham says that she did not consider her as 
 an ordinary or usual postulant ; and that she was under 
 the impression that Dr. Hendren had given his permission 
 for her to be only nominally a postulant. Dr. Doyle and 
 Mr. Norris say that the Earl of Shrewsbury told them she 
 was a boarder. 
 
 Dr. "Winter is silent, and the letters that passed are not 
 produced ; but it is admitted that the absence of the Earl 
 and Countess was indefinite ; and that during their absence, 
 no one was to be allowed to see Miss Augusta Talbot — the 
 visitor or boarder of her own free will — alone, except by the 
 
65 
 
 authority of Dr. Doyle or his solicitor 1 It is not our 
 purpose here to dwell upon the science of bringing the 
 feelings and sentiments of an artless, inexperienced girl 
 of nineteen or twenty into the requisite subjection, so that 
 her acts, even that of self-sacrifice without knowing the 
 nature of that sacrifice, may put on the guise of willingness, 
 — a science practised to perfection by the priests of implicit 
 obedience — but we put another test. Reader, do you 
 believe that if Mr. C. Berkeley had not come forward, that 
 Miss Augusta Talbot would have been a boarder or a postu- 
 lant ? Would she have been allowed to say she had never 
 been a postulant 1 Mr. Bumble, the beadle, when the 
 audacious Oliver asked for * more ' was not more horror- 
 struck than Miss Jerningham would have been, had Miss 
 Talbot, the boarder-postulant, at the end of six months 
 informed her that she was only a boarder. The rules 
 would have been referred to, Dr. Hendren would have been 
 appealed to, and all the faded blue merinos and straw 
 bonnets would have been forgotten, and the nominal pos- 
 tulant would have taken the white veil. Of her own free 
 will, of course, just as poor Miss Whyte acted of her own 
 free will, and Miss Macarthy, and Mathurin Carr6, and the 
 ecclesiastical superior would have smiled approvingly, and 
 the £85,000 would have been appropriated, of course, by 
 her own free will! and the site for which .£1500 was 
 paid would have been built upon. Away with such abuse 
 of words, such mockery of common sense. 
 
 It will be convenient here to insert the rest of Dr. Hen- 
 dren's epistolary effusions, but we will forbear commenting 
 minutely upon their transparent sophistry and reckless 
 effrontery. 
 
66 
 
 The first letter thus concluded : — (see the commence- 
 ment, supra 32.) 
 
 " Some five or six weeks ago Mr. C. F. Berkeley, who had 
 not seen his step-daughter nor seemed to trouble himself about 
 her, presented himself at the convent, saw Miss Talbot, and 
 ascertained from her that she was, there by her own free choice, 
 and that she had no intention to leave as far as that depended 
 on herself. He then alluded to the disposal of her property, 
 hoped it would not all be given to the convent, reminded her 
 that she had friends, &c, hut quickly found he was not likely 
 to get any share of it. From these facts different people may 
 deduce different conclusions, with which, however, I have 
 nothing to do ; but I may fairly ask, what right has Mr. C. F. 
 Berkeley to meddle with Miss Talbot's affairs? He is not her 
 parent ; he is not her guardian ; he is in no way entitled to in- 
 terfere with her. It was right, perhaps, to let him see her once, 
 that he might see and be convinced that she was under no con- 
 straint. But he will not be allowed to see her again, that is to 
 vex and teaze her — of that he may be sure. 
 
 Now, Sir, about compulsion, and such like matters. Miss 
 Talbot knows full well, and so does, or may, or ought to know, 
 every one who talks or writes on such subjects, that she is at 
 perfect liberty, in conscience as well as by law, to leave the 
 convent any day she may feel so inclined. It is utterly false to 
 say that next September, or at any other time, she will be com- 
 pelled to put on the " white veil." It is equally false to say 
 that in September, 1852, or at any other time, she will be com- 
 pelled to put on the " black veil." If, indeed, she chooses to 
 put on the said black veil, then" she will not be free in consci- 
 ence to leave the convent ; that is, it cannot be allowed her to 
 violate the solemn promises she will then have made to God. 
 
 " Let me tell you, Sir, if you are ignorant of it, that the 
 Catholic Church has made every possible provision against 
 compelling any one to enter a convent ; that she has threatened 
 with the severest penalties she can inflict every one who in any 
 way compels another to embrace the conventual life, as also all 
 who in any way concur in so grievous a crime. I give you the 
 
67 
 
 text of the Tridentine decree on this subject (Sess. 25, De Reg. 
 et Mon., c. 18) :•-" Anathemati subjicit s. synodus omnes et 
 singulas personas, cujuscumque qualitatis vel conditionis fue- 
 rint, tain clericos quam laicos, sseculares vel regulares, atque 
 etiam qualibet dignitate fungentes, si quomodocumque coege- 
 rint aliquam virginem vel viduam aut aliam quamcumque 
 mulierum invitam .... ad ingrediendum monasterium, 
 vel ad suscipiendum habitum cujuscumque religionis, vel ad 
 emittendam professionem quique consilium, auxilium, vel fa- 
 vorem dederint ; quique scientes earn non sponte ingredi mo- 
 jiasterium, aut habitum suscipere, aut professionem emittere, 
 quoquo modo eidem actui vel prsesentiam vel consensum vel 
 auctoritatem interposuerint." This surely is strong enough. 
 But, moreover, the bishop is bound to ascertain by personal 
 examination (either by himself or deputy) before the profession 
 (or " putting on of the black veil ") that there as been no com- 
 pulsion, no undue influence employed ; that it is with her own 
 free consent, and at her own request, that the novice takes the 
 vows. {Ibid., i>. 17.) (See Miss Whyte's case.) Now, Sir, what 
 more could be done to insure liberty of choice? If these laws 
 have been violated by wicked men, that surely is no fault of the 
 church. No laws of God or man can restrain the wickedness 
 of some men who are hankering after the property of their 
 relatives, for thepurpose either of getting it for themselves, or 
 of aggrandizing an elder branch of their family. I do not 
 deny that such violence may sometimes have been employed; 
 but I say again, this is not the fault of the church, and'I add 
 that even in this case the victim is not without a remedy. There 
 is another law of the church, in virtue of which, whoever has 
 been subjected to such compulsion, may protest against her 
 profession at any time within five years after it, and if she can 
 prove that her profession was made against her will, she will be 
 allowed to quit the convent, and no one, under any pretext, will* 
 be able to detain her. So much for compulsion, and I am not 
 sorry to have found this opportunity of explaining, » subject 
 which is continually misunderstood by fools, and misrepresented 
 by knaves. 
 
 " There are still some other points to be discussed in refer- 
 
68 
 
 ence to this case of Miss Talbot, on which, with your permis- 
 sion, I will address you again. 
 
 " In the meantime, I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 " J. W. Hendren, Bishop of Clifton. 
 
 " Clifton, March 18. 
 
 The second letter was as follows : — 
 
 " Sir, — With your permission I would resume my observa- 
 tions on the case of Miss Talbot, brought forward by the Hon. 
 Craven F. Berkeley. 
 
 " Of the amount of Miss Talbot's property I have no authen- 
 tic information, having never made any inquiry on the subject ; 
 but I believe it is nearly what Mr. C. F. Berkeley has stated. 
 Neither do I know how Miss Talbot intends to dispose of it, 
 having never asked her a question about it, nor dropped the 
 slightest hint, nor offered a single suggestion. When she has 
 attained her majority she will be as free to dispose of it accord- 
 ing to her own inclination as she is now to remain in the con- 
 vent or to leave it. One thing I know — that this property will 
 not be given to the convent where she is. It is utterly false to say 
 that she will be obliged to give it to that convent, (observe the 
 pronoun that .') and Mr. C. F. Berkeley knows it is false. At 
 his last interview with her (14th of February), he himself ob- 
 served, that should she become a nun, she' would have full 
 control over her property, and would not be at all obliged to 
 give it to the convent; to which she coolly replied, "I know 
 that." This was told me a few days after the interview, and 
 yesterday it was repeated to me in precisely the same terms. 
 But, indeed, I would not allow such a thing to be done — that is, I 
 would not allow that community to receive such a sum, even if 
 Miss Talbot, or any one else, had ever dreamed of such a thing. 
 
 " Permit me here again to quote the provisions of the Coun- 
 'cil of Trent (See xxv. de Regul. et Monial., c. 16), — "Nulla 
 quoque renunciatio aut obligatio antea facta, etiam cum jura- 
 mento vel in favorem cujuscumque causa? pise, valeat nisi cum 
 licentia episcopi sive ejus vicarii fiat intra duos menses pro- 
 ximos ante professionem ; ac non alias intelligatur effectum 
 suum sortiri nisi secuta professione . . . sed neque ante pro- 
 
69 
 
 fessionem, excepto victu et vestitu novitii vel novitiae illius 
 tempori, quo in probations est, quocumque pretextu, a parenti- 
 bus vel propinquis aut curatoribus ejus, monasterio aliquid ex 
 bonis eju8 tribuatur, ne hac occasione discedere nequeat quod 
 totam vel majorem partem substantias suae monasterium pos- 
 sideat, nee facile si disceserit id recuperare possit : quin potius 
 praecipit S. Synodus, sub anathematis poena, dantibus et 
 recipientibus ne hoc ullo modo fiat, et ut abeuntibus ante 
 professionem omnia restituantur quae sua erant." And here, 
 Sir, I ask, what could the Church do more to insure the liberty 
 and secure the property of these novices? 
 
 I think it probable that if Miss Talbot becomes a nun, a 
 portion of her property will be devoted to religious and 
 charitable purposes ; and why not? The Catholic Church in 
 England is very poorly provided. Everywhere we want 
 churches, and chapels, and schools, and hospitals, and orphan- 
 ages, &c, and cannot find the means for erecting them, still 
 less for endowing them. Now, we think it is good to contribute 
 money to such objects. We think even it is better than to give 
 it' to those who might squander it on horse-racing, gambling, 
 and profligacy. We frequently meet in newspapers with para- 
 graphs headed "munificent donation" or "bequest," made 
 by Protestants, who are greatly bepraised for what they have 
 done, and the reader is usually exhorted to " go and do like- 
 wise ; " and, we ask, if it is praiseworthy in Protestants to do 
 such things, why is it blameable in Catholics? But, after all, 
 it is idle to speculate on what will be done in case Miss Talbot 
 takes the vows, for the case may not occur. She may change her 
 mind and leave the convent, or her health may oblige her to 
 leave it, or she may be judged not qualified for the conventual 
 life, or many other impediments may occur." 
 
 "As to the declamation about "manoeuvres and intrigues 
 of the Roman Catholic priesthood," " religious feelings of a 
 credulous girl," "influence of a conventual life," "direction 
 of an astute priest," "caves of Cacus," "series of artifices and 
 manoeuvres," &c, we Catholics are too much accustomed to it 
 to regard it much. Nevertheless, I beg leave to say it is rather 
 too much to assume that all Catholic priests are, or may be, not 
 
70 
 
 only capable, but, when an occasion offers, actually guilty of 
 fraud, imposture, falsehood, villany, selfishness, unscrupulous 
 and remorseless, and, in fine, destitute of all principle and all 
 moral sense. It is too much to assume that our poor nuns, the 
 glory and honour of the Church in our days as they were in 
 those of St. Cyprian (A.D. 250), are equally wicked. It is too 
 much also to assume that our laity all, whatever may be their 
 rank, their intelligence, their learning, their piety, are the 
 obsequious slaves of this villanous priesthood — that they dare 
 not on any subject think or act for themselves. And yet all 
 this is assumed in the invectives continually poured forth on 
 Catholics and Catholic priests. It is assumed in the petition of 
 Mr. C. F. Berkeley, it is assumed in your own observations, and 
 the denials I have given to some of these misstatements will 
 not be admitted by furious Protestant bigots. They will be 
 attributed to the system of equivocation, falsehood, perjury, &c., 
 adopted and practised by Catholic priests. This is the justice 
 and fair play we meet with from our adversaries. You say, 
 " Her interest in this large sum of money at once made her a 
 mark for the manoeuvres and intrigues of the Roman Catholic 
 priesthood." Permit me, Sir, to ask you, how do you know 
 this ? what proof of it have you ? The Cummings, M'Neiles, 
 and such like, would immediately answer, " Oh, it may safely 
 be presumed from the well-known character of the Catholic 
 priesthood — there can be no doubt about it," &c. And upon 
 these presumptions we are condemned without a hearing, and 
 this by liberal-minded, generous, intelligent, and so forth, 
 Englishmen. It is the old story of the wolf and the lamb, or 
 " give a dog a bad name," &c. 
 
