| Clutching My Pearls is about Jane Austen and the times she lived in. Those who think we should speak of the past only to condemn it, but still want to rescue Jane Austen from the dustbin of history, have a bit of a dilemma on their hands. She wasn't a radical. Click here for the introduction to this blog. |
CMP#139: Frances Trollope's The Vicar of Wrexhill (1837)
Frances Trollope (1779-1863) After wrapping up my blog series about unflattering portraits of Methodist ministers in 18th century novels, I came across The Vicar of Wrexhill by Frances Trollope. This 1832 novel is a bit outside the date range of novels I study, and the titular vicar is not a Methodist, but an evangelical in the Church of England. However, like the ministers in 18th-century novels, the evangelicals in this story are ranting fanatics or hypocrites and their followers are deluded fools.
Many people might pass over The Vicar of Wrexhill because its once-controversial subject matter--"High church" Anglicanism versus evangelism--would be of little interest in a post-Christian age. However, the story still offers snarky humour, heroines in peril, a cantankerous old married couple, and romance. The dialogue is sometimes stilted--it's hard to believe that 17-year-old girls actually speak with such complex sentences, but then I feel that way about Marianne Dashwood as well.
I liked the way Mrs. Trollope--like Jane Austen in Mansfield Park--designed her characters to come into conflict because of their differing personalities and world views. But for me, the biggest payoff was realizing I was reading about a 19th century moral panic, with so many parallels to the debates preoccupying society in our own times, specifically in the way people behaved--intimidating one another, condemning one another, freezing people out. Buckle up for a slow-motion train wreck in which you're not sure whether the characters are heading for ultimate tragedy or a happy ending...
Many people might pass over The Vicar of Wrexhill because its once-controversial subject matter--"High church" Anglicanism versus evangelism--would be of little interest in a post-Christian age. However, the story still offers snarky humour, heroines in peril, a cantankerous old married couple, and romance. The dialogue is sometimes stilted--it's hard to believe that 17-year-old girls actually speak with such complex sentences, but then I feel that way about Marianne Dashwood as well.
I liked the way Mrs. Trollope--like Jane Austen in Mansfield Park--designed her characters to come into conflict because of their differing personalities and world views. But for me, the biggest payoff was realizing I was reading about a 19th century moral panic, with so many parallels to the debates preoccupying society in our own times, specifically in the way people behaved--intimidating one another, condemning one another, freezing people out. Buckle up for a slow-motion train wreck in which you're not sure whether the characters are heading for ultimate tragedy or a happy ending...
| The Premise Mr. Cartwright, the newly-appointed vicar for the lovely little parish of Wrexhill, is a handsome widower with two adult children. He devotes much of his time to making pastoral calls at the homes of attractive widows and praying with them in his flamboyant, emotional, style. He quickly fastens on the newly-bereaved Clara Mowbray, who has full command of her husband’s considerable fortune. (No doubt Mr. Mowbray was planning to revise his will once his son Charles came of age but dad drops dead the night after Charles’s 21st birthday.) Charles has two sisters, the angelic Helen and the poetry-loving Fanny. As well, the Mowbrays are guardians to Rosalind Torrington, a high-spirited Irish heiress who serves the role of saucy sidekick. She's the most engaging character in this novel. Into this grieving family comes Rev. Cartwright, oozing sincerity and piety. Long before the terms were invented, Mrs. Trollope created a portrait of a narcissistic sociopath. The vicar flatters and fawns on 15-year-old Fanny, and she falls completely under his spell. Rosalind and Helen, on the other hand, are immediately repulsed by his manipulative tactics. The first volume slowly and deliberately sets out the confluence of circumstances which puts the vicar in control of the Mowbray family. |  The creepy vicar gets 15-year-old Fanny alone: Mrs. Mowbray's neighbor, the baronet, opines: “Of every family into which this insidious and most anti-christian schism has crept... in nine instances out of ten, it has been the young girls who have been selected as the first objects of conversion, and then made the active means of spreading it afterwards.” |
The Widow Mowbray is weak and susceptible. The crusty old baronet-next-door refuses to help her negotiate her financial affairs, leaving the field clear for the vicar. Helen, as a "picture of perfection" heroine, can do little else but weep. Helen can’t bring herself to say she hates the vicar, but Rosalind certainly can and she engages in some spirited verbal duels with him. At the end of one quarrel, the minister asks to shake her hand. She declines: "But you must excuse my not accepting your proffered hand. It is but an idle and unmeaning ceremony perhaps, as things go; but the manner in which you now stretch forth your hand gives a sort of importance to it which would make it a species of falsehood in me to accept it. When it means any thing, it means cordial liking; and this, sir, I do not feel for you."
