Author: insearchofannebronte@hotmail.com

This is a happy day of celebration for many in the United Kingdom, for it is Father’s Day. In the ever recurring Brontë calendar, however, today marks one of the saddest anniversaries. In today’s new Brontë blog post we remember Elizabeth Brontë who died aged just ten years old on this day in 1825, exactly two hundred years ago today.

When we look for tangible evidence of Elizabeth Brontë now all we have is this beautiful sampler made by Elizabeth when she was seven years old. She would have been expected to produce further samplers in her youth to showcase her prowess as a seamstress, at the time an essential skill for a governess or housekeeper. Alas, fate put paid to those plans for a future career for Elizabeth as she died from tuberculosis contracted at Cowan Bridge School – the school searingly recreated as Lowood in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

Elizabeth was born in a time of hope for the Brontë family. The second child to Patrick and Maria she would form a close bond with sister Maria, the eldest Brontë sibling, and be sent to Cowan Bridge school alongside her. We know the two sisters had different characters and different academic abilities, Elizabeth was more practical whereas Maria was a prodigious talent, but hopefully they could provide some solace and comfort to each other during those terrible months which saw both Maria and Elizabeth die in the first half of 1825.

It is to Cowan Bridge that we turn now for a telling recollection of Elizabeth. A Miss Evans was the Supervisor at the school, and she later stated: “The second, Elizabeth, is the only one of the [Brontë] family of whom I have a vivid recollection, from her meeting with a rather alarming accident, in consequence of which I had her for some days and nights in my bed-room, not only for the sake of her greater quiet, but that I might watch over her myself. Her head was severely cut, but she bore all the consequent suffering with exemplary patience, and by it won much upon my esteem.”

Elizabeth, like Maria and later all of her siblings but for Anne Brontë, was buried beneath the stone floor of Haworth church. Her name appeared on the memorial inside the church, but it has been all too easy to forget this young child who was such an integral part of the close-knit group of Brontë siblings.

Today, however, there is great interest in Elizabeth Brontë. My earliest post on Elizabeth, which I wrote in 2016, is still year after year the most visited of the many hundreds of posts on my blog. My video looking at the life of Elizabeth Brontë for my House Of Brontë YouTube channel is the most viewed video I’ve made.

It is clear that a growing number of people do remember Elizabeth Brontë, and they hold her in high esteem. Her loss was a great tragedy in the Brontë story, so let us remember her today and every day.

To all the fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers and pet fathers out there I hope you have had a happy and love filled day. I hope you all can join me next week for another new Brontë blog post.

This weekend we mark an anniversary that brought to an end the Brontë line, an end to the house of Brontë lineage. Patrick Brontë died on June 7th 1861 in Haworth, where he had served as Church of England curate for over 40 years. It was in some ways his great tragedy that he lived so long, as he had outlived his wife and all six of his children. When he died, his son-in-law Arthur Bell Nicholls was by Patrick’s side, the widower of his third daughter Charlotte Brontë.

It marked a time of great mourning in Haworth, and on the day of Patrick’s funeral the shops closed early and flags flew at half mast. Arthur, ever a man to wear his emotions on his sleeve, was led away after the funeral in tears. There can be little doubt that Patrick had a huge and positive influence on his daughters, and yet even today there are some who seek to denigrate his character. In today’s post we’ll look at how Patrick Brontë faced up to bullies, and of how his action came to be reproduced in one of his daughter Charlotte’s great novels.

We’ll begin with a dramatic scene from Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley, a book I particularly love as many of its characters and places were drawn, thinly veiled, from real life. In this scene Reverend Helstone is leading a Whitsun march which encounters trouble when it runs into, quite literally, a similar march from a dissenting church:

“He pointed with his staff to the end of the lane before them. Lo and behold! another, an opposition, procession was there entering, headed also by men in black, and followed also, as they could now hear, by music.

“Is it our double?” asked Shirley, “our manifold wraith? Here is a card turned up.”

“If you wanted a battle, you are likely to get one—at least of looks,” whispered Caroline, laughing.

“They shall not pass us!” cried the curates unanimously; “we’ll not give way!”

“Give way!” retorted Helstone sternly, turning round; “who talks of giving way? You, boys, mind what you are about. The ladies, I know, will be firm. I can trust them. There is not a churchwoman here but will stand her ground against these folks, for the honour of the Establishment.—What does Miss Keeldar say?”

“She asks what is it.”

“The Dissenting and Methodist schools, the Baptists, Independents, and Wesleyans, joined in unholy alliance, and turning purposely into this lane with the intention of obstructing our march and driving us back.”

“Bad manners!” said Shirley, “and I hate bad manners. Of course, they must have a lesson.”

“A lesson in politeness,” suggested Mr. Hall, who was ever for peace; “not an example of rudeness.”