 " But permit me to remark that it is quite as easy to impute all 
 this wickedness to the priests, or whatever you call them, of your 
 own Established Church ; and that, in fact, it is imputed to them 
 by your own infidels. Some years ago (it may be eighteen) 
 was published a book " on priestcraft,'' of which I have seen 
 nothing but an extract from the preface given in the newspapers 
 of the day, from which it seemed that the author undertook to 
 prove that the priesthood in all ages and all nations (the divinely- 
 instituted priesthood of the Jewish nation of course not excepted, 
 
71 
 
 nor even thepriesthoodofour blessed Lord himself) has been, and 
 is, nothing but a system of imposture, devised for the purpose 
 of subjecting the minds of men and women, and consequently 
 their goods, their bodies, their everything, to the power and 
 disposal of the scoundrel impostors, and so to enable them to 
 live in luxury and debauchery. Such is the doctrine of this 
 writer ; and such is also the doctrine of Mazzini, Karl Heinzen, 
 and the men who met at the Freemason 's-hall on the 13th inst. 
 — that is, of the infidels and socialists whose avowed object is 
 the destruction of religion and society. The abovementioned 
 K. Heinzen, as some of your correspondents have informed 
 you, has said that the establishment of the social republic 
 throughout Europe may require the slaughter of two millions of 
 aristocrats (in which number will be included of course all 
 faithful priests) ; but, as he says, the destruction of these 
 wretches is a mere trifle in comparison with the happiness of 
 200 millions. If the system of degrading the priesthood, and 
 holding up priests to the derision and detestation of men, is 
 persevered in, these socialists will attain their object, and before 
 long Europe will be devastated and deluged in blood. The 
 Catholic priesthood is by far the most numerous in Europe. 
 Now, Sir, do you not see how you are unwittingly aiding these 
 enemies of all order by your so-often-repeated vituperations of 
 the Catholic priesthood ? 
 
 " I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 " J. W. Hendren, Bishop of Clifton. 
 " Clifton, March 19." 
 
 But to return to the Lord Chancellor. Influenced by a 
 not unwise caution to avoid the charge of prejudging the 
 case, he had bowed Mr. C. Berkeley out, though it would 
 have been better to have intimated to him at once that Dr. 
 Doyle would be called upon to give an explanation. His 
 Lordship's own account is as follows : — 
 
 " I heard from Lord Shrewsbury that this young lady, at her 
 own request, had been received as a parlour boarder at the con- 
 vent, where she was temporarily to remain, she having been 
 
72 
 
 there for several years, educated there, and having considera- 
 ble attachment to the lady at the head of the establishment. I 
 heard no more regarding the convent than that she was there 
 as a parlour boarder. At that time, knowing that she was a 
 ward, I, of course, knew that some order had been made. 
 Therefore, knowing that an order must have been made, being 
 aware that she was under the care of Lord and Lady Shrews- 
 bury, as of course I concluded with the sanction of this court, 
 and that she had been at this convent before as a parlour 
 boarder; that being intimated, I did not conceive that I was 
 called upon to interfere in the matter. Mr. Craven Berkeley 
 applied to me at Westminster for a habeas corpus, and then he 
 stated to me that this lady had been put into this convent as a 
 postulant. That of course presented a very different state of 
 affairs. There were certain statements in the petition as to this 
 young lady being under duress, and so on, which it appeared to 
 me were founded in mistake, and I thought I had authority 
 enough to see to the lady's interest without a habeas corpus. I 
 therefore said that any application of that sort ought to be made 
 in court. I, however, thought it my duty to inquire immediately 
 what the order was, and when I got the order I found it was to 
 the effect that the young lady was delivered over to the care of 
 Lord and Lady Shrewsbury with the view of going abioad. 
 Certainly, when I found that the ward had been handed over to 
 Lord and Lady Shrewsbury, in general terms with liberty to 
 take her abroad, it did not appear to me that a convent was the 
 place contemplated by the order. 1 therefore directed that an 
 application should be made to the solicitor who acted in the 
 matter, that he would communicate to Dr. Doyle, that I should 
 remove the young lady from the convent." 
 
 Dr. Doyle instinctively appreciated the hint, and pre- 
 sented a petition forthwith for a scheme for the young 
 lady's residence away from the convent. Had he not done 
 so he would have been self-convicted, and the Lord Chan- 
 cellor would have been bound to remove him. The peti- 
 tion was merely formal, setting out the facts as to the suit 
 
73 
 
 &c. It was arranged that Mr. Berkeley's petition should 
 also be heard at the same time ; and it must be here men- 
 tioned, that in deference to the statements of the Lord 
 Chancellor, as to the contemplated marriage, Mr. Berkeley 
 had amended the prayer of the petition, and it now stood 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Your petitioner, therefore, humbly prays your Lordship that 
 she may be removed from the said convent, and that she may 
 be placed under the care of such person as to your Lordship 
 shall seem meet; and that the said Craven Fitzhardinge 
 Berkeley may have access to your petitioner at all reasonable 
 times, and that the costs of, this petition may be paid out of the 
 trust-funds belonging to your petitioner, or that your Lordship 
 will make such other order as to your Lordship may seem 
 meet." 
 
 The affidavits, however, having been once filed and made 
 records of the Court, could not be altered, although the 
 information derived from the Lord Chancellor placed the 
 conduct of the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury as to the 
 marriage, in a somewhat different light. But when it was 
 discovered for the first time, by the publication of Miss 
 Talbot's letter, that she had spent the whole period be- 
 tween 1843 and 1850, in the convent, Mr. Corfield, the 
 solicitor of Mr. C. Berkeley, gave immediate and formal 
 notice, that at the hearing of the petition under the 
 general prayer of relief, Mr. C. Berkeley would rely upon 
 the affidavits &c. used in 1843, the object being of course, 
 to show that Dr. Doyle, the Guardian, had grossly neg- 
 lected his duty, and ought to be removed. 
 
 We believe we have laid before our readers all the 
 material points of the evidence, and the substance of all 
 
 E 
 
74 
 
 the affidavits, and we proceed briefly to state the proceed- 
 ings in Court. 
 
 On Thursday the 20th of March, Mr. Rolt, who ap- 
 peared on behalf of Dr. Doyle, applied to the Lord Chan- 
 cellor that the petition which related to a scheme for Miss 
 Augusta Talbot's residence in town might be placed in 
 the paper for Saturday, March 22, which was ordered 
 accordingly. 
 
 On Saturday the petition came on, but as the evening 
 before a copy of Mr. Berkeley's petition was served upon 
 Dr. Doyle, it was arranged, after some discussion, that the 
 case should be heard on the following Thursday. It was 
 during this interesting discussion that the Lord Chancellor 
 publicly denied, that Miss Talbot had gone to the convent 
 with his consent, for that he had not known it until after- 
 wards,* and that she herself stated that she never had gone 
 to the convent as a postulant, and never went there with 
 that intention. 
 
 "We have already detailed the evidence from which each 
 of our readers may draw his own conclusion as to the 
 intentions of the ecclesiastical superiors — for that is the 
 substantial question at issue ; and we will now pass on to 
 the hearing of the cause, merely observing that on Thurs- 
 day, March 27, another interesting conversation took 
 place in Court, when his Lordship mentioned, that he had 
 written to Miss Talbot, and that she was coming to town, 
 and that he had arranged for her to remain with a lady, 
 whose name he did not then mention publicly ; but who 
 was ascertained to be Lady Newburgh. 
 
 On Saturday then (March 29,) Mr. Rolt brought on 
 * See supra 32. 
 
75 
 
 Dr. Doyle's petition ; which being a mere matter of course, 
 consisted of a recital of the different orders and necessary 
 facts, and prayed a reference for an increased allowance 
 for the purpose of Miss Talbot's residence in town. The 
 order being made, the Solicitor General (Mr. Page Wood) 
 then opened the petition of Mr. Berkeley. He read and 
 commented upon the various statements in the affidavits, 
 as proving the indifference to the true interests of Miss 
 Talbot exhibited both by Dr. Doyle and the Earl and 
 Countess of Shrewsbury, which could only be accounted for 
 by their desiring that she should eventually become a nun, 
 although Dr. Doyle had, on the 13th of March — three 
 weeks after Mr. Berkeley's affidavits had been filed, and the 
 petition handed to the Lord Chancellor's secretary —written 
 to dissuade her from such a step, because he had an im- 
 pression C ! ) that some such idea was floating in her mind. 
 
 Mr. Birkbeck followed the Solicitor General, and main- 
 tained — and as we think, conclusively — that no construc- 
 tion could be put upon the order of July 1843, which 
 would justify the course that had been taken. He also 
 pointed out, and with great force, the discrepancies in the 
 affidavits df Dr. Doyle and the Abbess, and without retorting 
 on the parties to the intrigues, or their Counsel, shewed 
 most clearly that the Priest and Abbess had concealed all 
 the material facts within their own knowledge, and which 
 would have supplied the " sad blanks " referred to by the 
 Lord Chancellor in his judgment. 
 
 Mr. Rolt was Counsel for the Romish Priest Doyle, the 
 Guardian (?) of the Infant. The learned gentleman, who, 
 previously to his connection (which we trust will not become 
 closer) with the Romish hierarchy, enjoyed the reputation 
 
 E 2 
 
76. 
 
 of a conscientious advocate, was reduced on this occasion 
 to give weight to his absurd arguments, by heaping abuse 
 on Mr. Craven Berkeley. The learned gentleman forgot 
 " that there is no readier way for a man to bring his own 
 worth into question than by endeavouring to detract from 
 the worth of another." 
 
 He contended also that the spirit of the order of July, 
 1 843, had been followed ; and that because all the charges 
 in the petition had not been substantiated, that the whole 
 must be dismissed with costs. 
 
 Mr. Bagshawe followed the line of conduct pursued by 
 Mr. Rolt, with all the rancour of an apostate, forgetting in 
 the warmth of his zeal the words of Lord Burleigh, "He who 
 is false to his God, can never be true to man." He endea- 
 voured to convince the Court, that because the mother of the 
 infant was dead, and there was no one left to cherish and 
 protect the child brought up in the lap of luxury, that there- 
 fore the promised "governess and private servant " were no 
 longer necessary — and that it was a merit on the part of 
 the priest Doyle, to have turned the infant into the common 
 class-room at the convent, where young ladies are boarded 
 and educated for £40 per annum, and where there are no 
 vacations : notwithstanding the infant was of a delicate 
 constitution, and was possessed of £85,000, and had a 
 brother, with whom ties of affection should have been 
 cherished. "What weight such a line of defence of Dr. 
 Doyle's conduct had upon the Court, our readers will be 
 able to deduce, from the Lord Chancellor's judgment. 
 
 Mr James Parker appeared to defend the Earl and 
 Countess of Shrewsbury, the uncle and aunt of the infant 
 — the learned gentleman attempted to show that the order 
 
77 
 
 of July 27, 1843, was not a "mere juggle," and to stifle 
 the inquiry, threatened at that period by Mr. Berkeley, 
 as to the convent ; and he alleged that the order was pro- 
 nounced by the Vice Chancellor of England, and was not 
 an order taken by consent, by Mr. Berkeley and his 
 solicitor, in the firm conviction that the Earl and Countess 
 of Shrewsbury would, at once, personally undertake " the 
 care and management" of the infant. The affidavits 
 already cited, prove the converse of these allegations to be 
 the truth. 
 
 It would have been more in accordance with his duty to 
 the Court, if the learned gentleman, (who argued the case 
 of Pochin v. Pochin, before Lord Eldon,) had not reite- 
 rated Mr. Rolt's dictum, that the Court had no power to 
 remove a testamentary guardian. In the case referred to, 
 the guardian was a clergyman of the Church of England, 
 but was removed from his guardianship by Lord Eldon. 
 
 In the course of Mr. Parker's argument, the Lord 
 Chancellor observed, that he was satisfied that the marriage 
 had not been forced upon Miss Talbot. 
 
