Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/247

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1920 THOMAS HARDING 239 psalms, of Sasbout on the epistles of St. Paul and on Isaiah, of Titelmans on the canticles and the psalms, Lindanus's Panoplia Evangelica and the De optimo Genere Interpretandi Scripturas by the same author. The presence of these and many more of the works of these professors in Harding's collection, as well as in that of John Ramridge,^ makes it almost certain that the Louvain faculty of theology exercised a great influence on the English apologetic school. Harding's will testifies to his generous charity towards his poorer countrymen, who from a state of relative prosperity in England, had fallen to the depths of want in their exile. First amongst these ranked the sisters of Syon House at Mishagen, to whom he bequeathed a sum of 240 florins.^ A special legacy of 24 florins was left to their abbess. Lady Catherine Palmer ; the small sum of 3^ florins was given to two of the members, Doctor Saunders's sister, Margaret, and Sister Bridget.^ A legacy of 6 florins was bequeathed to the Charterhouse at Bruges,* and to the Dartford community near the same town ; ^ further, in Louvain, to the two communities which had taken up English refugees, the Minorites and the Poor Clares, as well as to the Austin canonesses at St. Ursula's. In the latter convent a special bequest of 4 thalers (4 flor. and 16 st.) was made to Sister Eliza- beth Woodford, who was the link between the suppressed abbey at Burnham and the developing community in Louvain, as also to the two daughters of the venerable and generous man who had sheltered her in her native country and accompanied her into exile, the Sisters Margaret and Dorothy Clement.^ Harding stipulated that 6 stivers should be offered to every English

  • This doctor of divinity of Oxford, who was dean of Lichfield in Mary's reign,

went to live in Louvain in 1564 and was killed in 1568.

  • Hamilton, The Angel of Syon, including R. Parsons's History of the Wanderings

of Syon (1905), pp. 104 ff. This community was generally helped by the generosity of other exiles. See Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, vol. vii(1883), pt. i, p. 350. ' This Sister Bridget probably succeeded to Catherine Palmer as abbess ; Bridg- water {Concertatio Ecclesiae Catholicae in Anglia, Trier, 1583) mentions her in his index : ' Domina Brigitta Abbatissa Monialium D. Brigittae cum viginti lectissimia ac nobilibus virginibus Anglis in exilio servit Deo in magna paupertate & rerum omnium penuria.'

  • See Hendriks, The London Charterhouse: its Monks and its Martyrs (1889);

Guilday, English Catholic Colleges and Convents, pp. 41 S. ; Lechat, Les Refugies Anglais aux Pays-Bas 1558-1603 (Louvain, 1914), pp. 27 ff. » Guilday, p. 414.

  • Guilday, p. 378. ' Magister Doctor loannes nobilis Anglus ' was matriculated

in the Louvain University with his son Thomas on 27 March 1562 (Lib. iv Intit., fo. 579). Dorothy Clement was a professed nun in the convent of the Poor Clares ; see Sanderus, De Visibili Monarchia Ecclesiae, Louvain, 1571, pp. 710-12 ; W. Bang, Acta Anglo-Lovaniensia in Englische Studien (Leipzig, 1908), p. 246. The Life of Mother Margaret Clement, by Sister Elizabeth Shirley, is preserved in manuscript at St. Augustine's Priory, Newton Abbot.