Old Helstone moved on. Quickening his step, he marched some yards in advance of his company. He had nearly reached the other sable leaders, when he who appeared to act as the hostile commander-in-chief—a large, greasy man, with black hair combed flat on his forehead—called a halt. The procession paused. He drew forth a hymn book, gave out a verse, set a tune, and they all struck up the most dolorous of canticles.

Helstone signed to his bands. They clashed out with all the power of brass. He desired them to play “Rule, Britannia!” and ordered the children to join in vocally, which they did with enthusiastic spirit. The enemy was sung and stormed down, his psalm quelled. As far as noise went, he was conquered.

“Now, follow me!” exclaimed Helstone; “not at a run, but at a firm, smart pace. Be steady, every child and woman of you. Keep together. Hold on by each other’s skirts, if necessary.”

And he strode on with such a determined and deliberate gait, and was, besides, so well seconded by his scholars and teachers, who did exactly as he told them, neither running nor faltering, but marching with cool, solid impetus—the curates, too, being compelled to do the same, as they were between two fires, Helstone and Miss Keeldar, both of whom watched any deviation with lynx-eyed vigilance, and were ready, the one with his cane, the other with her parasol, to rebuke the slightest breach of orders, the least independent or irregular demonstration—that the body of Dissenters were first amazed, then alarmed, then borne down and pressed back, and at last forced to turn tail and leave the outlet from Royd Lane free. Boultby suffered in the onslaught, but Helstone and Malone, between them, held him up, and brought him through the business, whole in limb, though sorely tried in wind.

The fat Dissenter who had given out the hymn was left sitting in the ditch. He was a spirit merchant by trade, a leader of the Nonconformists, and, it was said, drank more water in that one afternoon than he had swallowed for a twelvemonth before.”

 

In the 1890s a man named W .W. Yates set about writing a biography of Patrick Brontë, during the course of which he interviewed many people who had known Patrick. One such person was a Mr Senior, now an old man but once a youngster in a Dewsbury Sunday School run by Reverend Brontë in the days before he married and had a family. It was Mr Senior who gave this account, one which was also corroborated by a James Newsome who had also been on the march:

Senior also gave more information on the bully, saying he was: “belonged to Gawthorpe, a hamlet in the township of Ossett, and was a notorious cockfighter and boxer, and much addicted to drinking. Some of the men he was with on the memorable day were persons of like character.”

Senior commented too on the character of Patrick Brontë: “He was resolute about being obeyed, but was very kind, and we always liked him.”

A simple but important tribute to Patrick Brontë from one who had known him, and the outpouring of affection in Haworth after his death showed the depth of gratitude the villagers, not always the easiest to please at that time, held for him. Without Patrick, without his support for his daughters’ learning, there would be no Brontë story as we know it today. I hope you can join me next week for another new Brontë blog post.

The Brontë story is like no other, where else would we find three creative geniuses in one sibling group? In other ways it is a story familiar to us all, a stage we all must tread with its entrances and exits. This last week we remembered the passing of the great Anne Brontë on 28th May 1849, but it also saw the anniversary of another person connected with Anne and with the wider Brontë story: Edmund Robinson.

Edmund Robinson was born in 1800 into a wealthy family of landowners in the York region, and he died on 26th May 1846. His life impacted not just on his family but on the Brontë family too, for it was he who employed both Anne and Branwell Brontë to work at his family home of Thorp Green Hall. It would change both lives forever, and Branwell especially would never be the same again.

Anne Brontë was initially employed by the Robinsons as governess in 1840 and she remained in the position, highly valued, for over five years. It was due in part to her excellent work that they decided to employ her brother when they needed a tutor for their son Edmund junior, and Branwell followed Anne to Thorp Green in 1843. The story is well known of how Branwell fell in love with the mistress of Thorp Green Hall Lydia, the wife of Edmund senior. It may be that they had an affair, certainly Branwell claimed that they did, and in 1845 he was dismissed in disgrace and soon entered upon a dangerous downhill spiral fuelled by drink and drugs.

That much is known, but what do we know of the man who ruled Thorp Green Hall, Edmund Robinson. The information we have is scant but fascinating, and we are left with more questions than answers. The Robinsons had a long connection with the area and had long been landowners and masters of Thorp Green Hall. His father, another Edmund Robinson, Esquire, had died in 1800 just weeks after his son’s birth, aged just 33.

Another family connection to our Edmund Robinson was Frederick John Robinson, later Viscount Goderich and the first Earl of Ripon. Robinson, by that time Goderich, served as Prime Minister from 1827 to 1828. It is said that when he offered up his resignation to King George IV, Goderich wept so much that the King offered him his own handkerchief.

We do not have any such records of Edmund Robinson weeping. He is said to have been a choleric man with a hot temper, one who enjoyed nothing as much as hunting in his own extensive grounds. It was a little surprising, therefore, when he took holy orders, became Reverend Robinson, and became vicar of his own church, Holy Trinity, at Little Ouseburn on his Thorp Green estate (that’s it at the top of this post, and below, photograph copyright of Mark Davis).

