9: Poetry, Mothers, and Priories

(The building on the left is the original monastery and the building on the right is the add-on hospital.)

So, this non-Catholic girl goes to the Anglican nation of Great Britain to study a 17th century poet and got tripped up on the lingering Catholic vocabulary. I had been seeking poet Katherine Philips at the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the National Library of Wales, and the library of the University of Wales. Now I was visiting her adult home of Cardigan Priory in Pembroke, Wales. She lived about a hundred years after the Catholic-Anglican break. 

I talked to my mom frequently during the research process in the States. Mothers know everything, right? Especially mothers who worked in libraries! I decided I’d ask her what a priory is. “It’s a Catholic church district, dear,” she said. My mother isn’t Catholic either.

Studying Philips in the States I read in multiple sources that she lived with her husband in Cardigan Priory after her marriage at the age of just 15. I couldn’t find any mention at all of the house they lived in, just this bland, unhelpful, geographic district known as “Cardigan Priory” in the town of Pembroke.

I thought perhaps the location of her home was simply unknown, but at least I could see more of the “rocks and rivers” she spoke of in Pembroke. I took a local bus via tiny roads with tree branches whipping at the windows.

I went to the tourism service center and made a beeline for the small bookshop. I picked up a title on local history, searching the index for “Philips.” I found a reference to Philips’s husband, who was a member of Parliament and a public figure in his own right. I was happy with the find. This was yet another potential item for my bibliography. I flipped to the chapter. And stopped. Stunned.

I learned that a priory is also a building. The book had a picture of Cardigan Priory. It had been a monastery before Henry VIII broke with Rome over divorcing Katherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. He confiscated the church’s riches in Britain, including the monasteries, and re-distributed them. Philips’s family was one of those beneficiaries. At some point the town of Pembroke added a wing to the original structure that served as the town hospital. 

I walked to the counter. “Is this close to here?” I asked, holding up the picture of Cardigan Priory from the book.

“Two kilometers away,” she said, pointing at the road in front of the shop.

Serious Research Monkey Serendipity.

I was feeling blessed with good fortune. I bought the book and started up the street, giddily savoring the knowledge that I had found her home. I had a whole afternoon to explore it.