 The Solicitor General on Tuesday, April 1st, replied, and 
 we will give a short abstract of some portions of his very 
 able speech : — 
 
 " He would, in the first place, grapple with the charges that 
 had so freely been heaped upon Mr. Berkeley, and observe 
 that there was one great fact that had been proved beyond dis- 
 pute, a fact that his Lordship could not lose sight of in giving 
 his judgment, — that Miss Talbot had, without any intimation 
 whatever to the Court, nay, with a false statement, that she 
 went as a boarder, been sent to this convent as a postulant. 
 This fact would never have been known until too late had it 
 not been for the intervention of Mr. Berkeley ; and he would 
 
78 
 
 satisfy the Court that Mr. Berkeley had discharged his duty, 
 both towards his Lordship and the young lady. It would be 
 impossible for his Lordship to part with the case as it stood at 
 present; as the circumstances attending the return of Miss 
 Talbot to the convent had not been fully disclosed. The corres- 
 pondence of Dr. Winter had been wholly kept out of sight. 
 Mr. Berkeley cared little of what became of the petition now, 
 since it had answered all that he had in view, in rescuing Miss 
 Talbot from the thraldom she was under, except so far as the 
 discussion upon it affected his own character. It would be his 
 (the Solicitor-General's) duty now to reply to the charges and 
 mis-statements brought against Mr. Berkeley. Anappealhadbeen 
 made to influence the judgment of his Lordship, that a drama 
 . had been got up by Mr. Berkeley for the benefit of the public, 
 without any regard to the feelings of the young lady, and that 
 a refusal had been made on his part to have the matter heard 
 in private. Now, in the first instance a proposition had been 
 made by him (the Solicitor-General) to have the whole matter 
 referred to the Master at once. Would such an offer have been 
 made if his purpose had been publicity? That offer had been 
 declined, on the score that the question of the removal of the 
 guardian must be discussed, and it was then that he had said 
 that such a discussion must be in public, as there was nothing 
 in it to offend the feelings of the young lady. 
 
 "Neither in Mr. Berkeley's petition to Parliament, nor in 
 his (the Solieitor-General's) opening speech, had the marriage 
 been referred to ; but the counsel for Dr. Doyle had gone out 
 of his way to make an attack upon the mother of the young 
 lady, as foreign from the question at issue as it was unjustifiable 
 in fact. So much for their complaint of dragging the young 
 lady before the public. An attempt had been made by Dr. 
 Hendren to justify Miss Talbot's return as a postulant, 
 under the allegation that the Lord Chancellor had consented ; 
 hut Mr. Rolt, in defence of Dr. Doyle was obliged to argue 
 that she had not returned as a postulant at all.* He (the 
 * That there might be no doubt of Dr. Hendren 's authorship of the 
 letters, Mr. Corfield wrote to Mr. Dobie, the Solicitor for "The 
 Times, " requesting that the manuscript might be shown, giving the fol- 
 
79 
 
 Solicitor-General) refrained from comment upon Miss Talbot's 
 letter, because it was sent as a private communication to the 
 Lord Chancellor, although he did not for a moment consider 
 it to have been her spontaneous letter." 
 
 He then commented upon the strange conduct of Dr. 
 Doyle, and the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, subse- 
 quent to 1843, and especially in the autumn of 1850; 
 and after referring to Whyte v. Read, (which has been 
 already cited,) he said, in conclusion : — 
 
 " He would therefore assert that Miss Talbot had been deserted by 
 those whose duty it was to watch over and guard her ; and, so far 
 from Mr. Berkeley's petition being dismissed, he would submit that 
 he was by far the most fit and proper person to have access to her, 
 as he was the only person who in 1843 took any interest in her wel- 
 fare, and who again in 1850 brought this flagrant case of dereliction 
 of duty under the cognizance of the Court. He would in conclusion 
 notice the three propositions of Mr. Berkeley. Upon the 1st — 
 namely, that of access, it had been asked by the other side whether 
 it would contribute to the happiness or the education of Miss Talbot 
 that Mr. Berkeley should be permitted to visit her, and a question had 
 been asked as to the evidence of his associates. He (the Solicitor- 
 General) well understood such sneers, but the person who had in- 
 structed counsel to make them did not dare to make any open charge. 
 He would defy them to do so, and would at the same time assert that 
 no repugnance had been shown on the part of the lady, except in the 
 
 lowing reason : — ' In such a matter as this, party feeling is out of the 
 question ; an important principle is involved in it, and justice and equity 
 demand that the truth should be brought to light, and that these Popish 
 priests should not he allowed to slander the highest Judge in the realm, 
 and by such means endeavour to inveigle the public into a belief that the 
 keeper of Her Majesty's conscience was privy to their miserable intrigues. 
 It is upon these grounds alone I venture to appeal through you to the 
 Editor of " The Times," and request the production of the manuscript in 
 question.' In consequence the manuscript was inspected, and Mr. 
 Dobie offered, if required, to attend with it in court. 
 
80 
 
 letter purporting to have been written by her, but which he denied 
 was her own composition. Mr. Berkeley was the only man who had 
 had the courage to grapple with the difficulties and snares surrounding 
 the young lady, and surely he and his daughter, the half sister of 
 Miss Talbot, as being almost her only relations, were fitter associates 
 for her than dolorous or extatic nuns. With respect to the second 
 point, the removal of Dr. Doyle from his office of guardian, it was 
 admitted that that must take place if Miss Talbot returned to the 
 convent as a postulant. Now he would confidently submit that it 
 had been satisfactorily proved that she went as such ; if, however, his 
 Lordship should not be quite convinced of the fact, he trusted that 
 his Lordship would not dispose of the petition until he had wrung 
 out all the evidence relating to her return, which had been so impro- 
 perly kept back. The third part of the prayer of Mr. Berkeley's 
 petition was, that he might have leave to go in before the Master to 
 aid in settling the scheme for the ward's future residence. The only 
 objection that he could recal to mind as having been urged by the 
 other side against such a course was the fear of publicity. This 
 objection, however, he had already disposed of, and he would only 
 add that it was not Mr. Berkeley's fault that, by a strange coinci- 
 dence, the placing of this young lady in a convent should have taken 
 place at the exact time of the establishment of a Roman hierarchy 
 in this country. Mr. Berkeley only found events, and acted upon 
 them. One of the advantages accruing from Mr. Berkeley's inter- 
 ference was the bringing to the notice of his Lordship the improper 
 situation in which this young lady was placed, — a piece of informa- 
 tion not likely to have been obtained from the persons who had gone 
 to Palermo, or even from Dr. Doyle. Having, therefore, cleared Mr. 
 Berkeley's character from all the aspersions cast upon it, and clearly 
 demonstrated that he had done his duty manfully, he (the Solicitor- 
 General) would ask his Lordship to grant the prayer of the petition, 
 and give Mr. Berkeley his costs." 
 
 His Lordship at once delivered the following judgment : — 
 
8] 
 
 JUDGMENT. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor. The circumstances under which 
 the Case comes before me, render it impossible to dispose of 
 every part of it satisfactorily. There are such conflicting 
 views that arise on some parts of it, as to make it very diffi- 
 cult to reconcile what I think is the proper conclusion of the 
 Case, with each individual part. The Case has certainly 
 travelled very widely. It is difficult to say how far the Court 
 can upon some occasions, interfere or limit the course of the 
 argument to what are the real points on which the Judgment 
 of the Court is to be pronounced. In all Cases in which 
 feelings are embarked, that becomes very difficult. State- 
 ments are made on the one side, calculated to produce an 
 impression that is disliked on the other ; and when once they 
 are made, it does not seem just to restrain the answer, though 
 both the attack and the answer may be beside the real points 
 of the Case. 
 
 Now the Petition I have before me, I find within the last 
 half hour, is much more limited than the Petition which I 
 supposed was under discussion. The Petition on which I 
 have now to pronounce the conclusion to which I have 
 arrived, prays, that the Ward may be removed from the 
 Convent which is mentioned in the Petition, and may be 
 placed under the care of such persons, as shall be deemed to 
 be proper, and that the Petitioner, Mr. Berkeley, may have 
 access to the Ward at all reasonable times, and that the costs 
 of his Petition may be paid out of the funds of the Ward ; and 
 then there are the usual general words — " or that such other 
 Order shall be made, as to the Court shall seem meet." 
 E 5 
 
82 
 
 Now it does not often happen, and I apprehend when it 
 does happen, it ought always to be looked at with, considera- 
 ble restraint, that under the general words of the Prayer of 
 a Petition, some substantial distinct subject for relief is 
 advanced. There are occasions on which that may be done, 
 but independently of those general words, the Petition con- 
 sists of a Prayer that the Lady should be removed from the 
 Convent, that Mr. Berkeley may have access to the Lady, 
 and that he may receive his costs. Now that is the Prayer. 
 The Petition is very short in substance. It consists in part of a 
 recital of previous proceedings, and then passes to the state- 
 ment, that the young Lady having been taken from the Convent 
 in the year 1850, and becoming an inmate with Lord Shrews- 
 bury, her Uncle — that a marriage was proposed to her, which 
 was repugnant to her feelings, and that the Gentleman pro- 
 posed was disagreeable to her, but that there was a desire to 
 force her into the marriage against her will — that she however 
 had firmness enough to refuse that, whereupon she was put 
 into a Convent by way of punishment, and with the deter- 
 mination to coerce her to take the veil. That is the whole 
 matter of the Petition, independent of the recital. There is 
 no other complaint brought forward, and there are no other 
 facts stated, on which the Court is called on to adjudicate. 
 
 I find, as I before mentioned, that the prayer of the Peti- 
 tion has been altered from that in which its form was when 
 I. had the communication with Mr. Berkeley ; and the learned 
 Counsel on behalf of Mr. Berkeley, has informed me that the 
 amendment and alteration of the prayer, arose out of a com- 
 munication made by me. But I cannot help feeling, that the 
 judgment which led to the alteration of the prayer, in conse- 
 quence of that communication, should have led much more dis- 
 tinctly to the alteration of the body of the Petition, because, 
 notwithstanding the Petition is limited to what I have stated ; 
 the imputation is of an attempt to coerce this young Lady, 
 by those who were so nearly connected with her, as to be under 
 the most imperative duty to protect her ; and that not only 
 
83 
 
 had that protection been withdrawn, and the power, which had 
 been given for the purpose of protection, abused into that of 
 coercion, but that, repugnant to and inconsistent with every 
 honourable feeling, passing by every thing like affection and 
 duty, those who had thus abused the power, given for the 
 benefit of an individual, to her prejudice, were afterwards 
 the subject of such malignant feelings, that totally regardless 
 of the best and permanent interests of the person thus com- 
 mitted to them, they had in a sense, forced her into a Convent, 
 with a view of compelling her to desert and abandon the 
 world at her early age, to take the veil, and dedicate herself to 
 a religious life. Such imputations most seriously affect the 
 characters of those who are charged. Now I own I cannot 
 conceive for a moment, a charge more deeply affecting the 
 character of an Uncle, a man of rank and education, and of 
 high station. I cannot conceive a charge more seriously 
 affecting the moral character , and the honour and feelings of 
 an individual, than that which is conveyed in the Petition. 
 As I have said, such is the whole substance of the Petition. 
 
 That Petition has, beyond all doubt, been answered — 
 answered in part by that knowledge which I cannot reject, 
 though I acquired it in my private capacity, — yet, I cannot, 
 as a Judge, forget, that when I was communicating with the 
 young lady, (certainly under a sense of official duty, though 
 at Lord Shrewsbury's as a visitor,) and when I heard the 
 subject of marriage was to come before me, and I heard some 
 general statement on the subject, I did think it right to call 
 the young lady's attention to some circumstances connected 
 with that marriage, which did not appear to me to give her 
 that fair prospect which, I thought, she was entitled to. I 
 should have thought it impertinent in me to have spoken on 
 the subject at all, but for the situation I held, and from the 
 consciousness that in all probability I should, from the short 
 period of time likely to elapse before the matter would come 
 into Court, be the person to decide on that, — it would have 
 been impertinent in a visitor to have interfered, but, having 
 
84 
 
 acquired that knowledge under the circumstances I have 
 stated, I cannot reject my own distinct recollection of those 
 facts, and not allow them to influence my judgment on the 
 present occasion. 
 
 There is an entire absence of evidence in support of the 
 allegations of the Petition. It is true, there is not an answer 
 negativing the allegations of the Petition, by those who, 
 almost, (I may say), are the only persons who could do so — 
 that is, Lord and Lady Shrewsbury. But I cannot forget 
 that there is a physical impossibility of their having presented 
 such an answer ; and further, where such grave charges are 
 made, the onus is not on those who have to answer them, but 
 the onus is on those who make them, to support them, and 
 until they are supported by evidence, so cogent as to call for 
 an answer, individuals are not put in the peril of making an 
 answer at all. There is therefore an absence of evidence in 
 support of the charges. There is my own personal knowledge, 
 acquired, as I have before stated, that they are incorrect. There 
 is no attempt to support them, and I am told that my repre- 
 sentations were so far acted on as to have led to an alteration 
 in the prayer of the Petition, though the substance of the 
 Petition, which was the more serious part of it, remains un- 
 altered. 
 
