Anne Neville (abbess)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anne Neville
Born
Mary Neville

1605
Nevill Holt, Leicestershire
Died15 December 1689
Pontoise, France
NationalityKingdom of England
Occupationabbess of Pontoise

Anne Neville born Mary Neville (1605 – 15 December 1689) was an English Roman Catholic nun and royal debt collector who became the abbess of Pontoise near Paris.

Life[]

She born in 1605 in Nevill Holt in Leicestershire[1] and she was baptised Mary. Her parents were Lady Mary (born Sackville) and Sir Henry Neville who would later become Lord (A)bergavenny. Her mother who was an enthusiastic Catholic who supplied her with an education. Her mother died before 1616.[2] Her father married again and her step mother, Catherine Vaux, was from another recusant family.

In 1634 she was becoming a nun and professing at the Benedictine convent in Ghent led by Mary Vavasour. She was quickly given positions of responsibility.[2] In 1640 there was a new abbess named Mary Knatchbull.[3]

The exiled Charles II was in Europe and Knatchbull enjoyed a close relationship with the King. The convent played host to the court and received and passed on letters. Despite the convent's poor finances, Knatchbull agreed to loan the King substantial sums which would be paid by the King when he was restored to the throne.[4] Knatchbull was a person who played an important role in Charles II's restoration to the throne in 1660,[5] but Knatchbull was not paid the money that was owed to the convent. The abbess had to go to England twice to chase the debts[4] and Neville was her counsellor.[2]

In June 1663 she and two other nuns were in England where Neville acted as a debt collector. She used her influence to ensure that a £500 annuity, agreed with Knatchbull by the crown, was paid to the Ghent convent. She also ensured that dowry's promised by the families of Ghent nuns were paid. She stayed with the dowager Catherine, Lady Abergavenny who had been married her half brother John.[2]

After four years in England she returned to the continent in 1667. She stopped at Dunkirk on the way where she was asked to join those nuns, but she continued her journey to Ghent. She considered her position and with Mary Knatchbull's permission she soon decided to join a new small convent in Pontoise. It was led by Eugenia Poulton and when she died later that year then Neville was elected as new abbess.[2]

References[]

  1. ^ "Who were the Nuns?". wwtn.history.qmul.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-02-17.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Neville, Anne (1605–1689), abbess of Pontoise". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40630. Retrieved 2021-02-17.
  3. ^ Bowden, Caroline M. K. (2004). "Knatchbull, Elizabeth [name in religion Lucy] (1584–1629), abbess of the Convent of the Immaculate Conception, Ghent". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/66981. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ a b "Knatchbull, Mary (1610–1696), abbess of the Convent of the Immaculate Conception, Ghent". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/66452. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ^ Bowden, Caroline M.K. (1999). "The Abbess and Mrs. Brown: Lady Mary Knatchbull and Royalist Politics in Flanders in the late 1650s". Recusant History. 24 (3): 288–308. doi:10.1017/S0034193200002521. ISSN 0034-1932.
Retrieved from ""