Dorothy Lawson (recusant)

Her husband died in 1614. After her father in law sold Heaton Hall, with her permission, Lawson built the "quasi-religious"^[6] home of St. Anthony’s near Walker, Newcastle-on-Tyne, naming each room after a saint.^[4] She had the name of Jesus painted in large letters upon the house to signal to that the household was a Catholic haven.^[7]

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,^[4][8] held religious services for the local community including clandestine Mass,^[9] 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 and baptising new-born babies if they were in danger of death.^[4]

The Jesuit priest William Palmes became Lawson's personal chaplain and confessor for seven years at the end of her life.^[7] 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]

The 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^[10] and raised in the Catholic faith.^[11]

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][12] 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]