 Such then, is the state of the case. Here is a short Peti- 
 tion (short it is true, but most important and substantial in its 
 subject matter,) containing an imputation of an attempt to 
 force a Ward into a marriage against her will, and a subse- 
 quent acting by placing the Ward in a situation, where under 
 no circumstances ought she to have been placed, and by plac- 
 ing her there with views the worst to be reprobated. The 
 Petition therefore, is not supported by evidence — it is repelled 
 by the circumstances which I have mentioned. 
 
 Such however, is not the whole of this case. The effect of 
 this Petition has been to bring to the knowledge of the Court 
 a state of things which called on the Court imperatively to 
 act ; and the result of this Petition, I feel has been, though 
 
85 
 
 not unaccompanied with some disadvantages, on the whole of 
 great advantage to the Ward. I think the Court has derived 
 considerable benefit — I think the Ward has derived consider- 
 able benefit from the presentation of the Petition. What 
 effect that ought to have in a case such as I have described, 
 where a Petition containing grave charges against honourable 
 and absent persons, not supported by evidence, but satisfac- 
 torily repelled (and it cannot be otherwise for the reasons I 
 have stated, than that the answer is satisfactory) — what effect 
 the benefit which the Ward has derived, and the assistance 
 which the Court has derived, ought to have on the ultimate 
 decision, may be matter of grave consideration. 
 
 Now, in the course of the discussion, a great deal of matter 
 has been brought forward : — First, much has been said in 
 respect of what occurred in 1843. I own, my mind is not 
 impressed with the importance of what occurred in that year, 
 to so high a degree as it has impressed the mind of some of 
 the learned Counsel. I have paid attention to it. All that 
 took place then — all that took place antecedently to the sub- 
 ject-matter of the Petition — only bears upon the matter on 
 which I have to form a judgment, as far as it tends to give 
 collateral colour and support to the matter of the Petition. 
 In itself it is not presented in a form properly to form the 
 subject-matter of charge and complaint. It is only by way 
 of evidence, and incidentally, that it can be resorted to. 
 
 Now, the view I take of what occurred in 1843 is this : It 
 appears that there had been an arrangement made for the 
 Ward, under which an allowance of between £500 and £600 
 a-year had been made. There had been previous discussions 
 (which I do not think it necessary to advert to) as to the 
 disposition of the Ward. But, in 1843 the lady then remained 
 under an Order of the Court, by which an allowance of 
 between £500 and £600 a-year had been made for her main- 
 tenance ; that maintenance having been regulated at a time 
 when she was under different circumstances than those which 
 surrounded her in 1843. A Petition was presented in which 
 
86 
 
 I do not discern any real complaint as to the previous manage- 
 ment of the Ward. It is true, it is stated, the Lady was in a 
 Convent, but certainly it does appear to me as if the main 
 substance of that Petition had relation to the reduction of the 
 allowance, a thing desirable to be attended to at all times. 
 This court must always desire, while placed in the situation 
 of a public Trustee, having the care of the interests of those 
 who cannot take care of themselves, the infant wards of the 
 Court, — the Court must always desire to see the funds of the 
 infants administered with as much economy as the comfort 
 and advantage of the Ward will admit. At the same time, 
 the circumstance of the Guardian not coming to the Court, 
 which, I think, acting strictly according to his duty, he ought 
 to have done — his not coming to the Court when an alteration 
 took place in the position of the Ward, which rendered an 
 allowance that had been adapted to one state of circumstances, 
 more than was requisite for the advantage of the infant in 
 another state of circumstances, — I repeat, it would have been 
 proper to have come to the Court to reduce that allowance — 
 but, considering the manner in which the Guardian dealt with 
 the amount, and that there is an entire absence of insinuation 
 that he acted under any corrupt motive, or indeed acted other- 
 wisethan as became him,inthe absence of his having performed 
 his more regular duty of applying to the Court to have in- 
 vested the surplus funds, I cannot say I look on that conduct 
 with any great degree of censure, at the same time repeating 
 that it might, nevertheless, have been more regular and pro- 
 per. But it appears to me, the objects of Mr. Berkeley's 
 Petition were not any of those high and important objects 
 which have been connected with it, in the course of the argu- 
 ment. It was proper for an application to be made ; but, at 
 the same time, it appears to me to have been mainly directed 
 to the reduction of the allowance. The fact of the Lady being 
 in the Convent, was mentioned, and incidental to the Prayer, 
 it was asked, or part of the Prayer was, that an inquiry might 
 be made, if the Convent was a fit and proper place for her ; 
 
87 
 
 but that was not the result of any charges of its being an 
 unfit and improper place ; but it appears to have been matter 
 which, in the ordinary course of proceeding, when you are 
 altering a scheme for maintenance and education of a party, 
 may very well form part of the Prayer, without anything 
 serious on which to found it. 
 
 Well, various discussions took place on that occasion, and 
 they terminated in an Order. — Now, how am I to deal with 
 that Order ? Is the Court to suppose that any matter con- 
 nected with the better management and conduct of the 
 Ward, any arrangement for the security, the happiness, or 
 advantage of the Ward, is left to depend on the talk between 
 the solicitors ? Or, am I to suppose that the solicitors faith- 
 fully represented to the Court, what according to their 
 judgments and respective views, the interest and advantage 
 of the Ward required, and that they performed their duty to 
 their client, and their duty to the Court, by taking care that all 
 those matters were embodied in the Order ? Such, I must sup- 
 pose was the fact ; I am aware, that occasionally it will happen, 
 that an Order is drawn up that does not correspond precisely 
 and accurately with what was understood and agreed between 
 the parties ; but we all know that leads to an application 
 forthwith to have it corrected, and there is seldom any defi- 
 ciency on that subject. The minutes taken by the Counsel 
 or by the Officer of the Court, enable that to be corrected. 
 No application was made to correct the Order of 1843. It 
 appears to have been an Order that resulted out of a good 
 deal of altercation or discussion : and, therefore it is the more 
 reasonable to suppose that it embodied all that, in the result 
 of that altercation and discussion, the parties deemed to be 
 important. Now, what I have before said, appears to me to 
 have been the main and principal object of the Petition. 
 
 Then it is said that that Order, no matter how obtained, 
 no matter whether it contained all that it ought to have con- 
 tained, in order to have carried into effect the intentions and 
 agreements between the several parties, on what they call 
 
88 
 
 " the understanding,"— but take it as it is, there is much 
 brought before the Court in connection with that Order, much 
 which occurred subsequent to the Order, which ought to bear 
 strongly on the decision of the Petition now under considera- 
 tion. That Order is founded on the undertaking of Lord and 
 Lady Shrewsbury, to take the direction and management of 
 the Ward, subject to the interposition of the testamentary 
 Guardian. Now it is said that that Order properly considered, 
 imported that the Ward was to become from that time, the 
 inmate of the family of Lord Shrewsbury. I own I do not 
 draw that inference. I think, looking at the whole Order, 
 the inference is by no means warranted. In the first place, 
 the words, " Care and management" do not necessarily import 
 any such thing. What I understand by it is, that Lady 
 Shrewsbury — a lady of rank and intelligence, the Ward being 
 a female, was to control and direct (subject to the Guar- 
 dian,) what should be the course of education, and what 
 should be the course of management. Some impression arises 
 in the present Case, from the frequent occasion there is to 
 advert to the Convent, which would not have arisen, if the 
 term School had been applied instead of Convent ; but it is 
 perfectly well known, especially among Catholic families, the 
 difficulty there is of Catholic children being placed and edu- 
 cated in common with Protestant children, and the difficulty 
 there is in the religious views of the parents of the Catholic 
 children being answered by the association, inasmuch as a 
 school must be conducted on general principles, and cannot be 
 adapted to the diversified religious sentiments of the pupils. 
 A school is conducted with reference to the religious wishes 
 of the parents generally, and therefore Catholic families have 
 not that advantage and facility for the education of their 
 children ; Catholics like Protestants, deeming the spiritual 
 interest of their children of much more importance than their 
 temporal interests. They cannot do it. Then what is the 
 course with respect to Catholic families ? It is well known 
 that ladies of considerable intelligence and attainments, 
 
89 
 
 devote themselves to a religious life, and take the veil, and 
 that they consider it part of their duty to assist in the work 
 of education ; and that attached to Convents, are establish- 
 ments for the education of children of Catholic parents. In 
 this case it appears that near Taunton in Somersetshire, 
 there is a Convent, and to that is attached a school, and we 
 have had the names, very distinguished and honourable 
 names, of ladies who are there, who are kind enough to 
 undertake the task of educating the children who are brought 
 to that establishment. 
 
 Well, by Lady Shrewsbury it appears, or with her assent, 
 the Ward was placed in that establishment. Have I any- 
 thing before me to shew that that was an improper estab- 
 lishment ? Certainly not a word. From having gone that 
 Circuit, the name of this Convent, when the Assizes were at 
 Taunton, I have heard frequently mentioned, and always with 
 a high character. There is nothing before me to shew the 
 place was an improper place. To-day for the first time, some 
 circumstances have been adverted to, that the Ward had been 
 found before 1843, not in that state and condition with re- 
 gard to person, with regard to clothes and so on, which one 
 would have expected. But that cannot operate on the present 
 occasion ; because all that was spoken of and disposed of in 
 1843, and no Order was made for a discharge. I must sup- 
 pose, therefore, that either it was not adverted to as being 
 deemed of sufficient importance, or that it failed in point of 
 evidence, or that the Court did not think it right to interfere 
 with the matter. With the exception of that, I do not find 
 any remark made in any degree detracting from this Convent 
 being as proper a place with a school attached to it, for the 
 education of a, Catholic young lady, as any other school in 
 the kingdom. Well, the lady is placed there. Remarks are 
 made, as to the little attention she received. I certainly am 
 not in a condition precisely to measure that. Nothing is 
 of more importance, I apprehend, than to do that which Lord 
 Cottenham was most eminently attentive in doing, to see that 
 
90 
 
 the charge relied on, was always brought forward in the Bill 
 or the Petition. No man ever paid more attention to see that 
 a party was not taken by surprise, by a case being set forth 
 on the record of one character, and a case presented and 
 argued at the hearing of a different character ; and I think 
 that is a rule of strict justice. It must therefore be remem- 
 bered what this Petition challenged, and upon what it called 
 for explanation. Many matters will occur in the course of 
 the discussion of a set of affidavits, out of which observations 
 may be extracted ; but if the task of an advocate is to be, 
 not to look through the record which purports to contain the 
 charge, but to look through extensive affidavits in order to 
 see out of what line, out of what sentence, out of what state- 
 ment, some charge may or may not be extracted, I say he 
 cannot successfully do it. He will always be taken by sur- 
 prise. That remark is consistent with attending to the gene- 
 ral effect of the affidavits and meeting those parts of the 
 Affidavits that are directed to it ; but still I say, that I should 
 look in a different way to the answer which was given to a 
 series of affidavits, and to particular parts of those, from 
 what I should, as to the main substantive charge on the 
 record. 
 
 I must look to see therefore what it is, that the parties 
 have been brought here to answer. Now the affidavits would 
 be very loose and unsatisfactory in one view, which in another 
 I think, may be deemed reasonably sufficient. If the Petition 
 had charged that Lord and Lady Shrewsbury had been but 
 once at Taunton themselves, and had forborne enquiry, and 
 that Dr. Doyle had made no enquiry, during the period from 
 1843 to 1850, I should have expected an explicit answer ; 
 but when there is no such matter of complaint brought for- 
 ward, then I should look to see if there is any suggestion to 
 that effect in the affidavit, and how far a general suggestion 
 is met by a general answer. I find in two of the affidavits, 
 at least it is stated that Lord and Lady Shrewsbury paid 
 occasional visits. It is said, they do not say how often. No, 
 
91 
 
 but was the attention of those who made the affidavits, called 
 sufficiently to the fact, to impose on them the duty of stating 
 how often ? I think it was not. Therefore, although the 
 observation of the learned Counsel was correct enough, that 
 one part of the affidavit would be satisfied by a single visit, 
 or an interview of ever so short a time, yet the general effect 
 of the affidavit is, that she was visited occasionally. Now I 
 must confess, without anything to impeach the honour or 
 character of Lady Shrewsbury, I should be very much inclined 
 to suspect that she was as good a judge as I am, of what 
 should be the care and management of a young lady, who 
 was to fill a certain station in life. Before I censured, or 
 entertained a judicial desire to censure, I should be wary, and 
 should desire to know what it was that merited it. I should 
 say that of Lady Shrewsbury, as I should say of any lady 
 of education and station in life, competent to understand her 
 duties, and in a station entitled to credit, — in the absence of 
 evidence to the contrary, — for performing them. Lady Shrews 
 bury it appears, occasionally visited this young lady ; the 
 young lady going, although it is quite uncertain whether 
 more than once, but perhaps oftener, to Alton Towers, from 
 1843 to 1850 — in the absence of knowing how often she 
 visited, I feel myself somewhat at a loss ; but I cannot say I 
 can condemn at once, without knowing whether Lady 
 Shrewsbury was in communication with the Lady Abbess, or 
 what communications took place from time to time. I cannot 
 say, I am prepared at once to condemn and to say, Lady 
 Shrewsbury will be unfit to have the care and management 
 of this young lady, from the evidence before me. I repeat, 
 that if Lady Shrewsbury's conduct in those respects had 
 been distinctly challenged, and Lady Shrewsbury were here, 
 I should have expected a distinct answer. 
 
