Who were the Nuns?

A Prosopographical study of the English Convents in exile 1600-1800

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Mary Ward, in religion Mary.
Born: 1585 in Yorks.
Died: 30 Jan 1645 in Heworth, Yorks.

father: Marmaduke Ward of Mulwith, nr Ripon, Yorks
mother: Ursula Wright of Holderness, Yorks

Mary Ward Institute choir nun.
She entered 1609.
St Omer: founder of the Institute

Poor Clares, Gravelines choir nun.
She entered 1608.
She left 1609 .

Superior

subject: Briefe Relation
creator: Autobiographical Fragments
subject: Painted Life
subject: Portrait: facing title page Mary Ward - A Briefe Relation, 2008

She was the sister of Barbara Ward, Elizabeth Ward, Frances Ward .
She was the kinswoman of Helena Catesby.

Sources: companions: 8-13; ODNB; Mary Ward texts; Mary Ward und ihre Grundung; Gravelines MS Chronicle; CRS 14: 25-6.

Notes:

Founder of an unenclosed self-governing religious institute for women on the model of the Society of Jesus. Set up houses and schools in St Omer, Liège, Cologne, Trier, Rome, Naples, Perugia, Munich, Vienna, Bratislava (Pressburg) and sent members on the English Mission. Travelled extensively, mainly on foot, and pleaded the cause of her Institute personally before the Pope and Cardinals. She suffered the suppression of her Institute (1631) and in the same year, imprisonment for a time. (CK-B) For the life of Mary Ward, see Mary Ward 1585-1656, ed. Christina Kenworthy-Browne CJ, Catholic Record Society, 2008 and Henriette Peters, Mary Ward, a World in Contemplation, Gracewing, 1994. This will refer the reader to other texts relating to the life of Mary Ward.

Founder of English Poor Clares who settled at Gravelines before establishing her Institute at St Omer. For full list of her writings see the sources page of the CJ website www.cjengland.org (CK-B) [http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/view/article/28699, accessed 18 July 2011]

Her uncles, Thomas Percy, John and Christopher Wright, were all implicated in the Gunpowder Plot.