ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the cloisters' relationship with the exiled Stuarts, principally James II, Mary of Modena and their son. It focuses on the political ambitions of the nuns and the ways their interactions with the royal family shaped convent life and influenced pastoral strategies. The religious women abroad remained an integral part of the English Catholic community, with the cloisters maintaining schools and guest houses and providing centres of liturgical worship for compatriots who could not access this degree of elaborate and sustained devotion at home. Economic distress led cloisters to pursue income-generating ventures which happily also fulfilled their mission to consolidate recusant faith and identity in their compatriots. The Paris Augustinian nuns' reaction to James II's death reflected the close alliance between the convent and the deposed monarch. A few nuns were prepared to move beyond their monastic performance of prayer to offer more direct challenges to the English state.