 Now, all this is pointed to bringing the case up to 1850 ; and 
 I am to use this only to appreciate the conduct of the parties in 
 respect to the Ward, up to 1850. Now, in 1850, the young 
 Lady is taken from the convent, and having passed the time 
 
92 
 
 apparently without exception, through the summer and 
 autumn of the last year, the lady is then placed in the 
 Convent ; and now comes the material part of the case, and 
 certainly a part of the case that does not stand in a satisfac- 
 tory position before me. The lady enters the Convent, and 
 she remains there until Mr. Craven Berkeley makes the 
 application for a Habeas Corpus, or for an Order to change 
 the residence of the lady. Now, I must say, that looking to 
 the Order of 1843, which committed the Ward to the care and 
 management of Lady Shrewsbury, under the superintendence, 
 or subject to the control, of the Guardian, I think, that when 
 Lord and Lady Shrewsbury found it necessary for their 
 arrangements to go abroad, and when, therefore, that care 
 and management practically ceased, there ought to have been 
 an application to the Court for some alteration in that Order. 
 I think the situation of the Ward had been substantially 
 altered. She had ceased to be a pupil — she had been intro- 
 duced to the world — she was now taking up a position differ- 
 ent from that which she had filled before. — If Lord and Lady 
 Shrewsbury had remained here and exercised their superin- 
 tendence, all might have been well, and it might not have 
 been necessary to have come to the Court, because the general 
 care and management was committed to them, and the neces- 
 sity for that care and management continued, equally compe- 
 tent to afford it. But when the Lady was left, when the 
 advantage of the immediate care and management of Lord 
 and Lady Shrewsbury was withdrawn, and it was known it 
 must be for some time, (it appears to have been uncertain 
 how long was contemplated — it rather appears as if there had 
 been an expectation of their returning, during the presentseason, 
 though that is somewhat uncertain in the Affidavits,) I think 
 there ought to have been an application to the Court. There 
 was none. There is a circumstance that it might be unfair 
 not to advert to ; that is to say, that the proposed marriage 
 having continued to be in agitation, up to almost the moment 
 of Lord Shrewsbury's leaving England, (it was on the 17th, 
 
93 
 
 I think, that I received the letter I read the other day ; what 
 day he went abroad, I do not recollect, but I think within a 
 week or ten days afterwards,) there might have been a diffi- 
 culty in making an immediate arrangement for the reception 
 of the young lady under proper circumstances ; but I think 
 there was no difficulty in coming to the Court, the first oppor- 
 tunity, to make proposals, and to let arrangements for the 
 future destination of this young lady become the subject of 
 consideration and determination by the Court. However, 
 that was not done, and here, I think is the first palpable 
 omission on the part of Dr. Doyle. I think, when he lost the 
 assistance of Lord and Lady Shrewsbury, it became him to be 
 the more active and more diligent ; for he alone was the person 
 to whom the Court must look, and in whom the Court con- 
 fided, for the due care of its Ward. 
 
 Then this young lady is placed at the Convent. Undoubt- 
 edly after what had occurred, it would have been desirable to 
 have had a more distinct statement, as to the circumstances 
 under which she was placed in the Convent. The case is very 
 peculiar. It commences at this period, with an application 
 for the young lady to be received as a boarder, and accord- 
 ing to the Lady Abbess's Affidavit, Dr Winter, through 
 whom the application was made, is told, that by the rules of 
 the Convent, the lady cannot be received otherwise than as 
 a Postulant, and with a view of entering on that course of 
 life, which, unless she altered her mind, was to lead to her 
 taking the veil. Dr. Winter is referred to Dr. Hendren ; but 
 what is brought forward in the affidavits, when I come to 
 Dr. Hendren, is, that I find Dr. Hendren not dealing with 
 the application of the young lady being received as a boarder 
 at all ; for I cannot collect from any part of his statement, 
 that it was ever suggested to him, that the lady should be 
 received as a boarder. What he says, is, that application 
 was made to him, that she should be received as a Postulant. 
 He says, " I had objections to that, I did not think she was 
 qualified for that." For what ? To be received as a Postu- 
 
94 
 
 lant ; "but I said, if the Nuns and the Lady Abbess thought 
 fit to receive her, I would not object ; " and accordingly she 
 was so received. Now here is a sad blank. Here is an 
 application stated to be an application for the lady to be re- 
 ceived as a boarder ; a reference to the Bishop and eccle- 
 siastical superior for his consent, to a dispensation of a known 
 established rule of the Convent, which did not admit the 
 reception of boarders ; but the affidavit sets forth what is 
 alleged to have been a letter to him, which does not relate 
 to any application to suspend the rules of the Convent ; but 
 it is an application to him as to the propriety, not of the 
 dispensation of the rule of the Convent, not as to the expedi- 
 ency of the lady being received as a boarder, but looking to 
 see whether under all the circumstances, it was proper she 
 should be received as a Postulant ; and he says, she was so 
 received. Now this does not put the case in a satisfactory 
 position, especially when I attend to the Lady Abbess's affi- 
 davit, which states not only to the effect I have just adverted 
 to, but which also states that the application was for the lady 
 to be received as a boarder, — that she informed Dr. Winter of 
 the rule of the Convent, which prohibited acquiescence in the 
 application, but referred it to Dr. Hendren, and then the 
 Lady Abbess says, " I have had and have the impression that 
 Dr. Hendren consented." Now I am not acquainted in par- 
 ticular with the degree of authority and control, which the 
 ecclesiastical superior exercises over a Convent ; but if it is 
 such as to have made it necessary for application to be made 
 to him, for leave to receive the Ward, either as a Postulant or 
 as a boarder, I am a good deal struek with this, — how the 
 Lady Abbess could have received her, contrary to a rule, 
 without having some more distinct authority than that of an 
 impression. Suppose she be called on to account, as no doubt 
 she is accountable, for having received a person contrary to 
 the order of the Convent, what will she have to produce, in 
 order to satisfy the superior that she has acted under autho- 
 rity, in thus departing from the rule. I own I cannot help 
 
95 
 
 retaining the impression, that the Lady Abbess must have 
 some better means of informing the Court how she came to 
 receive, contrary to the rules of the Convent, a young lady as 
 a boarder ; and that I have not the whole information she can 
 afford me, by her stating that she has an impression that 
 the superior, Dr. Hendren, gave permission that this lady 
 should be so received. As far as she was concerned, was it by 
 letter ? Was it through Dr. Winter ? Was it by personal 
 communication ? Here is a blank, — well, that is not satis- 
 factory. 
 
 When I come to Dr. Hendren, again I am utterly at a loss 
 to account for a gentleman in his situation, entitling himself 
 to credit, his word not likely to be doubted in the absence of 
 very strong grounds, stating that my Ward wrote a strong 
 supplicatory letter, requesting to be, what ? Not to be re- 
 ceived as a Boarder, but received as a Postulant, and that he 
 unwillingly assented to that, and that she was received. How 
 can I reconcile the other part of the case with any idea of 
 mistake 1 
 
 What then, does it mean 1 I am left considerably in the 
 dark. — Dr. Doyle is absent, he does not know what is going 
 on at this time, but he returns ; Dr. Doyle is also a gentle- 
 man of eminence and of character : but I think, as has been 
 truly stated, he must be supposed to know the rules of the 
 Convent, and therefore, that this lady, if received as a 
 Boarder; must have been received under some dispensation, 
 some license, some departure from the ordinary rules. I 
 think, I have a right to expect, that, the Guardian acting 
 with me, in the care of the Ward, looking to the very serious 
 matter of a young lady of her age, being placed in a situation 
 in which her steps and conduct would colour her future life, 
 and determine its nature and course in a most important 
 degree — I think, I have a right to expect that Dr. Doyle 
 should have possessed himself some information as to the 
 circumstances under which this young lady had been re- 
 ceived at tbo Omivent : — Dr. Dovle says, that Lord S1it<""- 
 
96 
 
 bury informed him, she had been received as a Boarder. 1 
 do not doubt his word in the least, I have the less reason to 
 do so, because it is the communication that Lord Shrewsbury 
 made to me ; I should not doubt it without. But, I did not 
 know the rules of the Convent. Dr. Doyle did. — I had heard 
 of ladies being boarders at this Convent, and in a loose and 
 general way, had heard of distinguished families of the Roman 
 Catholic religion, being placed there, in the occasional absence 
 of their parents, and so on, as the safest and most respeetable 
 of all asylums. My attention had not been particularly called 
 to this young lady. The fact of her marriage having been 
 mentioned while I was there, called my attention a little to 
 the subject, but I did not know what the orders were, nor any 
 thing about the regulations of a Convent, except in the most 
 loose and general way. But Dr. Doyle did ; and Dr. Doyle 
 had had more to do with the Ward, and knew more of the 
 circumstances than I did ; and therefore when Lord Shrews- 
 bury mentioned to me, not as a matter in which I had any 
 interest or any duty, but in a general way, and said — " My 
 niece has gone as a Boarder to a convent while I am abroad " 
 — for little more than the sentence passed, — I did not then 
 enquire further. But I think it became Dr. Doyle to have 
 made more enquiry, more particularly when I find it stated 
 in some of the affidavits, that during the period from 1843 to 
 1850 the young lady had talked something about being a 
 Nun, and when I find that on the 13th of March, Dr. Doyle 
 says, that at a time, to which the date is not given, from 
 circumstances which had occurred, he thought the idea of 
 becoming a Nun was passing through her mind, and above all 
 that it had passed through her mind with the effect to induce 
 her determination to waver ; that was a moment, the most 
 important of all under such circumstances I think, in which 
 to interfere. — A young lady of 18 or 19, wavering under 
 some spiritual influence or impression in her own mind, as to 
 so decided a step, as that of withdrawing herself from the 
 world. She, with regard to whom the world contains so 
 
97 
 
 much to attract ; how powerful must have been the in- 
 fluence that occasioned such a mind to waver against the ad- 
 vantages which she must have seen during the last season, 
 when, mixing in the first society, all that the world could 
 afford likely to attract a young mind, she must have wit- 
 nessed and enjoyed ! All that, however, was overcome, and 
 she was wavering — I think the Court had a right to have 
 such a person immediately withdrawn from the Convent, — I 
 do not think that with that knowledge she could safely re- 
 main there ; and I think that Dr. Doyle ought to have given 
 more information, whenfirsthe heard of this impression passing 
 through her mind, when first he heard she was wavering, from 
 whom, and under what circumstances. 
 
 Now, it appears, that shortly before this, for some reason 
 which is not explained, Mr. Craven Berkeley had gone to the 
 Convent, and that that had passed between him and the Ward, 
 and the lady Abbess, which led to the application on his part. 
 Now, without going minutely through the affidavits, I can- 
 not help saying, that taking both affidavits, not exercising 
 an uncharitable disposition in the criticism of either, or im- 
 puting any endeavour, either to mislead, to suppress or to 
 deceive ; I say, the effect of the whole is to show that, quite 
 enough passed to lead Mr. Craven Berkeley to suppose that 
 the lady was there as a Postulant, and I think, and that is 
 the part of the case that has strongly impressed me, — I think 
 Mr. Craven Berkeley performed a worthy service, from what 
 passed at the Convent. When I look at what the Lady Abbess 
 says passed, and what Mr. Craven Berkeley says passed, and 
 comparing the one with the other, and seeing how far I can 
 extract from the two, that which is beyond all reasonable 
 doubt, I think the result is, that he was led to the conclusion 
 that she was there as a Postulant, and I do not think that 
 conclusion unreasonable. Therefore, I repeat what I began 
 with, that, I think Mr. Craven Berkeley rendered good service 
 in bringing this under the notice of the Court. 
 
