Among the items now in the possession of the Margaret Rope Archive are some boxes and an old suitcase, all left after Marga’s death, which contain around five hundred random bits of paper: newspaper clippings, early discarded drawings, doodlings (see pic below) – though little that is precisely personal. Some of the oldest scraps even go back to her student days. (Why Marga would have kept this collection her whole life is hard to say).

However, among the apparent jumble are five pen-and-ink sketches that are indeed personal, and provide a real insight into her feelings about life in the convent. (She was a nun in an ‘enclosed’ order of Carmelites from 1923 to her death in 1953).
Two of the sketches indicate a waspish, even rebellious spirit, while the other three indicate what a sense of fun and humour she had. One wishes more of them still existed…!

In this post, we are looking at the two ‘rebellious’ sketches; and will look at the ‘fun’ ones in our next post.

Political cartoons

The first two sketches can be likened to the analogical political cartoons so popular in topical journals of the time such as Punch. Basically, they are satire…

The first concerns Leo of Northampton, the bishop local to the convent (whose name in Latin means lion). It seems Marga was not impressed by this bishop – in fact, one of her few surviving letters is from her to him, in which she is discernibly sarcastic about the bishop’s attempts to get her to make a window cheaply for him.

The cartoon itself seems to refer to an ecclesiastical argument over who controlled the line of authority over Woodbridge Carmelite Convent, the one Marga lived in. (Nuns are in a unique position in the Catholic Church, as they are semi-independent; and the power of a local bishop over them is often only a grant by the Pope).

In this cartoon (photo above), Bishop Leo, symbolised by a lion, is slinking off, presumably defeated by a Papal representative in the dispute. It’s quite clear that Sister Margaret is very happy at this result!

What exactly the point of doing this sketch was though is hard to say. Obedience, for Carmelite nuns, is incredibly important, and this show of rebelliousness would surely not have been approved of.
Was Marga just letting off steam privately? Or was it just dashed off for secret amusement with a few close friends in the convent?

Black sheep

The second cartoon features Marga herself. It is also not as innocent as it looks.

It appears to show the convent abbess, in the role of Good Shepherd, ministering to her adoring sheep, in whose faces can be identified some of the actual nuns of the convent – but one needs to look twice at this scene.

Proverbially, sheep are blind, unquestioning followers. And, looking at the sketch carefully, this aspect of sheep comes out. The caption even reads “Baa baa”…!
In other words, this is satire.

The point is doubly made by the depiction of Margaret herself (see detail, right). Bang in the middle of the flock is a self-portrait. (As usual, she has been less than kind to herself, depicting herself ugly, with heavy jowls and a prominent nose – which was the custom with her). And, interestingly, the dark shading on her back and legs, hidden though it is, suggests she sees herself as the ‘black sheep’ of the flock – the rebel.
Again, (surely?) this little sketch must have been kept private.

It’s interesting to think of Marga as the rebel in the convent, though not surprising. After a dozen years working in London as a sole businesswoman, in a milieu of strong & radical women, to then move into a convent, where a culture of obedience and humility reigned, must have been quite a change and quite a shock, no matter how prepared she thought she was.

Secondly, on joining the convent she was persuaded to continue her stained-glass work, because it brought income to the hard-pressed community. We don’t know exactly how she reacted to this, but there might even have been some resentment.

Of course, she wasn’t the only independent-minded Carmelite nun of the time to find that living in such an enclosed environment could be spirit-crushing at times – Therese Of Lisieux had written frankly about how she dealt with the issue in her memoirs (see Bruce Stewart’s biography of Therese). From 1900, Therese’s writings had begun to be published widely; it would be intriguing to know if Marga ever came across them.

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