Rosalind tries to warn Charles Mowbray, the son, but he is an optimist, rather like Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park. He doesn’t see the danger until it is too late. And anyway, filial duty prevents both Charles and Helen from overruling their mother's bad decisions. One contemporary reviewer complained that another character, the vicar’s daughter Henrietta, could have spoken up and exposed her father as a fraud and a hypocrite, but instead she just drops gloomy hints: “[K]eep Mr. Cartwright as far distant from all you love as you can. Mistrust him yourself, and teach all others to mistrust him.—And now, never attempt to renew this conversation.”
Rosalind tries to warn Charles Mowbray, the son, but he is an optimist, rather like Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park. He doesn’t see the danger until it is too late. And anyway, filial duty prevents both Charles and Helen from overruling their mother's bad decisions. One contemporary reviewer complained that another character, the vicar’s daughter Henrietta, could have spoken up and exposed her father as a fraud and a hypocrite, but instead she just drops gloomy hints: “[K]eep Mr. Cartwright as far distant from all you love as you can. Mistrust him yourself, and teach all others to mistrust him.—And now, never attempt to renew this conversation.”
Awakening his flock
Mr. Cartwright claims to be one of the “elect,” guaranteed a place in heaven. "Every object, animate or inanimate, furnished him a theme; and let him begin from what point he would, (unless in the presence of noble or influential personages to whom he believed it would be distasteful,) he never failed to bring the conversation round to the subject of regeneration and grace, the blessed hopes of himself and his sect, and the assured damnation of all the rest of the world." His words fall on willing ears; one female acolyte declares: "'My life has been passed in a manner so widely different from what I am sure it will be in future, that I feel as if I were awakened to a new existence!"
The vicar replies, "'The great object of my hopes is, and will ever be, to lead my beloved flock to sweet and safe pastures.—And for you,' he added, in a voice so low, that she rather felt than heard his words, 'what is there I would not do?'"
When anyone challenges him, he plays the damnation card on them: "May your unthinking youth, my dear young lady," [he says to Rosalind], "plead before the God of mercy in mitigation of the wrath which such sentiments are calculated to draw down!" Pretty soon, the entire village is divided between those who are "regenerated," (ie "born again") and those who are not. The vicar rewards his followers and punishes the holdouts. The schoolmaster of Wrexhill is “cancelled,” you might say, because he refuses to bring his pupils to Mr. Cartwright’s evening prayer meetings. His objection is not so much doctrinal but that young people and servants can't be entrusted to attend ecstatic evening gatherings which can lead to unbridled passion and rumpty-tumpty in the bushes. {This puts me in mind of what my mother recalls about travelling gospel tent shows in Southern Illinois in her girlhood]. Anyway, the schoolmaster is ruined and ends up in debtor’s prison.
Sweet-tempered Mrs. Richards is condemned and lectured by her daughters: “She is breaking her heart because... her daughters have thought proper to... tell her very coolly, upon all occasions, that she is doomed to everlasting perdition, and that their only chance of escape is never more to give obedience or even attention to any word she can utter."
No-one seems to notice that the vicar has failed to convert his own children. His sarcastic son James escapes to become an actor, while Henrietta, repulsed by his version of Christianity, becomes an atheist--a revelation intended to shock the reader.
There are some dryly comic passages, as when the ladies organize a fund-raising fair for a mission to Africa. One contemporary reviewer compared Mrs. Trollope to Austen in her “slyness and discrimination” in portraying human foibles.
Mr. Cartwright claims to be one of the “elect,” guaranteed a place in heaven. "Every object, animate or inanimate, furnished him a theme; and let him begin from what point he would, (unless in the presence of noble or influential personages to whom he believed it would be distasteful,) he never failed to bring the conversation round to the subject of regeneration and grace, the blessed hopes of himself and his sect, and the assured damnation of all the rest of the world." His words fall on willing ears; one female acolyte declares: "'My life has been passed in a manner so widely different from what I am sure it will be in future, that I feel as if I were awakened to a new existence!"
The vicar replies, "'The great object of my hopes is, and will ever be, to lead my beloved flock to sweet and safe pastures.—And for you,' he added, in a voice so low, that she rather felt than heard his words, 'what is there I would not do?'"
When anyone challenges him, he plays the damnation card on them: "May your unthinking youth, my dear young lady," [he says to Rosalind], "plead before the God of mercy in mitigation of the wrath which such sentiments are calculated to draw down!" Pretty soon, the entire village is divided between those who are "regenerated," (ie "born again") and those who are not. The vicar rewards his followers and punishes the holdouts. The schoolmaster of Wrexhill is “cancelled,” you might say, because he refuses to bring his pupils to Mr. Cartwright’s evening prayer meetings. His objection is not so much doctrinal but that young people and servants can't be entrusted to attend ecstatic evening gatherings which can lead to unbridled passion and rumpty-tumpty in the bushes. {This puts me in mind of what my mother recalls about travelling gospel tent shows in Southern Illinois in her girlhood]. Anyway, the schoolmaster is ruined and ends up in debtor’s prison.