 How does it appear the lady was there ? The expressions 
 F 
 
98 
 
 that are used, are open to considerable ambiguity ; she was 
 not there as an ordinary and usual Postulant : was she there 
 nominally as a Postulant ? She was called a Postulant, but 
 she was never there, believing or understanding herself to be 
 an ordinary Postulant. Well, what does that mean ? It is 
 stated, that when ladies are received in a state of Postulancy, 
 that they, within a limited time, have to undergo certain reli- 
 gious ceremonies, in order to perforin the service on which 
 they enter, that they are required to change their ordinary 
 apparel, and put on some form of dress, conformable to the 
 particular Order, I suppose of the particular Convent ; and 
 it is said, that this Lady was not received as a Postulant, but 
 as a Boarder, and that she never underwent the religious cere- 
 monies, and that she never changed her dress. Now, in this 
 state of confusion and inconsistency, what is the conclusion ? 
 The conclusion to which I have arrived is this,— I think the 
 Lady was received there as a Boarder, but I think she was 
 received there contrary to the rules, and that she was passed 
 off as a Postulant. Applying that theory to every part of it, 
 it conforms with more of the particulars than any other. I 
 should have been better pleased if the Lady Abbess had made 
 a statement in her own language, calculated to convey that 
 idea. Whether she was apprehensive of incurring any eccle- 
 siastical censure for what she has done, and therefore has 
 shrouded herself in ambiguous language, which leaves it open 
 to take one view or another,— whether that is the case, or what 
 other reason has led to the language, I do not know ; but I 
 think there is no evidence that Lord Shrewsbury ever placed 
 her there as a Postulant. I see no reason to impute to him 
 any such conduct. The only ground presented to me, is one 
 that I know is fallacious, that is, that she was placed there in 
 resentment ; with respect to the marriage. I see no reason to 
 suppose that. I think his communication to me casually, and 
 his more serious communication to Dr. Doyle, was a commu- 
 nication that corresponded with the truth. In the absence of 
 information from Dr. Winter, in the absence of these letters, 
 
99 
 
 from the nature of Dr. Hendren's communication, I defy you 
 to reconcile the whole with any degree of consistency. That 
 she was called a Postulant, is clear. That she did not undergo 
 the ceremonies, that she did not adopt the dress consistent 
 with her being in a state of Postulancy, is also true. Then, 
 what was her condition ? Why was she called a Postulant 1 
 and why, being called a Postulant, was she not dealt with in 
 a manner corresponding to that situation ? We can only 
 suppose she was a favourite with the Convent. They were 
 desirous, probably, of accommodating Lord Shrewsbury, by the 
 reception of his niece, who would be a distinguished visitor ; 
 but that was not consistent with the rules of the Convent, and 
 therefore they have got into this inconsistency by so doing. I 
 do not the less disapprove of her being there, whether as » 
 Boarder or a Postulant, because she was in a different situation 
 from what she was in when she was there as a pupil of the 
 school ; — she was more connected with the general society of 
 the ladies who were there as nuns, and her mind was more 
 likely to be materially influenced towards the position in life, 
 in which those ladies had placed themselves. Therefore, 
 whether as Postulant, or whether as Boarder, it was not a 
 place in which she should be allowed to remain. 
 
 Now how does this apply to Dr. Doyle ? I think that Dr. 
 Doyle gave credit to Lord Shrewsbury's statement — I think 
 it possible that he might know, although it was not consistent 
 with the rules of the Convent that Boarders should be re- 
 ceived, that he might also know under what circumstances 
 the rule might be dispensed with ; and in the absence of any 
 reason to the contrary I feel bound to give credit to his state- 
 ment, that he believed the lady was there as a Boarder and 
 not as a Postulant. But I repeat he was remiss in the proper 
 discharge of his duty. Dr. Doyle was the testamentary guar- 
 dian. He stands in the place of the father. The man selected 
 by the parents (?) of a child who afterwards becomes a Ward in 
 Chancery, — that man who has the confidence of the parents 
 
 is entitled to the confidence of the Court till his claim to that 
 F 2 
 
100 
 
 confidence is destroyed ; and I believe that the Court never 
 removes such a person except upon grounds made out to its 
 perfect satisfaction. Those grounds must be such as make it 
 for the interest of the Ward that the Guardian should be 
 removed. The interest of the Ward is the basis and founda- 
 tion of every part of the conduct of the Court in dealing with 
 its Ward. What I look at now, therefore, is this ; the young 
 lady is in London, she is under the care of a lady, and I 
 apprehend will never be again out of the view of the Court, 
 until she attains her majority. What remains for Dr. Doyle 
 probably is not of very much importance ; but at the same 
 time, as the depositary of the confidence of her parent, — as a 
 gentleman who, though I think he has been remiss in his 
 duty, I can impute no bad motives to, — I do not see any 
 ground to impute to him that he has intentionally and delibe- 
 rately omitted to take any course which the interests of the 
 Ward requires. I therefore do not think that the interest of 
 the Ward, — notwithstanding I feel judicially bound to express 
 the opinion which I have stated, yet I do not feel that the in- 
 terest of the Ward requires that he should be removed. 
 
 The Bar have one and all agreed in that which I could not 
 fail to expect they would agree in, that a very high contempt 
 of the authority of this Court would be committed by allow- 
 ing a Ward of this Court, either to become a Postulant, or to 
 take any other step calculated to bind her future life to any 
 particular course. I believe that ever since the Statute of 
 Westminster,* it has been a very high offence to make a 
 Ward of Court take the veil, an offence liable to indictment, 
 to heavy forfeiture, and to imprisonment. It continues an 
 offence to the present day ; and if it had not been an offence 
 even upon the construction of the Statute, and the way in 
 which it had been construed, — if contracting a marriage with- 
 out the approbation of the Court is a contempt, I should 
 say that a fortiori the allowing a person to devote herself to 
 this religious life would be ; because marriage may be con- 
 * See 13 Edward 1. c. 35. 
 
101 
 
 sistent with a person retaining the ordinary position in life, 
 according to those circumstances which are suited to her situ- 
 ation ; but the taking the veil is so serious a change, that to 
 allow a person not arrived at the age of mature years to 
 hind her future life, not probably by absolute vows, but to 
 bind herself by some influence or other, more cogent than 
 physical coercion, — to do that, I say, is, I think, a much 
 greater contempt, and I should have had no hesitation, and 
 should feel it my duty if such a case were presented, to com- 
 mit Abbess, to commit Priest, and to commit every body else 
 who took any part in it, as I should commit a clergyman or 
 governess, or any member of whatever establishment it might 
 be in such a case ; and in so doing, I should, I apprehend act 
 in strict conformity with the practice of the Court, and the 
 duty that belongs to me. 
 
 Now, some remarks have been made on parts of the Case 
 on which I may perhaps have occasion to say a word. It 
 would be, I apprehend, the greatest injustice to deprive the 
 children of our fellow-subjects, the Roman Catholics, of the 
 protection of this Court equally with that which every other 
 class of the Queen's subjects receives. If it be supposed that 
 it was any part of the duty of the Court to interfere with the 
 religious sentiments of that child, and to make any attempt 
 to withdraw it from the faith in which its parents desired it 
 should be brought up in, every one must see that the effect 
 would be to deprive the children of Roman Catholic parents 
 of the protection of the Court. They would shrink from, 
 as being one of the greatest evils that could be inflicted upon 
 them, their children being placed under the jurisdiction 
 which would seek to disturb their faith. It is no part of the 
 duty of the Court to interfere with the faith of such children. 
 Therefore while the Court, I think, would act clearly unjus- 
 tifiably in that attempt, I say it would equally afford to 
 Roman Catholic children, who might be its Wards, the pro- 
 tection of the Court, if it found that they had been either 
 inveigled or permitted to take the veil during their minority, 
 
102 
 
 or to bind themselves directly or indirectly to do so. I say, 
 therefore, it is equally necessary to the justice which is due 
 to our fellow-subjects who differ from us in the respects to 
 which I have adverted, on the one hand, not to interfere with 
 their religion, but on the other hand, not to permit their future 
 lives to become dedicated to a course unusual for the ordinary 
 purposes of life, and which I have no reason to suppose the 
 parents ever contemplated. 
 
 Now what is the proper Order I should make on this Peti- 
 tion 1 I am asked by the prayer of the Petition to order in 
 the first place,— I am not sure that it is asked in the particular 
 prayer of the Petition, but it is asked under the general re- 
 lief, that Mr. Berkeley may attend the Master, while prose- 
 cuting the Order under Dr. Doyle's Petition. I am asked also 
 to order, that Mr. Berkeley may have access to the Ward ; 
 and I am also asked to suspend Dr. Doyle from his office of 
 Guardian, and that Mr. Berkeley tnay have his costs. If I 
 decide on the Petition of Mr. Berkeley alone, and upon the 
 answer which it has received, I should say the Petition ought 
 to be dismissed with costs. There is no evidence to support 
 it, — it contains matter highly and deeply reflecting on other 
 persons — it is, I am satisfied, unfounded in fact, but I repeat 
 it has been the means, I think, of rendering a, worthy service 
 to the Court, and a worthy service to the Ward. I therefore 
 am not sure, but I do not feel that I ought to make Mr. 
 Berkeley pay the costs of having elicited an inquiry, which I 
 think has been attended with such considerable benefit. With 
 respect therefore to his costs, I only regret that the Case has 
 been encumbered with so much more than I think properly be- 
 longs to it, but I think I ought to allow Mr. Berkeley his costs. 
 
 With respect to his assisting in prosecuting the Order, I 
 do not see any necessity for that. Mr. Berkeley's station and 
 circumstances, do not present him as a gentleman possessing 
 any peculiar knowledge, which could tend to the assistance 
 of the Court. I think on the contrary, from all that has 
 passed, it would lead to a contest in the Master's Office, which 
 
108 
 
 would not tend to the benefit of the Ward ; and therefore it 
 does not strike ine that I ought to order that he should be 
 allowed to attend in the prosecution of the Order. I think I 
 am safe. I can rely, I think, that Dr. Doyle is not likely to 
 present any scheme inconsistent with the benefit of the Ward. 
 I think, notwithstanding what has occurred, I may safely 
 and properly rely on his not doing that ; and without sus- 
 pecting that he would do it, I think I may also rely, from 
 the attention which has been drawn to the subject, on having 
 the protection of the Master, and I also feel if it ever is 
 brought again before me, that I possess sufficient knowledge 
 of the whole Case now, to be able to exercise a judgment, 
 even without the assistance of Mr. Berkeley, as to the proper 
 protection of the young lady. 
 
 With respect to the ordering of the access, the view I shall 
 take of that part of the Case is this ; my Ward is now ap- 
 proaching twenty ; I cannot treat her as a child. She is now 
 a, person capable of judging whom it is agreeable to her, should 
 have access to her, and whom it is not ; and as I do not sup- 
 pose she is likely to receive any particular instruction from 
 Mr. Berkeley, to make his presence beneficial any otherwise 
 than as a gentleman taking an interest in her welfare, and 
 who would be pleasant as a visitor, I must be governed as to 
 who is to have access to her by her own inclinations. She 
 will be in a situation, I hope, as far removed from collateral 
 influence as possible. It is not practicable wholly to prevent 
 that ; but if any persons should be denied access to her, which 
 on a reasonable application, I should suppose it would be 
 agreeable to her to see, that would soon be set right. It 
 would be well that the parties should forget much of what 
 has passed, and should view each other with feelings less 
 strong than those that may at this moment prevail, and that 
 those who take an interest in the lady, should conduct them- 
 selves properly, and then perhaps there will be no objection 
 to their having access ; but I must have the lady consulted 
 on that subject. Therefore the Case will go to the Master 
 
104 
 
 on the former Order, for a scheme for the young lady. The 
 costs must be paid ; and I have no other fund but that of the 
 young lady. 
 
 With respect to Dr. Doyle, he is in this situation : He is 
 called here by Petition, and the Case has failed — he is entitled 
 to receive his costs, — who is to pay them ? If I am giving 
 Mr. Berkeley his costs out of the young Lady's estate, I can- 
 not say that Dr. Doyle should pay the costs. Unfortunately 
 it happens, therefore, I am afraid, that the young lady's 
 estate must be burthened with the costs. — Dr. Doyle is enti- 
 tled to his costs. He has been attacked, and as far as the 
 charge which he is called upon to answer is concerned, it is 
 answered, and the Petition fails. Therefore, he is entitled to 
 his costs, and as Mr. Berkeley has incidentally rendered the 
 service I have mentioned, and as I do not think it right he 
 should pay the costs, I am afraid I must let the young lady's 
 estate, as she has derived the benefit of the discussion, pay 
 the costs. 
 
 Mb. Rolt : — They will not be of great amount, my Lord. 
 
 The Loed Chancellor : — Therefore Dr. Doyle will pro- 
 ceed under the Order, before the Master. The Case will, no 
 doubt, come back again on the report. 
 