After becoming vicar Robinson showed no inclination at all to do the job. A succession of assistant curates carried out the week to week duties of the church and Reverend Robinson carried out no services at all, other than baptising his own family members. Or, should I say, almost none at all – for Robinson carried out one other baptism of a local girl. Why would he do this? Was she related to him, was she perhaps an illegitimate daughter of Reverend Robinson? We shall never know.

People with the status of Edmund Robinson were expected to marry well, and he did in 1824 when he married Lydia Gisborne. Her father Thomas was also a squire and clergyman, but he became a senior figure at Durham Cathedral and was one of the founders of Durham University alongside Archdeacon Charles Thorp, a cousin once removed of Edmund Robinson. There were tensions in the marriage, and Branwell wrote of how Robinson mistreated his wife Lydia.

Branwell Brontë hoped that the death of Reverend Edmund Robinson on this week in 1846 would allow him to marry the widow Lydia Robinson; he could not understand that class distinctions of the time made that impossible. In fact, Lydia married the Baronet Sir Edward Dolman Scott in November 1848, just three months after the death of his first wife. In the process Lydia Robinson elevated herself to become Lady Scott.

Many of the wonderful pictures in today’s blog were taken by the brilliant Brontë country photographer Mark Davis, and are being used with his permission. Mark is one of the co-authors, along with Steven Stanworth, of a forthcoming book about the Brontës in Thornton and beyond called Birthplace Of Dreams from Amberley Publishing. Mark and Steven were at the very heart of the campaign to save the Brontë birthplace in Thornton for the public, and it wouldn’t have succeeded without them. I’m very proud, therefore, to have written the foreword for the book – more news on that as the publication date draws near.

I hope the sun realises that we have now entered meteorological summer, and I hope that you can join me next week for another new Brontë blog post.

 

Today, the 28th of May, will forever be a mournful one for lovers of the Bronte family. It was on this day in 1849 that Anne Bronte took her last breath. Elder sister Charlotte Bronte and friend Ellen Nussey were by her side as she took her last breath, looking out of their window at Wood’s Lodgings and gazing at the infinite sweep of the horizon, mind on the infinite sweep of what was to come.

Anne Bronte died in a time of faith, she was not afraid to die, it was those left who would suffer. Little could Anne have guessed that 176 years later we would still be reading her books, still talking about her life. Her last moments were captured in print by Ellen Nussey, and a very beautiful and moving read it makes. I discuss it below in my latest House Of Bronte video:

We will all be thinking of Anne Bronte today, particularly at 2 pm, the moment which marked her passing from this world. Let us not dwell on the challenges she faced, however, but on the triumphs she achieved. Through her great novels she will live forever, so let’s raise a glass and say “Thank you Anne Bronte!” I hope you can join me next Sunday for another new Bronte blog post.

In last week’s Brontë blog post we took a first look at the Brussels the Brontë sisters, or at least Charlotte and Emily Brontë, knew, and how it looks now. Today, we will take a further look in our concluding walk in the Brontë footsteps through the Belgian capital.

As readers of this blog will know, or followers on Twitter, I was lucky enough to be invited to Brussels to give a talk to the Brussels Brontë Group. It was an honour and a pleasure to meet so many Brontë fans from across Europe and beyond, and my wife and I were lucky enough to stay on the Rue Royale just a stone’s throw from the old Brussels the Brontës came to know so well.

At the top of the Rue Royale is the royal palace, but before you get there you come to a beautiful area of greenery now known as Brussels Park. At the time Charlotte and Emily lived nearby it was the Royal Park, and it features in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette.

At one point Lucy Snowe is given a potion, a drug, by Madame Beck (modelled on Claire Heger) and in a drug fuelled insomnia Lucy sneaks by the guards and waks the park during the night hours:

“Quiet Rue Fossette! I find on this pavement that wanderer-wooing summer night of which I mused; I see its moon over me; I feel its dew in the air. But here I cannot stay; I am still too near old haunts: so close under the dungeon, I can hear the prisoners moan. This solemn peace is not what I seek, it is not what I can bear: to me the face of that sky bears the aspect of a world’s death. The park also will be calm—I know, a mortal serenity prevails everywhere—yet let me seek the park.

I took a route well known, and went up towards the palatial and royal Haute-Ville; thence the music I had heard certainly floated; it was hushed now, but it might re-waken. I went on: neither band nor bell music came to meet me; another sound replaced it, a sound like a strong tide, a great flow, deepening as I proceeded. Light broke, movement gathered, chimes pealed—to what was I coming? Entering on the level of a Grande Place, I found myself, with the suddenness of magic, plunged amidst a gay, living, joyous crowd.

