Rejecting marriage and the convent, the Spanish noblewoman, poet, and religious activist Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza ( Jaraicejo 1566-London 1614) led an uncommon life of adventure and spiritual devotion. Orphaned as a child, she lived first at Philip II's court, and then with an uncle, the Viceroy of Navarra, who enforced harsh discipline on his ward. Through her contacts with the English Jesuits, Carvajal traveled secretly to London as a self-appointed missionary, where she was jailed twice for preaching against Anglicanism. A tireless writer, Carvajal left a small but impressive collection of spiritual poetry, an autobiography, and over two hundred letters. This volume provides a scholarly introduction and translations of selections from her writings.
Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza (1566–1614) was a noblewoman who left her native Spain for a life of self-imposed exile and Catholic evangelism in Jacobean England. Her letters provide an unparalleled resource. This edition presents 180 letters, newly translated and set in context.
Excerpt from The Life of Luisa De Carvajal Amidst that group Of holy priests and devoted religious, of indefatigable missionaries and devout women, who kept alive the faith in England during those glorious and terrible days, one humble and gentle figure has remained yet more unnoticed than those of the fellow labourers and sufl'erers with whom her lot was cast. It is that of a delicate, high born, timid lady - timid by nature, valiant through grace - a foreign, flower (as the writers Of that day would have said), transplanted in an English soil; the daughter Of a wealthy and noble Spanish house, linked by no one tie with our country except that of a passionate desire, growing at last into an irresistible vocation, to labour for the salvation of souls in England. The name of Dona Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza is all but unknown in the land where she spent nine years in the exercise of every spiritual and temporal work of mercy towards her persecuted brethren in the faith, and died a victim, if not a martyr, to her apostolic zeal. The time seems arrived to tell the story of her wonderful life of love, penance, and toil; to study its details, and see how grace overcame the weakness Of nature, and by a providential training, prepared this chosen soul for the exercise of an extraordinary charity, leading her even in childhood to shadow forth, by a series of austerities and voluntary sufferings, the cross she was so bravely to carry in her maturer years. It was a strange vocation that brought a Spanish maiden, reared in all the grandeur and state befitting her rank, and keenly alive to the point of honour, ' as her biographer calls it - the sensitive pride of a chivalrous race - to dwell in a wretched abode in the dark streets of London, to haunt its prisons with her gentle presence, to stand at the foot of its scaffolds, cheering the dying, and burying the dead, with the finger of scorn pointed at her, and the hootings of the rabble dogging her footsteps, to reach, at last, a dungeon, from whence she issued only to linger on a bed of sickness, and die amongst strangers, far away from the sunny land of her birth. Soon after her death, in 1614, the process of Luisa de Carvajal's canonization was set on foot at Rome; miracles wrought in favour of those who invoked her, the efficacy of her relics, and the heroic sanctity ofher life and death, were abundantly attested, but for some unknown reason, the progress of the cause was not actively pursued, and since that time a sort of oblivion has been permitted to steal over the memory of this gentle saint. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza (1566-1614) was a noblewoman who left her native Spain for a life of self-imposed exile and Catholic evangelism in Jacobean England. Her letters provide an unparalleled resource. This edition presents 180 letters, newly translated and set in context.
Before dawn one morning in June 1612, an elderly Frenchman took charge of a carriage carrying a precious cargo near Tyburn Fields, London's notorious place of execution. It was heading for a house in Spitalfields, where a wizened Spanish woman was waiting to receive the mortal remains of freshly-martyred Catholic priests. Her name was Luisa de Carvajal and this book tells her story. Born into a great Spanish noble family, Luisa suffered a horribly abusive childhood and from her early years hankered to become a martyr for her faith. For almost 20 years she struggled to become possibly the first female missionary of modern times. In 1605 - the year of the Gunpowder Plot - she was secreted into England by the Jesuits, despite the fact that she spoke not a word of English. To everyone ́s surprise including her own, she steadily assumed a prominent role within London ́s underground Catholic community, setting up an unofficial nunnery, offering Roman priests a secure place to live, consoling prisoners awaiting execution, importing banned books, and helping persecuted Catholics to flee abroad. Throughout this time she ran the grave risk of imprisonment and execution, yet she miraculously managed to avoid this ultimate fate in spite of being arrested on a number of occasions. This vividly written biography, the first to give equal treatment to her double life in Spain and England, is based on Luisa's own autobiographical writings, her sparkling collection of poems and letters, and the detailed reminiscences by dozens of people who worked with her. In parts humorous, the book contains Luisa ́s biting descriptions of the cost of living in Shakespeare ́s London, the poor quality of food in the capital, as well as the weekend rowdiness of the English.