 Mr. Rolt : — Perhaps your Lordship will let me suggest 
 that there should be one Order on both Petitions. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor : — I think this Petition must be 
 dismissed. 
 
 Mr. Rolt : — That is what I was going to mention, my 
 Lord. It would be singular to make an Order dismissing the 
 Petition and giving him the costs of it. Therefore, I would 
 suggest that there should be one Order on both Petitions. 
 Dismiss Mr. Berkeley's Petition, and order that on our 
 Petition the costs of both Petitions should be paid. There 
 will be a reference to the Master to approve of a Scheme 
 for the care and management of the young lady, during her 
 minority, and the costs of Lord and Lady Shrewsbury, and 
 other parties, out of the estate. 
 
105 
 
 Mr. Solicitor-General : — The costs of both Petitions 
 out of the estate. 
 
 Mr. Rolt :— There will be no Order at all for Mr. Berkeley 
 to attend before the Master, or for access. The costs will be 
 very small. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor : — As I said before, the Order may 
 not seem quite consistent with the various views of the Case, 
 but it is the best and most just that I can frame to myself 
 with a view to all parties. 
 
 It is not our intention to discuss this judgment at length. 
 We have placed the facts before our readers, and each must 
 decide for himself. We cannot, however, forbear appending 
 the following forcible observations that appeared in a 
 morning newspaper : — - 
 
 " The decision of the Chancellor in Miss Talbot's case must be re- 
 garded with very mixed feelings. Considering the premises admitted 
 by himself — although those premises did not go to the extent of the 
 facts proved — Lord Truro could not have done less — he would have 
 been justified in doing a great deal more. We ourselves have regarded 
 the investigation throughout from two very different points of view. 
 The case of an individual and the tendency of a system were before 
 us at the same moment. As far as concerns the young lady, the 
 order of the Chancellor may be received with tolerable satisfaction. 
 Lord Truro could not neutralize by any decree of his the effect of the 
 unwholesome influences to which she had so long been subjected, 
 but at least for the remainder of her minority be has caused her to 
 be removed from the moral contagion of a convent. On a particular 
 day of next year his control ceases. It remains to be seen whether 
 Dr. Doyle, with his train of Hendrens, Winters, and Jeminghams, or 
 the English Chancery will have triumphed in the long run. It must 
 be conlessed that the priests have had a tolerable start. They and 
 their agents will, for ten years, have had the unqualified direction of 
 a young and plastic mind, peculiarly liable to emotions of self-abne- 
 F 5 
 
106 
 
 gation and ecstatic devotion. The principle that should have been 
 checked and moderated has been carefully fostered into morbid acti- 
 vity . There is no saying to what length enthusiasm may not 
 ultimately be carried when we glance at Miss Talbot's early educa- 
 tion, and the mischievous influences which will surround her again 
 as soon as she shall have been liberated from tutelage. Be this as it 
 may, the Chancellor cannot interfere beyond a certain point, and, 
 although both he and his predecessor are heavily responsible for past 
 neglect, still the mischief is, as matters stand at present, utterly 
 beyond their control. It is at least satisfactory to find that Lord 
 Truro has admitted, in the strongest terms, that Mr. Berkeley's 
 petition was urgently necessary, and has, consequently, allowed him 
 the costs of his application. Dr. Doyle has not been removed from 
 the legal guardianship, as he should have been, considering the very 
 questionable nature of his dealings with a ward of Court, but it is at 
 the same time only just to Lord Truro to point out that he rests the 
 maintenance of Dr. Doyle in his office upon other grounds than those 
 of past integrity and assiduity in his trust. " Dr. Doyle" said the 
 Chancellor, "was remiss in a proper discharge of his duty. Dr. 
 Doyle was the testamentary guardian. He stood in the place of the 
 lady's father, the man selected by the parents (?) of the child, and 
 the Court never removed such persons except on grounds made out to 
 its satisfaction to be such as rendered it the interest of the ward that 
 the guardian should be removed. fPhat he (the Lord Chancellor) 
 now looked to therefore was this, — the young lady was in London, she 
 was under the care of a lady, and he apprehended would never again 
 be out of the power of the Court until she attained her majority. 
 What remained for Dr. Doyle was probably not of very much impor- 
 tance, but at the same time, as having had the confidence of her 
 parents (?), as a gentleman to whom, although he considered him 
 remiss in his duty, he could impute no bad motives, he (the Lord 
 Chancellor), although he felt bound judicially to express the opinion 
 he had stated, did not think the interests of his ward required he 
 should be removed." In other words, as Lord Truro has had his atten- 
 tion somewhat roughly called to the case, and feels very determined 
 that Dr. Doyle shall have no further opportunity of working mis- 
 chief, he allows him to rttain nominally the post of the guardian. It 
 was to be wished that Lord Truro should have drawn a different 
 
107 
 
 conclusion from his own premises, although these are not correct. 
 Dr. Doyle did not enjoy the confidence of both parents. On the con- 
 trary, his appointment was most distasteful to the mother of the 
 young lady ; and, if we are to believe her uncle,* was only wrung or 
 procured from the father upon his deathbed by the abuse of spiritual 
 influence. But, omitting this point, and passing to the chapter of 
 motives, we know not how evidence of motive is to be obtained 
 except from external acts. Now, how stands the case with Dr. 
 Doyle? In the discharge of his duty we find that he placed a young 
 lady of Miss Talbot's fortune and position in life in a conventual esta- 
 blishment, where slie was left for about nine years. She was then 
 brought out into the world, and in the world she remained for twelve 
 weeks. At the end of the twelve weeks we find her in a convent 
 again, in a fair way becoming a nun. The young lady is entitled to 
 85,0007. in her own right. Dr. Doyle is her legal guardian, and a 
 pseudo-Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. All we can say upon 
 such a state of facts is, that the present Lord Chancellor of England 
 is a man of very robust faith 1 
 
 "Upon points of detail the Chancellor has come to many con- 
 clusions utterly at variance with the evidence adduced upon the 
 trial; for example, upon the question of whether or no Miss, Augusta 
 Talbot was a postulant, with the intention of becoming a nun. Had 
 this point been made out to the Chancellor's satisfaction, it seems 
 he would have committed everybody, " bishops, priests, governesses, 
 clergymen, &c." Lord Truro is something like that over-brave man 
 who trembled violently before going into action at the bare thought 
 the dangers his valourous spirit would lead him to encounter. 
 
 " But Lord Truro not only trembles, he draws back. He is so 
 apprehensive of the damage his enthusiasm for justice might cau>e 
 him to effect, if he were once to ' run a muck ' among the Roman 
 ecclesiastics, that he pauses at the outset of his course. Now, we 
 who are moved by no such scruples, but are content to deal with the 
 facts as we find them, see only what folluws : — We find a young lady 
 sitting in a parlour at a convent, only allowed to converse with her 
 step-father in the presence of the Superioress. We find that the 
 
 * This refers to some letters from an uncle of Miss Talbot's, which had 
 appeared in " The Times." For the date of the will, see supra 3. 
 
108 
 
 subject of conversation was this young lady's profession as a nun ; 
 that she discoursed learnedly upon white veils and black veils, and 
 the control she should have over her property after profession ; and 
 that her stepfather went away with the full conviction, that Nun she 
 was to be. Next we have two letters from the pseudo-Bishop under 
 whose immediate control the convent was placed, stating that Miss 
 Talbot actually was a postulant, and that he, the Bishop, had re- 
 ceived from her an ' earnestly supplicating ' letter to allow her to 
 become a nun. The same worthy personage discussed in the most 
 business-like terms the use that would probably be made of the young 
 lady's fortune after her profession. Next, as we understand it, Miss 
 Talbot was made to state that she was a ' boarder ;' but, as Dr. 
 Hendren's unfortunate revelations had considerably damaged this 
 position, the 'dissuasive' Superioress was then introduced on the 
 scene. This lady was instructed to write that Miss Talbot was not a 
 boarder, nor yet was she a postulant. She was a postulant-boarder, 
 or hoarder-postulant, but yet the element of ' boarding' preponde- 
 rated — since all the disturbance had arisen. Then comes Miss 
 Talbot's letter to the Chancellor — the one which we printed at the 
 beginning of this week. Had anything been wanting to convince 
 the most sceptical of the real extent of the moral thraldom to which 
 this poor young lady had been reduced, this letter would have sufficed. 
 The letter, however, bears her signature ; and, from respect to her, 
 we will say no more about it. Now, we will ask any man who 
 enjoys the advantages of straightforward common sense to examine 
 the state of facts we have thus set out, link by link, and then, 
 bearing in mind that the young lady will be entitled some eighteen 
 months hence to £85,000, to say whether or no there existed among 
 the clique of priests and nuns an intention of obtaining possession 
 of Miss Talbot's ' personal advantages.' When Mr. Rolt was called 
 upon to reply to this plain statement of the case he contented him- 
 self with abusing Mr. Berkeley. The order of the Chancellor is the 
 best comment upon the advocate's line of defence. 
 
 " It is now our intention to dismiss all further discussion of this 
 affair, unless fresh matter for comment should arise. We do not 
 apprehend that such will be the case, for the policy of Dr. Wise- 
 man and his ftllows loves seclusion. All the Roman ecclesiastics 
 connected with this iniquitous business will be content to slink back 
 into darkness, well content that worse has not befallen them. They 
 
109 
 
 may thank the hesitation of the Chancellor for their impunity. If 
 ever there was a case in which the youth and simplicity of a ward of 
 Court were abused, Miss Talbot's is] that one. Nor can we confine 
 the censure to the ecclesiastics alone. 
 
 " The Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury deserve a full measure of 
 indignation for their neglect of their young and helpless relative — 
 if indeed their conduct might not be more aptly described in harsher 
 terms. Let them, however, be left to public opinion, in common 
 with the other parties to the transaction. Two purposes at least 
 have been answered by the inquiry. In the first place, Miss Talbot 
 has been saved from the nunnery. She has a few months before her, 
 which, if rightly employed, may be sufficient to baffle the schemes of 
 the paltry intriguers by whom she has been hitherto much sur- 
 rounded. Secondly, public attention has been drawn to the modus 
 operandi of Dr. Wiseman and his followers. It was very instructive 
 that such a case as this should have come to light when so many voices 
 were raised to represent them as an army of heroic and unworldly 
 martyrs. An army they may be, but they understand the art of 
 foraging to perfection. It is from this form of warfare we have far 
 more to dread than from open and arrogant defiance of the consti- 
 tuted authorities of the country. It is in the ear of the dying man, 
 whose faculties are weakened by physical debility, and whose feelings 
 MMWMNMUHitt£ terrors of his position, that the Roman priest will 
 proclaim in trumpet-tones the infallible claims of his church. He 
 will whisper them to the young and credulous woman in moments of 
 ecstacy or dejection ; and in such quarters he will succeed. Under 
 the broad sunshine, and with grown men in the full enjoyment of 
 intellect and judgment, he will avoid the discussion. Such is not the 
 fit arena for the Roman priest, nor such the opponents over whom 
 he can hope for triumph. How then, is the evil to be met? How 
 are we to avoid the recurrence of such scenes as Mathurin Carre's 
 deathbed, or Miss Talbot's convent ? It would be hard to say ; but at 
 least, if there be increased aggression on the one side, there must be 
 increased watchfulness on the other. This, at any rate, is not a season 
 when the disciples of the Propaganda can hope to violate the ancient 
 statutes of the kingdom, or to obtain acknowledgment of an autho- 
 rity which has been so foully abused." Times, April 3, 1851. 
 
110 
 
 Reader ! mark well this romance of the nunnery. Just 
 ten days after the young lady's release from imprisonment, 
 all the best feelings of woman's heart were awakened 
 within her ; and, if report speaks true, the " postulant " 
 has consented to become the affianced bride of a noble 
 Lord, high in favor with his Queen — and in every respect 
 suited to render her happy. Can any language, however 
 forcible, so completely give the lie to the statements put 
 forth by the pseudo-bishops of Clifton and Southwark, and 
 the dissuasive abbess ? And does not this little incident 
 in the "Drama" in a great measure supply the "sad 
 blanks " as commented upon by the Lord Chancellor in 
 giving judgment 7 From the above history we are forcibly 
 reminded of a case that happened in Rome not long since. 
 A young lady, eighteen years of age, possessed of some 
 property, was destined by her only relatives to take the 
 veil. She had formed an attachment to a cousin. The 
 relatives having other views for the cousin, tim^m^K^mmt 
 •wmmbimmmm+mtkmmmtimkm^imhmtmmmimit, placed her in a 
 nunnery, where she would never see him again. Some 
 friendly sister, however, taking pity on her broken-hearted 
 looks, inquired the cause ; and then, by the assistance of 
 a benevolent monk, communicated with the young gentle- 
 man. But, alas ! escape from the dreary prison-house 
 was hopeless. One course only presented itself, namely, 
 that the young gentleman should attend at the time and 
 place appointed for the ceremony of the profession, and 
 claim her as his own — this, it is scarcely necessary to add, 
 he did ; some consternation and excitement ensued ; but 
 as at the last day of the noviciate, the postulant or novice 
 
J 11 
 
 is nominally free — and having publicly declared her unwil- 
 lingness to take the black veil, aud become a prisoner for 
 life — the demand was irresistible ; and the presiding 
 Cardinal was, reluctantly, compelled to abandon the claims 
 of the priesthood of Rome to another victim ; and the 
 relatives to lose the fortune, that would have reverted to 
 them, if the young lady had died unmarried ! 
 