Villette is one blaze, one broad illumination; the whole world seems abroad; moonlight and heaven are banished: the town, by her own flambeaux, beholds her own splendour—gay dresses, grand equipages, fine horses and gallant riders throng the bright streets. I see even scores of masks. It is a strange scene, stranger than dreams. But where is the park?—I ought to be near it. In the midst of this glare the park must be shadowy and calm—there, at least, are neither torches, lamps, nor crowd?

I was asking this question when an open carriage passed me filled with known faces. Through the deep throng it could pass but slowly; the spirited horses fretted in their curbed ardour. I saw the occupants of that carriage well: me they could not see, or, at least, not know, folded close in my large shawl, screened with my straw hat (in that motley crowd no dress was noticeably strange). I saw the Count de Bassompierre; I saw my godmother, handsomely apparelled, comely and cheerful; I saw, too, Paulina Mary, compassed with the triple halo of her beauty, her youth, and her happiness. In looking on her countenance of joy, and eyes of festal light, one scarce remembered to note the gala elegance of what she wore; I know only that the drapery floating about her was all white and light and bridal; seated opposite to her I saw Graham Bretton; it was in looking up at him her aspect had caught its lustre—the light repeated in her eyes beamed first out of his.

It gave me strange pleasure to follow these friends viewlessly, and I did follow them, as I thought, to the park. I watched them alight (carriages were inadmissible) amidst new and unanticipated splendours. Lo! the iron gateway, between the stone columns, was spanned by a flaming arch built of massed stars; and, following them cautiously beneath that arch, where were they, and where was I?

In a land of enchantment, a garden most gorgeous, a plain sprinkled with coloured meteors, a forest with sparks of purple and ruby and golden fire gemming the foliage; a region, not of trees and shadow, but of strangest architectural wealth—of altar and of temple, of pyramid, obelisk, and sphinx: incredible to say, the wonders and the symbols of Egypt teemed throughout the park of Villette.”

It hardly needs saying of course that the eponymous city of Villette is actually Brussels. One of the features of the park which also appears in the novel is the great bandstand where Charlotte would have seen concerts performed. A ‘kiosk’ as Lucy Snowe refers to it. That kiosk is still standing today, and concerts are still held there:

Walking down the Rue Royale away from the park and Palace you soon come to another grand building – and one that Charlotte Brontë came to know very well. Today it is the spectacular Cortinthia Grand Hotel Astoria Brussels, a five star hotel complete with top hat wearing concierge on the door. 

During 1842 and 1843, when Charlotte lived nearby at the Pensionnat Heger, it was the Hotel Cluysenaar and renting an apartment within it was Dr Thomas Weelwright. His five children attended the Pensionnat Heger and for a while lived there, alongside Charlotte and Emily, before later returning to live in their father’s opulent apartment. Foremost among these girls was Laetitia Wheelwright, who became a close Brussels friend and confidante of Charlotte Brontë.

The Hotel Cluysenaar inspired the Hotel Crecy in Villette, the location of the grand apartments owned by the Count De Bassompierre and his enigmatic daughter Paulina. Did Charlotte enjoy grand parties with the Wheelwrights just as Lucy attended grand parties with the Bassompierres? It seems likely.

Perhaps my favourite spot in Brussels was the Grand Place. Locals call it the most beautiful square in the world, and they may just be right. Surrounded by its incredible buildings is like stepping back in time, and it’s easy to imagine Charlotte Brontë looking in awe on these buildings she must have seen and known.

I recommend Brussels to all Brontë fans, there are still plenty of Brontë related sights left to see, although many, alas, have been lost to redevelopment of the city. I aim to expand upon my talk, “Doubt, Defiance and Devotion: Faith and the Brontës” and release it soon as an ebook, so keep your eyes on this site for more details of that. Once again thanks to all in the Brussels Brontë Group, and thanks to you, dear reader, for all your support and encouragement. I hope to see you next week for another new Brontë blog post, and of course please remember to raise a glass in memory of Anne Brontë on Wednesday, on the 176th anniversary of her passing.

As regular readers and subscribers to this blog will know, I was lucky enough to be in Brussels last week giving a talk to the very knowledgeable Brussels Brontë Group. It was great to talk to so many enthusiastic Brontë fans from Europe and beyond, and it was wonderful to be able to follow in the footsteps of Charlotte and Emily Brontë.

Emily Brontë was in Brussels in 1842 and Charlotte was there in 1842 and 1843. Much of Brussels has changed and expanded since those days but there are still tantalising glimpses of the cobbled streets and buildings that the Brontës would have known, many of which found their way into Charlotte’s novels The Professor and Villette. Today’s post is a picture heavy one as I reveal some of these places via pictures taken on my mobile phone’s camera.

I was lucky enough to stay on the Rue Royale, in the old town’s Royal quarter and just a short hop from the location of the building that brought Charlotte and Emily to Belgium: the Pensionnat Heger school.

The school stood at the foot of a series of steps guarded by a statue of General Belliard, a hero of the Belgian fight for independence just a few years before the Brontës arrived in the newly formed country of Belgium. Here is this statue today, and here are the Belliard steps the Brontë sisters would have walked down as they first made their way to the school.

