Jane Leade

Biography of a Seventeenth-Century Mystic

Julie Hirst

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351925600
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Jane Leade (1624-1704) is probably the most prolific woman writer and most important female religious leader in late seventeenth-century England, yet, she still remains relatively unknown. By exploring her life and works as a prophetess and mystic, this books opens a fascinating window into the world of a remarkable woman living in a remarkable age. Born in Norfolk into a gentry family, Jane Leade enjoyed a comfortable childhood, married a distant cousin, who was a merchant, and had four children. However, she found herself totally destitute in London when he died, his fortune having been lost abroad. As a widow, she proclaimed herself to be a `Bride of Christ', and eventually became a prolific author and a respected blind, elderly leader of a religious group of well-educated men and women, known as the Philadelphian Society. The structure of this book is informed by the chronological events that happened during her life and is complemented by examining some of the material she published, including her visions of the Virgin Wisdom, or Sophia. She started writing in 1670, but published prolifically in the 1680s and 1690s, and this material offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind of an extraordinary woman. Believing herself to be living in the `End Times' she expected Sophia would return with the second coming of Christ. The Philadelphian Society grew under her charge, until they were buffeted by mobs in London. Jane Leade died in her eighty-first year and is buried in the non-conformist cemetery, Bunhill Fields, in London. By contextualising her and drawing out the nature of her devotions this new book draws attention to her as a figure in her own right. Previous studies have tended to reduce her to one example within a certain tradition, but as this work clearly demonstrates she was in fact a much more complicated character who did not conform to any one particular tradition.

Chapter 1

Norfolk’s Child to ‘Bride of Christ’

Jane was born into an influential gentry family and baptized on 9 March 1624 at the church of St Andrew, Letheringsett, north Norfolk.¹ Bordered by the sea on the north and east, essentially Norfolk was an agricultural county, dissected by natural boundaries of river and breckland and fern.² The grey flint church towers dominate the countryside, casting their shadows and influence over the pastoral setting below.³ The parish church of St Andrew, Letheringsett has a distinctive round tower built in the thirteenth century, and the stained glass window on the south side of the chancel dates from the fifteenth century. The church would have been the focal point for village life and great emphasis would have been placed by Jane’s family on religious observance. They would have prayed together and attended services at this church or at a private chapel, and their knowledge of the Bible would have been intimate. Their allegiance to the Church of England, at this time, would have inculcated a fear of a return to Roman Catholicism. Indeed, the churches in Norfolk, as in England as a whole, had their interior walls whitewashed to cover the painted scenes of the lives of saints; and their rich vestments, gold and silver chalices, and illuminated psalters were impounded as a visible reminder of anything that suggested popery.

Jane’s father, Hamond Warde, was recorded as the owner of the original hall of the manor of Letheringsett Laviles in 1624, which is now Hall Farm. Two fields are still known as ‘Warde’s Fields’.⁴ He was the local squire and would have wielded some considerable authority as a Justice of the Peace and served on the Court of Quarter Sessions.⁵ The work of Quarter Sessions was varied and encompassed depositions, licences, agriculture and finance, though its main administrative function was to supervise the work of the parishes as poor law authorities. Hamond Warde’s role therefore was to assist the parish to find financial support for those who were unable to work and could not be supported by their families. He would assist in finding an occupation for those who did not have one, and make sure that the necessary training was provided, and as a justice he would have the right to punish those who refused work and also take action when overseers failed to provide relief for the poor. Some of the cases in which he was involved as a magistrate have been documented, giving us insights into his character. It interesting to note that he appeared to resolve parish problems in an amicable manner. For example, the complainant William Howell cited that his apprentice Henry Davey had absconded ‘& would not be restrayned of his roagish life’. The court decided that Howell could accept the rogue’s younger brother John as his apprentice. Other cases included a weekly allowance to be given to the widow Tompson who had been unable to care for her children after her goods had been stolen.⁶ Hamond Warde clearly served as a role model for the family, and Jane’s brother, Edward, is listed as serving on the court in the years following his father’s death.