 We commend, in conclusion, the whole subject to the 
 earnest and thoughtful consideration of every parent in the 
 kingdom. Truth has been our aim, and the light that the 
 truth loveth and priestly domination hateth. 
 
112 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 FlJLHAM V. MACAKTHY. 
 
 The following is a brief analysis of the case of Fulham v. 
 Macarthy, which appropriately illustrates the Romish sys - 
 tern of voluntary acts. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy, of Cork, died in the year 1843, leaving 
 a large grown-up family, and personal property to the 
 amount of upwards of 3690,000. Two of his daughters 
 had, with his consent, become nuns, in the convent of 
 Blackrock, in the years 1 828 and 1829 respectively. He 
 paid .£1000 entrance-money with each of them, on the 
 understanding that they were not to participate in any 
 property which he might leave at his death. Moreover, 
 his daughters wrote him letters, shortly after their profes- 
 sion, renouncing any such property, and he drew up a 
 draught of a will, (found after his death,) in which he cut 
 them off with a shilling, on the ground of their having 
 been already provided for. This will, however, was never 
 executed, and in- 1 843 he died intestate. His son John 
 took out letters of administration and possessed himself of 
 his deceased father's property, which he divided among 
 his brothers and sisters to the exclusion of the two nuns — 
 retaining their shares in his own hands. 
 
 On the 29th of December, 1843, and the 13th of March, 
 
113 
 
 1844, respectively, the two sisters executed deeds of as- 
 signment of all the property to which they had claim to 
 certain nuns of the convent of Blackrock for the uses of 
 the convent. The brother refused to pay the shares of the 
 two sisters to the assignees on the ground of improper 
 influence, and proceedings were instituted in Chancery to 
 compel payment. It is from these proceedings that we have 
 made the following extracts. 1st. In the Bill of the 
 Appellants — that is, on the part of the Convent — the follow- 
 ing principle is laid down : — 
 
 " Your suppliants further show that it is the invariable 
 and well-known regulation of such Convent, and of all 
 similar institutions, that any property which any of the 
 professed nuns acquire or become entitled to after their 
 profession becomes the property of the community, and 
 that such is the effect of their becoming such nuns and of 
 the vow of poverty taken by them." 
 
 Again, Dr. Murphy, then Roman Catholic Bishop of 
 Cork, says in answer to his interrogatory : — 
 
 " About the end of 1843, or commencement of 1844, 
 Catherine Macarthy solicited a conversation or interview 
 with me on the subject of giving over to her brothers her 
 share of her father's assets, and she expressed her desire 
 to do so on condition of receiving for her life an annuity of 
 .£300 ; and she deemed that such would be consistent with 
 her vows as a professed nun, and she wished for my per- 
 mission to carry this object into effect. I told her that I 
 had no power to grant her permission or to dispense with 
 her vow of poverty ; and that she could not, consistently 
 with her vow, alienate from the convent this property, and 
 that, according to the rules and regulations of this institu- 
 
114 
 
 tion, any property devolving upon her or any other pro- 
 fessed nun became the property of the community." 
 
 And then he adds : — 
 
 " I say that neither upon this nor any other occasion 
 did I use any undue means or influence whatever to induce 
 the said Catherine Macarthy to execute the deed." 
 
 In confirmation of this doctrine comes the Rev. Theobald 
 Matthew's answer to interrogatories. Mr. Matthew was 
 the bishop's deputy in visiting the convent : — 
 
 " There is a vow of religious poverty, or, in other words, 
 ' there is nothing over which she can have dominion,' taken 
 by ladies becoming members of said and similar institutions. 
 The meaning and effect of such vow of poverty is, that 
 any property or money which may come to or devolve upon 
 any members of such institution or institutions, becomes 
 the property of the community. The individual has no 
 control over it ; and such is the well-known and understood 
 result of such vow." 
 
 The practical effect of these vows is shown by the fol- 
 lowing extract from Nelson Macarthy's answer to the Bill 
 of the Appellants, being his report of the substance of a 
 conversation with his sister. He says that his sister 
 Catherine told him that she asked the bishop's leave to 
 assign any right she had to her brothers. He referred her 
 to her superioress. She answered that the superioress 
 had referred her to him. He then said, " You must 
 observe your vows of obedience." She answered, " If you 
 mean, my lord, that I must dispose of this property against 
 my conscience, it will be for a Court of Equity to decide 
 how far such an act would be valid." He replied, " If 
 those are your intentions, my dear madam, let me tell you 
 
115 
 
 tbat I have lawyers in my family as well as yours, and this 
 is too good a thing not to look after." He continues, that 
 he saw Maria, (his other sister,) and that she told him 
 that she cried and wept all night long after signing the 
 deed. She told him that he could not see his sister 
 Catherine that day, as she was undergoing punishment. 
 Some weeks after, he says, he saw Catherine, who appeared 
 very weak and depressed. She said that in reference to 
 the deed, a pen might as well have been put into the hands 
 of a corpse as hers. She informed him that she feared 
 she would be obliged to sign the deed in compliance with 
 her vows, and that he had no idea of the mental training 
 that they went through, and that she would be obliged to 
 state that her acts were free and voluntary, and that every- 
 thing done by a " religious " must be done cheerfully and 
 freely, otherwise it would be deemed and considered that 
 she had broken her vows. 
 
 Daniel Macarthy, another brother, gives his sister's report 
 of the conversation with the bishop in nearly the same 
 words, and proceeds thus : — 
 
 " That on the first (a former) interview in the month of 
 August, 1843, the said Catherine informed this defendant 
 (D. Macarthy) of her own accord, that whatever right or 
 claim she might have to the personal estate of her father 
 she thereby gave to this defendant and his brothers, John 
 and James ; and the said Catherine then said that this 
 defendant must blame himself if ever the convent got the 
 property ; and saith that the said Maria and Catherine 
 were both fully apprised of the disposition made by their 
 father in the will aforesaid, and that they were both anxious 
 and desirous to fulfil the same, and so expressed them- 
 
116 
 
 selves, and were anxious to adhere to their original under- 
 taking with their said father." 
 
 The declaration of Catherine herself, shows the result of 
 the "mental training" preceding the signing of the deed : — 
 
 " In the conversation alluded to by my brother Daniel, 
 I did express my hope and wish that the superiors would 
 make some surrender, not knowing it to be wrong to have 
 done so ; but I never at any time expressed my willingness 
 or intention of acting independently of their will and 
 approbation in this case. Should I on these occasions 
 have allowed my natural sympathy for the feelings of my 
 family to have appeared, it never could have been imagined 
 by me that they could suppose that I could do any act 
 contrary to the duty of religious persons. I did admit 
 that in moral justice I did not consider myself entitled, 
 under the circumstances, to so large a claim on my father's 
 property, but as no religious can renounce her rights, it 
 being no longer hers but the rights of the community, I 
 acted as my will, influenced by duty, pointed out to me ; 
 nor was the delay to the deed of trust, March 13, occa- 
 sioned by the circumstances alluded to by my brother." 
 
 The Lord Chancellor of Ireland decided that the convent 
 was not entitled to relief, as the deeds had been obtained 
 under pressure and compulsion, but offered them an issue, 
 that the question might be tried by a jury. This they 
 refused, and appealed to the House of Lords, which appeal 
 was dismissed ; but, unfortunately, on a technical point, 
 see House of Lords' cases, vol. ii. 
 
117 
 II. 
 
 Decbee of the Council of Trent as to Nunneries. 
 
 The following is an abstract of a decree of the 25th 
 Session of the Council of Trent. 
 
 It is decreed, — That nunneries shall be kept carefully 
 closed, and egress be absolutely forbidden to the nuns, 
 under any pretence whatsoever, without episcopal licence, 
 on pain of excommunication ; magistrates being enjoined 
 under the same penalty, to aid the bishops if necessary, 
 by employing force, and the latter being urged to their 
 duty by the fear of the judgment of God, and the eternal 
 
 III. 
 
 Regulation of Religious Houses in Piedmont. 
 
 The correspondent of the Times, writing from Turin, 
 March 28, states, that M. Perrone, the deputy for Mondovi, 
 brought in a bill for regulating monasteries and convents ; 
 and on presenting it, spoke as follows : — 
 
 " The civil laws have in most cases taken care of the persons and 
 property of those who, on account of their tender years, or from any 
 mental incapability, were unequal to the protection of their own 
 interests. These laws, however, have been silent with respect to a 
 class of persons who, at an age when no knowledge of life or expe- 
 
118 
 
 rience of the world has been acquired, undertake to dispose of them- 
 selves, even at the age of 16, in monastic and religious seclusion. 
 For the pu rpose of protecting those minors of both sexes, and saving 
 them from a useless and late repentance when nature has been fully 
 developed, and when they are capable of understanding the folly they 
 have committed, I have the honour to present the present bill. It 
 appears to me that no doubt can be entertained of the propriety of 
 giving the civil power jurisdiction in this case, because the project of 
 law is meant to affect persons who do not, and should not, on account 
 of their tender age, belong to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Although it 
 be true that the whole of our civil code is about to be amended, I see 
 no reason why the Legislature should hesitate to take into considera- 
 tion a matter of the urgent necessity of this, and which, of course, 
 must be incorporated in the proposed alterations. I therefore submit 
 the following outline of the* measure : — 
 
 "1. Individuals of both sexes, who desire to make religious pro- 
 fession in a convent, congregation, or a monastery of the State, 
 shall not be allowed to take solemn vows in perpetuity unless they 
 have completed the age of 21 years. 
 
 " 2. The persons competent according to the preceding article, 
 shall not be allowed to take the said vows without having lived in the 
 social world for at least six months within the period of two years 
 preceding their adopting that final state. 
 
 "3. Strangers who have taken vows in any foreign convent, not in 
 conformity to the present law, are not admissible into the religious 
 institutions of this country. 
 
 "4- Subjects of the realm who have taken vows beyond its juris- 
 diction shall be considered as strangers in the eye of the law. 
 
 " 5. Such persons as receive, or allow to be received, religious can ■ 
 didates in contravention of the first and second clauses of this bill, 
 shall be punished with five years' imprisonment, and all such subjects 
 of the realm who may infringe the terms of this law out of the 
 kingdom shall lose their civil rights. 
 
 " 6. All dispositions of preceding legislation contrary to the pre- 
 sent law are annulled." 
 
 " Although (continued the speaker) all legislation is subject to 
 modification by the hand of time, we see that religious and monastic 
 orders obstinately refuse to make any alteration in that which affects 
 
119 
 
 them from the remotest period. We are, therefore, called on to 
 perform that which those orders refuse to do for themselves. It 
 appears that the church will in no manner diminish the control it has 
 so long exercised over the human mind ; but, while that fact accounts 
 for the blind obstinacy with which it repels all change, it compels us 
 to protect the young and the ignorant, and to provide by wholesome 
 legislation for the public good. The House has, therefore, only to 
 examine whether the motion I have the honour to propose be in 
 principle just, and whether it be within our attributes to adopt it. 
 On the first point, [ need only say that the taking of eternal vows is 
 the most solemn act a human being can perform, and that it is a re- 
 flection on common sense to allow them to be adopted at the age of 
 16 years, which the actual law permits, when neither the mind nor 
 body is developed, and the judgment and the passions given to us by 
 Divine Providence for wise purposes, are not yet matured. Will you 
 continue to expose the youth of both sexes to the influence of 
 interested persons, who desire the possession of their worldly goods, 
 and to the misery of an ineffectual repentance ? With regard to the 
 second point, the Chamber has already discussed and disposed of 
 matters of a similar nature, and in any case I must presume that, 
 whatever your final decision may be, you will not refuse for the pre- 
 sent to take the measure I propose into serious and immediate con- 
 sideration. The proposition was then received, amid cheers from all 
 sides of the house." 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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