Alas, the school itself and the street it stood on are no longer there, victims to the modernisation of Brussels, but this BNP Paribas building marks the spot where the Pensionnat Heger stood.

There are two plaques nearby bearing tribute to Charlotte and Emily Brontë, but they are not at eye level and are easily missed.

It is a short walk from here to the beautiful and imposing St. Gudula’s Cathedral. Charlotte Brontë was certainly no fan of Catholicism or its followers, a subject I touched on in my Brussels talk about the Brontës and their faith, and yet remarkably she went to confession at the cathedral and made Lucy Snowe do the same in Villette. On 1st September 1843 Charlotte wrote to Emily to tell her what had happened:

‘An odd whim came into my head. In a solitary part of the Cathedral six or seven people still remained kneeling by the confessionals. In two confessionals I saw a priest. I felt as if I did not care what I did, provided it was not absolutely wrong, and that it served to vary my life and yield a moment’s interest. I took a fancy to change myself into a Catholic and go and make a real confession to see what it was like. Knowing me as you do, you will think this odd, but when people are by themselves they have singular fancies… I actually did confess – a real confession… I think you had better not tell Papa of this. He will not understand that it was only a freak, and will perhaps think I am going to turn Catholic.’

I will return to the Rue Royale now, and a picture I took of it last Sunday shortly before heading to the Midi station for the Eurostar back to London. 

It was on this very street in November 1843 that Charlotte Brontë saw Queen Victoria, and we again turn to a letter that Charlotte wrote to her sister Emily Brontë:

“You ask about Queen Victoria’s visit to Brussels. I saw for her an instant flashing through the Rue Royale in a carriage and six, surrounded by soldiers. She was laughing and talking very gaily. She looked a little stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed, not much dignity or pretension about her. The Belgians liked her very much on the whole. They say she enlivened the sombre court of King Leopold, which is usually as gloomy as a conventicle.”

This is particularly relevant, as this week the roles were reversed: our present Queen made a visit to the birthplace of Charlotte Brontë. Camilla, the Queen Consort, was in Bradford as part of their UK City Of Culture celebrations, and it was wonderful to see that she paid a visit to the Brontë birthplace in Thornton:

By all accounts Her Majesty was both charming and charmed. I was charmed in a different way this week when I received in the post from Belgium a wonderful package from talented artist and calligrapher Marina Saegerman. Marina sent me a Brontë calendar and a collection of Brontë poems with accompanying artwork, all of which were breathtakingly beautiful! Thank you so much Marina, I know you are a keen reader of this blog and thank you too for your kind words about my talk in Brussels last week.

We will leave the Brontës in Brussels for now, but I will have more pictures and lots more about their time there in next week’s Brontë blog post – along with news of how you can gain access to the information contained in my lecture if you weren’t there (or even if you were). I hope you can join me here next week, until then ‘au revoir.’

Charlotte and Emily Brontë travelled to Brussels, Belgium in early 1842. It was a moment which shaped their lives to come, and which would change the course of literary history. I made my first visit to this fine city this week, and I’m travelling back to Yorkshire as I type this.

I was lucky enough to be invited to Brussels to present a talk to the Brussels Brontë Group headed by Helen MacEwan, who herself has written a fine biography of Winifred Gerin and a brilliant volume entitled The Brontës In Brussels amidst other work.

All in the group made me and my wife feel very welcome, so I never experienced the deep melancholy which frequently descended upon Charlotte Brontë in the city and which led to her novels The Professor and Villette. I gave a talk on Saturday morning, the subject of which was: “Doubt, Defiance and Devotion: Faith and the Brontës.” I’m pleased to say that the talk seemed to be well received, and there was an international audience of very  knowledgeable Brontë lovers, including people who had travelled from Ukraine and the United States.

Also giving a talk on the day was Dr. Charlotte Jones of Oxford University, and I have to say that I really enjoyed her presentation on “Some Untamed Ferocity: The Brontës Among The Moderns.” It was a fascinating look at how three 20th Century writers, Stella Gibbons, May Sinclair and Virginia Woolf wrote about the Brontë sisters and their works.

There will be much more on my talk in coming posts, and on the Brussels and Charlotte and Emily’s time there. I visited many sites associated with the Brontës, including the site of the Pensionnat Heger school, the park featured in Villette and the Catholic cathedral where both Charlotte Brontë and her fictional creation Lucy Snowe went to confession. Here’s a short video I made at the beautiful cathedral.

