Dorothy Lawson (née Constable, 1580–26 March 1632)[1] was a recusant and Catholic priest harbourer.[2]
Dorothy Lawson | |
|---|---|
| Known for | recusancy, harbouring Catholic priests |
| Born | 1580 Wing, Buckinghamshire, England |
| Died | 26 March 1632 St Antony's, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England |
| Buried | All Saints' Church, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England |
| Spouse(s) | Sir Roger Lawson |
| Father | Sir Henry Constable |
| Mother | Margaret Dormer |
Early life
editDorothy was born in 1580 in Wing, Buckinghamshire,[1] her maternal grandfathers home.[3] Her parents’ own home was Burton Constable in East Yorkshire. Her father was Sir Henry Constable (c.1559–1608), Justice of the Peace, Member of Parliament and Knight of the Shire for Yorkshire.[3] Her mother was Margaret Constable née Dormer (d. 1637), the daughter of William Dormer of Eythrope and his second wife Dorothy Dormer née Catesby.[3] She was raised as a pious Roman Catholic.
Marriage
editShe married Sir Ralph Lawson of Brough, Yorkshire in 1597,[1] when she was 17 years old. His parents were Sir Ralph Lawson of the Manor of Byker and Elizabeth Lawson née Brough of Brough Hall, near Catterick, North Yorkshire. Her husbands family outwardly conformed to the Church of England but his mother had previously been imprisoned as a recusant.[2] After her marriage and moving into the Lawson household, she contacted Richard Holtby, a Jesuit priest, to arrange monthly visits so that mass could be conducted by a Catholic priest.[4] In 1605, the Lawson family moved to Heaton Hall, Northumberland.[2]
Widowhood
editHer husband died in 1614, and after her father in law sold Heaton Hall, with her permission, she built St. Anthony’s near Walker, Newcastle-on-Tyne. She had the name of Jesus painted in large letters upon the house to signal to that the household was a Catholic haven.[5] Lawson became a powerful widow who utilised her autonomy, financial independence and social status to harbour priests at St. Anthony's. She also employed Catholic servants,[6] held religious services for the local community including clandestine Mass,[7] and visited other Catholic recusants who were imprisoned in jail for their beliefs.[3] She dispensed charity to local Catholic families, including comforting women during childbirth.
The Jesuit priest William Palmes became Lawson's personal chaplain and confessor for seven years at the end of her life.[5] He wrote a biography of her life, calling her "once my spirituall child, but now I hope my zealous advocate".[1] He wrote that the she was a patroness of the Society of Jesus, who met yearly at her home to discuss the mission in England, and that she chose not to remarry as ‘she intended to expend the rest of her life like a solitary sparrow in the holes of a rock, or morning turtle, that never had mate but one, and vow’d never to know another.’[1]
She died on 26 March 1632.[1] Her funeral was conducted at All Saints' Church, Newcastle.[2]
Issue
editThe exact number of children that Lawson and her husband had is unknown, but 14 known children were: Henry, Dorothy, Elizabeth, Edmund, Catherine, Mary, Ralph, George, Margaret, John, Roger, Thomas, James and Anne.[3] They were provided with catechetical instruction[8] and raised in the Catholic faith.[9]
Their daughter Dorothy became an Augustinian canoness at Louvain in 1618,[2] and two other daughters, Margaret and Mary, joined a Benedictine convent in Ghent.[3][10] Their son Ralph attended a seminary in Douai.[2] Other children married into local Catholic families, with several generations indicted for recusancy or becoming nuns and priests.[2]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f Palmes, William (1855). The Life of Mrs. Dorothy Lawson: Of St. Antony's Near Newcastle-on-Tyne. Imprinted by George Bouchier Richardson.
- ^ a b c d e f g Walker, Catherine (2004). "Lawson [née Constable], Dorothy (1580–1632), recusant and priest harbourer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/69034. Retrieved 19 October 2024. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ a b c d e f Jackson, Chris (1 September 2019). "Dorothy of Heaton - Heaton History Group". heatonhistorygroup.org. Retrieved 19 October 2024.
- ^ Connelly, Roland (1997). The Women of the Catholic Resistance: In England 1540-1680. Pentland Press. pp. 184–190. ISBN 978-1-85821-509-9.
- ^ a b Lux-Sterritt, Laurence (October 2011). "'Virgo Becomes Virago': Women in the Accounts of Seventeenth-Century English Catholic Missionaries". British Catholic History. 30 (4): 537–553. doi:10.1017/S0034193200013170. ISSN 0034-1932.
- ^ Binczewski, Jennifer (May 2020). "Power in vulnerability: widows and priest holes in the early modern English Catholic community". British Catholic History. 35 (1): 1–24. doi:10.1017/bch.2020.1. ISSN 2055-7973.
- ^ Binczewski, Jennifer (3 December 2021). "Widows behaving 'badly': manipulating vulnerability to strengthen the English Catholic Community". Cambridge Core Blog. Retrieved 20 October 2024.
- ^ Seguin, Colleen M. (3 December 2021), "Catholic Laywomen: Activist Piety, Agency, and Strategic Resistance", A Companion to Catholicism and Recusancy in Britain and Ireland, Brill, pp. 155–177, ISBN 978-90-04-33598-1, retrieved 19 October 2024
- ^ Macek, Ellen A. (2004). ""Ghostly Fathers" and Their "Virtuous Daughters": The Role of Spiritual Direction in the Lives of Three Early Modern English Women". The Catholic Historical Review. 90 (2): 213–235. ISSN 0008-8080. JSTOR 25026570.
- ^ "Who Were the Nuns? | A Prosopographical study of the English Convents in exile 1600-1800". Retrieved 19 October 2024.