When Jane’s father Hamond Warde died in 1650, Jane and her sister Suzanna each received fifty shillings. Hamond Warde’s will, dated 26 February 1650, showed that those who were perceived as having the greater family responsibilities received a cash sum accordingly. He bequeathed his servants, rather than his daughters, much greater sums; William Allen, for example, was left six pounds, thirteen shillings and four pence.⁷ Jane’s brother James received two hundred and thirty pounds, and William inherited one hundred pounds. However, Richard Warde’s widow, Jane’s sister-in-law, was willed the same amount as her brother, being regarded as the head of the household with a family to support. Jane’s family were wealthy enough to afford a large funeral and monument in honour of their father in St Andrew’s Church, Letheringsett, which was a visible symbol of their importance in the local community.⁸

If we know something of Jane’s father, then like many women of the seventeenth century, we know very little about her mother, Mary Calthorpe (1582–1657), the daughter of Sir James Calthorpe, apart from the fact that she bore at least seven sons and two daughters: Charles, William, Edward, Philip, Richard, James, Hamond, Suzanna and Jane herself. Charles became the rector of Acle, Norfolk; Suzanna married Henry Ferrour; James married Sarah Wright of Kilverston, Norfolk; and Hamond married Sarah Scott of Norfolk.⁹ Though the descendents of Hamond and Mary Warde continued to own the family home in Letheringsett until 1717, when it was sold to a local man, Thomas Girdlestone, none of them resided in the parish.¹⁰

Jane’s ability as a writer can be traced back to her early life. As Margaret Ezell has observed, ‘the most significant factor in whether a girl was educated in the seventeenth century was her family’.¹¹ In her autobiography Jane wrote, ‘my father brought me up with dignity and good manners, according to his standing’.¹² Hamond Warde employed a resident cleric to teach academic subjects, such as mathematics, theology and classical languages. Although he would have been employed as a tutor to her brothers, the cleric may have also taught Jane and her sister, although it is unclear how far her classical and other skills were developed. It appears that she had access to the Chaplain’s books, even if only clandestinely, as he ‘surprised her reading in his study’.¹³

As Jane was to develop radically individual religious and theological views, it is clearly important to find out as much as possible about her religious upbringing. She was ‘baptised, and educated in the Church of England’, and this upbringing undoubtedly helped to shape her views.¹⁴ However, it is not sufficient simply to stress that she belonged to the Church of England, for it contained a diversity of theological strands. Unfortunately, we may never know for certain in which of these she was raised. Nevertheless, her family seem to have been parliamentarian in sympathy as her grandfather, James Calthorpe, subscribed one hundred pounds to the parliamentary cause.¹⁵ This might lead us to suspect that she had a Calvinist, or even godly, upbringing, as the Puritan gentry of East Anglia were important in the parliamentary cause. This suspicion is further supported by the fact that members of Jane’s family were involved in colonial trade. Her cousin Christopher Calthorpe emigrated to Elizabeth City, Virginia, aged seventeen, in 1622 and accumulated over one thousand acres in Charles River (now York County).¹⁶ It was common for younger sons of gentry to go into trade and it was likely that Jane’s brother, Hamond, a merchant in London, was also a trader in Virginia tobacco by 1630.¹⁷ This early involvement in Virginia trade is suggestive, for, as Robert Brenner has shown, there were strong links between the godly and trade to Virginia.¹⁸ There is, however, important contrary evidence. Her family celebrated Christmas with singing and dancing, and thus they are very unlikely to have been Puritan.

Regardless of how her upbringing shaped her, her adolescence concluded with a religious crisis which set her apart from her family. During their Christmas celebrations in 1640 Jane’s life was transformed by a religious experience which was recorded many years later:

In the sixteenth year of her age and so to give an evidence that the voice of the external Word of God…is real and substantial, not imaginary…when this voice spake first to her: which was very suddenly and surprisingly. For it was in a time of great festivity, at the celebration of the nativity of Christ…with music and dancing, in the house of her father…when a sudden grievous sorrow was darted as fire into her bowels, and she was made to consider that this was not the way to be conformed to Christ, or to remember his birth aright; and a soft whisper gently entered into her, saying CEASE FROM THIS, I HAVE ANOTHER DANCE TO LEAD THEE IN; FOR THIS IS VANITY.¹⁹

Francis Lee, the editor of Jane Leade’s Wars of David, which appeared in 1700, when she was seventy-seven years of age, wrote this account. It thus recorded events which had occurred over sixty years beforehand. However, Lee was concerned to stress that both the external Word and Jane’s experience were ‘real and substantial, not imaginary’, and so the phrasing and description are likely to have been Jane’s. The powerful and penetrative imagery, such as the ‘sudden grievous sorrow’ which ‘darted as fire into her bowels’, contrasted with the ‘soft whisper’ which ‘gently entered into her’, suggests an intimate experience which had sexual connotations.²⁰ Jane may have used this conventional erotic imagery in an attempt to express an ineffable mystical experience. Indeed, as John Stachnieweski has observed, ‘Calvinist conver...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgment
• List of Conventions and Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Norfolk’s Child to ‘Bride of Christ’
• 2 John Pordage: A Spiritual Mate
• 3 Searching for GO(L)D: Spiritual Alchemy
• 4 Visions of Sophia
• 5 Mystical Marriage
• 6 The Philadelphians’ Prophetess
• 7 The Second Coming
• 8 The Healing Angel
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Inxex