Here too is Lucy Snowe’s account of it:

‘One evening – and I was not delirious: I was in my sane mind, I got up – I dressed myself, weak and shaking. The solitude and the stillness of the long dormitory could not be borne any longer; the ghastly white beds were turning into spectres – the coronal of each became a death’s-head, huge and sun-bleached – dead dreams of an elder world and mightier race lay frozen in their wide gaping eyeholes. That evening more firmly than ever fastened into my soul the conviction that Fate was of stone, and Hope a false idol – blind, bloodless, and of granite core. I felt, too, that the trial God had appointed me was gaining its climax, and must now be turned by my own hands, hot, feeble, trembling as they were. It rained still, and blew; but with more clemency, I thought, than it had poured and raged all day. Twilight was falling, and I deemed its influence pitiful; from the lattice I saw coming night-clouds trailing low like banners drooping. It seemed to me that at this hour there was affection and sorrow in Heaven above for all pain suffered on earth beneath; the weight of my dreadful dream became alleviated – that insufferable thought of being no more loved – no more owned, half-yielded to hope of the contrary – I was sure this hope would shine clearer if I got out from under this house-roof, which was crushing as the slab of a tomb, and went outside the city to a certain quiet hill, a long way distant in the fields. Covered with a cloak (I could not be delirious, for I had sense and recollection to put on warm clothing), forth I set. The bells of a church arrested me in passing; they seemed to call me in to the salut, and I went in. Any solemn rite, any spectacle of sincere worship, any opening for appeal to God was as welcome to me then as bread to one in extremity of want. I knelt down with others on the stone pavement. It was an old solemn church, its pervading gloom not gilded but purpled by light shed through stained glass.

Few worshippers were assembled, and, the salut over, half of them departed. I discovered soon that those left remained to confess. I did not stir. Carefully every door of the church was shut; a holy quiet sank upon, and a solemn shade gathered about us. After a space, breathless and spent in prayer, a penitent approached the confessional. I watched. She whispered her avowal; her shrift was whispered back; she returned consoled. Another went, and another. A pale lady, kneeling near me, said in a low, kind voice: – “Go you now, I am not quite prepared.”

Mechanically obedient, I rose and went. I knew what I was about; my mind had run over the intent with lightning-speed. To take this step could not make me more wretched than I was; it might soothe me.

The priest within the confessional never turned his eyes to regard me; he only quietly inclined his ear to my lips. He might be a good man, but this duty had become to him a sort of form: he went through it with the phlegm of custom. I hesitated; of the formula of confession I was ignorant: instead of commencing, then, with the prelude usual, I said: – “Mon père, je suis Protestante.”

He directly turned. He was not a native priest: of that class, the cast of physiognomy is, almost invariably, grovelling: I saw by his profile and brow he was a Frenchman; though grey and advanced in years, he did not, I think, lack feeling or intelligence. He inquired, not unkindly, why, being a Protestant, I came to him?

I said I was perishing for a word of advice or an accent of comfort. I had been living for some weeks quite alone; I had been ill; I had a pressure of affliction on my mind of which it would hardly any longer endure the weight.

“Was it a sin, a crime?” he inquired, somewhat startled. I reassured him on this point, and, as well as I could, I showed him the mere outline of my experience.

He looked thoughtful, surprised, puzzled. “You take me unawares,” said he. “I have not had such a case as yours before: ordinarily we know our routine, and are prepared; but this makes a great break in the common course of confession. I am hardly furnished with counsel fitting the circumstances.”

Of course, I had not expected he would be; but the mere relief of communication in an ear which was human and sentient, yet consecrated – the mere pouring out of some portion of long accumulating, long pent-up pain into a vessel whence it could not be again diffused – had done me good. I was already solaced.

“Must I go, father?” I asked of him as he sat silent.

“My daughter,” he said kindly – and I am sure he was a kind man: he had a compassionate eye – “for the present you had better go: but I assure you your words have struck me. Confession, like other things, is apt to become formal and trivial with habit. You have come and poured your heart out; a thing seldom done. I would fain think your case over, and take it with me to my oratory. Were you of our faith I should know what to say – a mind so tossed can find repose but in the bosom of retreat, and the punctual practice of piety. The world, it is well known, has no satisfaction for that class of natures. Holy men have bidden penitents like you to hasten their path upward by penance, self-denial, and difficult good works. Tears are given them here for meat and drink – bread of affliction and waters of affliction – their recompence comes hereafter. It is my own conviction that these impressions under which you are smarting are messengers from God to bring you back to the true Church. You were made for our faith: depend upon it our faith alone could heal and help you – Protestantism is altogether too dry, cold, prosaic for you. The further I look into this matter, the more plainly I see it is entirely out of the common order of things. On no account would I lose sight of you. Go, my daughter, for the present; but return to me again.”

I certainly hope to return to Brussels again, it was warm and the reception my wife and I received was equally warm. Thank you to all who came to my talk, and I hope all of you can join me next week for another new Brontë blog post, which will have a lot more on Brussels.

In my talk in Brussels next Saturday, “Doubt, Defiance and Devotion – Faith And The Brontë Sisters’, I will be looking at the religious attitudes of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, and the impact that faith had on their work. There’s also another Brontë with an enigmatic attitude to faith to consider, however, so in today’s new Brontë blog post we will be looking at Branwell Brontë and religion.

Branwell Brontë, as you probably know, was the only male among the six Brontë siblings born to Patrick and Maria. As such it would have been expected that he would become a future breadwinner for the family, and able to support his sisters if they were unable to find work, or suitably wealthy husbands, themselves. It was a lot of pressure to be placed on the shoulders of such an emotionally volatile man, and I’m sure we all know the demons Branwell battled with in his adult life.

Branwell would also have been expected to take a leading role as the only son of the parish priest, and this would have involved more than simply sitting in the Brontë pews during the Sunday services. We know that Branwell, like his sisters, was a teacher at the Haworth Sunday school founded by Patrick Brontë, and reports from pupils at the school show that he was, at least initially, a keen and diligent teacher.

In September 1833, Patrick Brontë sent a letter to his parishioners with a bold plan to enliven the church he served at. The letter read:

“I have spoken to several people concerning the organ. All seem desirous of having one if the money can be procured. Miss Branwell says she will subscribe five pounds, and some others have promised to give liberally. Mr Sunderland, the Keighley organist, says he will give his services gratis on the day of the opening of the organ, and, in general, the real friends of the church are desirous of having one. A player can also be readily procured.”

The player could easily be procured by Patrick because he had his own son in mind, and Branwell became a regular organist at Haworth church services. It was at least partly to help Branwell with his organ playing that Patrick bought and installed a second hand piano in his parsonage, although it was Emily and Anne Brontë who enjoyed playing it the most.

We can guess that as Branwell’s life became more chaotic, and as he became more a slave to his drink and drug addictions, his attendance at church would have become less frequent before ceasing altogether. Days spent in bars were infinitely more preferable to him than days spent in the pews, but at the very end of his life he showed that his faith still burned somewhere within him.

Sunday 24th September 1848 saw Branwell Brontë confined to his bed in Haworth Parsonage. He had been there, growing frailer and frailer for many weeks, and on this day his great friend, and village sexton, John Brown was by his bed.

Brown was about to leave this gloomy chamber to ring the bells summoning people to church but Branwell called out suddenly, ‘John, I’m dying!’ Patrick, Emily, Anne and Charlotte were called to his room. Charlotte later recalled the scene. Patrick prayed fervently, and Branwell at last whispered a word that had not escaped his lips for a decade: ‘amen’.With a Herculean effort he rose from the bed, embraced his father, and died. Branwell Brontë’s faith had been tested sorely, but at the final moment it brought him strength and solace.

You can find more details on my talk at this link: https://www.thebrusselsBrontëgroup.org/events/ If you can’t make it to Brussels, you can join me here next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.

At church this morning, one week after Easter Sunday, the sermon recounted the well known tale of doubting Thomas. He believed because he had seen, but those of us today and in the past have not seen and yet still have to struggle with that religious hydra: belief and doubt. It was a doubt known to the Brontë siblings, as we can see from two poems in today’s new Brontë blog post.

Keen readers of this blog will have seen last week that I am shortly heading to Brussels to give a talk to the Brussels Brontë Group entitled: “Doubt, Defiance and Devotion: Faith and the Brontë Sisters.” In this talk I will argue that Charlotte was occasionally beset by doubt, Emily was defiant and Anne was devote, but of course my talk will show that the reality was far more nuanced. Anne too suffered religious doubts from time to time, although I’m not entirely sure I agree with Charlotte’s 1850 assertion that Anne Brontë: “was a very sincere and practical Christian, but the tinge of religious melancholy communicated a sad shade to her brief, blameless life.”

To find out my full views on this, and on more Brontë religious conundrums, head to Brussels on the 10th May or look out for a future blog post on this subject. Anne herself addressed the impact of religious doubt in her powerful poem ‘The Doubter’s Prayer’, which I reproduce below:

“Eternal power of earth and air,
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound.
If e’er thine ear in mercy bent
When wretched mortals cried to thee,
And if indeed thy Son was sent
To save lost sinners such as me.
Then hear me now, while kneeling here;
I lift to thee my heart and eye
And all my soul ascends in prayer;
O give me – give me Faith I cry.
Without some glimmering in my heart,
I could not raise this fervent prayer;
But O a stronger light impart,
And in thy mercy fix it there!
While Faith is with me I am blest;
It turns my darkest night to day;
But while I clasp it to my breast
I often feel it slide away.
Then cold and dark my spirit sinks,
To see my light of life depart,
And every fiend of Hell methinks
Enjoys the anguish of my heart.
What shall I do if all my love,
My hopes, my toil, are cast away,
And if there be no God above
To hear and bless me when I pray?
If this be vain delusion all,
If death be an eternal sleep,
And none can hear my secret call,
Or see the silent tears I weep.
O help me God! for thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve;
Forsake it not – it is thine own,
Though weak yet longing to believe.
O drive these cruel doubts away
And make me know that thou art God;
A Faith that shines by night and day
Will lighten every earthly load.
If I believe that Jesus died
And waking rose to reign above,
Then surely Sorrow, Sin and Pride
Must yield to peace and hope and love.
And all the blessed words he said
Will strength and holy joy impart,
A shield of safety o’er my head,
A spring of comfort in my heart.”

Anne wasn’t the only Brontë to write a poem about religious doubt, nor to include it in the poem’s title. Her brother Branwell Brontë was a complex man who battled many problems, and we can surely add religious doubts to the list of challenges he faced. In 1835 he wrote his poem “The Doubter’s Hymn”, although he attributed it to his Angrian hero Alexander Percy and gave it a composition date of 1813, four years prior to Branwell’s birth. Here is Branwell’s poem:

There is one thing you need not doubt: there will be a new Brontë blog post next Sunday, I can hope you can join me here for it.

It’s that day again when we look forward to new life, to warmer weather, to flowers blooming and sun shining. Easter Day is always special, and for the Brontës of Haworth it must have been especially so. Easter was celebrated then even more so than it is now, and throughout this post you’ll see examples of Victorian era Easter cards. As regular readers of my blog will know, Victorian cards could be a little strange – to say the least!

The Brontë siblings held an exalted position within their parish – as daughters of the priest Patrick Brontë they had their own pew at the front of the church where their father preached. In later years Branwell Brontë played the church organ, and the three writing Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, taught at the Church of England Sunday school founded by their father.

The girls were representatives of their father in a way, but all had different attitudes towards religion and faith which affected the way they lived and which would later reveal itself in their writing too. It is this fascinating subject which forms the heart of a talk I’ll be presenting to the Brussels Brontë Group on Saturday May 10th.

The talk is called “Doubt, Defiance and Devotion: Faith And The Brontë Sisters”, and I’m very excited to be addressing an international group of Brontë fans in the city where Charlotte and Emily Brontë attended the Pensionnat Heger school. I’ll be following the Brontë trail around the city too, so look out for a future post on that subject.

Today was a very special day in the Brontë story in 1820 for a non-Easter related reason; it was on this day exactly 205 years ago that Patrick Brontë, his wife Maria (whose birthday occurred on this week in 1783) and his young family moved from Thornton to his new parish of Haworth. No doubt Maria would have cradled little baby Anne Brontë, just three months old, throughout their journey across the moors.

You may have already seen the great news, but I’m delighted to share it again, that the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton is now ready to open to the public – you can make a booking for a guided tour via their website at https://Brontëbirthplace.com/guided-tours/

Let us now have an Easter extract from Anne Brontë’s brilliant debut novel Agnes Grey:

‘“Agnes, this sea air and change of scene do you no good, I think: I never saw you look so wretched. It must be that you sit too much, and allow the cares of the schoolroom to worry you. You must learn to take things easy, and to be more active and cheerful; you must take exercise whenever you can get it, and leave the most tiresome duties to me: they will only serve to exercise my patience, and, perhaps, try my temper a little.”

So said my mother, as we sat at work one morning during the Easter holidays. I assured her that my employments were not at all oppressive; that I was well; or, if there was anything amiss, it would be gone as soon as the trying months of spring were over: when summer came I should be as strong and hearty as she could wish to see me: but inwardly her observation startled me. I knew my strength was declining, my appetite had failed, and I was grown listless and desponding; – and if, indeed, he could never care for me, and I could never see him more – if I was forbidden to minister to his happiness – forbidden, for ever, to taste the joys of love, to bless, and to be blessed – then, life must be a burden, and if my heavenly Father would call me away, I should be glad to rest. But it would not do to die and leave my mother. Selfish, unworthy daughter, to forget her for a moment! Was not her happiness committed in a great measure to my charge? – and the welfare of our young pupils too? Should I shrink from the work that God had set before me, because it was not fitted to my taste? Did not He know best what I should do, and where I ought to labour? – and should I long to quit His service before I had finished my task, and expect to enter into His rest without having laboured to earn it? “No; by His help I will arise and address myself diligently to my appointed duty. If happiness in this world is not for me, I will endeavour to promote the welfare of those around me, and my reward shall be hereafter.” So said I in my heart; and from that hour I only permitted my thoughts to wander to Edward Weston – or at least to dwell upon him now and then -as a treat for rare occasions: and, whether it was really the approach of summer or the effect of these good resolutions, or the lapse of time, or all together, tranquillity of mind was soon restored; and bodily health and vigour began likewise, slowly, but surely, to return.’

Tomorrow is another day of celebration, not just because it’s a bank holiday but because it’s the 209th anniversary of the birth of Charlotte Brontë. Happy birthday Charlotte, and may I wish you all, whatever your faith, a very happy, loving and peaceful Easter. I hope to see you next week for another new Brontë blog post.