Sweet-tempered Mrs. Richards is condemned and lectured by her daughters: “She is breaking her heart because... her daughters have thought proper to... tell her very coolly, upon all occasions, that she is doomed to everlasting perdition, and that their only chance of escape is never more to give obedience or even attention to any word she can utter."
No-one seems to notice that the vicar has failed to convert his own children. His sarcastic son James escapes to become an actor, while Henrietta, repulsed by his version of Christianity, becomes an atheist--a revelation intended to shock the reader.
There are some dryly comic passages, as when the ladies organize a fund-raising fair for a mission to Africa. One contemporary reviewer compared Mrs. Trollope to Austen in her “slyness and discrimination” in portraying human foibles.
The Vicar triumphantly changes the name of the estate from "Mowbray Hall to "Cartwright Hall" and receives visitors Spoiler time
Things go from bad to worse for the siblings Charles, Helen and Fanny when Mrs. Mowbray marries the vicar. She tells her family and her servants: “his commands must on all occasions supersede those of every other person. I trust you will all show yourselves sensible of the inestimable blessing I have bestowed upon you in thus giving you a master who can lead you unto everlasting life.” A horrified Fanny realizes that the man she idolized was using her, but she's still terrified of spending eternity in a lake of fire. She sinks into near-madness.
Mrs. Mowbray, now Mrs. Cartwright, is soon pregnant with Rev. Cartwright's child, so the prospects for the Mowbray siblings ever seeing a penny of their inheritance are looking slim. The minister clamps down on his control of the entire household. Colonel Harrington, the son of the crusty old baronet-next-door, sends a marriage proposal to Helen by mail, but Mr. Cartwright burns the letter before she sees it. He intends to force Helen to marry his repulsive cousin Stephen Corbold. The dramatic high point of the novel comes when the two men connive to get Helen alone with Mr. Corbold. The implication is that he will compromise her by sexually assaulting her, and then she will have to marry him. I will say that Helen, the insipid heroine, really redeems herself in this scene. I thought Mrs. Trollope would bring her sweetheart to her rescue in the nick of time, but Helen rescues herself. Instead of fainting, she throws a bottle of “spirits of hartshorn” (aka ammonia) into the creep’s face and makes her escape.
Meanwhile, Rosalind devotes herself to reclaiming Henrietta from atheism as she sinks into the grave. The whole story appears to be heading toward complete tragedy but thanks to some dying revelations from Henrietta, her dad is exposed as a philanderer. It seems one of his parishioners left town to go visit her aunt (as folks used to say), because her religious raptures with the vicar led to something more physical. When Mrs. Cartwright learns about her husband’s love child, the spell he held over her is broken. But, by the logic of the 19th century novel, this doesn’t mean that the vicar must die, it means Mrs. Cartwright and her innocent infant child must die, and they do. At the reading of the will, we learn that although Mrs. Cartwright was virtually kept a prisoner by the vicar, she managed to secretly change her will to reinstate her three children.
Things go from bad to worse for the siblings Charles, Helen and Fanny when Mrs. Mowbray marries the vicar. She tells her family and her servants: “his commands must on all occasions supersede those of every other person. I trust you will all show yourselves sensible of the inestimable blessing I have bestowed upon you in thus giving you a master who can lead you unto everlasting life.” A horrified Fanny realizes that the man she idolized was using her, but she's still terrified of spending eternity in a lake of fire. She sinks into near-madness.
Mrs. Mowbray, now Mrs. Cartwright, is soon pregnant with Rev. Cartwright's child, so the prospects for the Mowbray siblings ever seeing a penny of their inheritance are looking slim. The minister clamps down on his control of the entire household. Colonel Harrington, the son of the crusty old baronet-next-door, sends a marriage proposal to Helen by mail, but Mr. Cartwright burns the letter before she sees it. He intends to force Helen to marry his repulsive cousin Stephen Corbold. The dramatic high point of the novel comes when the two men connive to get Helen alone with Mr. Corbold. The implication is that he will compromise her by sexually assaulting her, and then she will have to marry him. I will say that Helen, the insipid heroine, really redeems herself in this scene. I thought Mrs. Trollope would bring her sweetheart to her rescue in the nick of time, but Helen rescues herself. Instead of fainting, she throws a bottle of “spirits of hartshorn” (aka ammonia) into the creep’s face and makes her escape.
Meanwhile, Rosalind devotes herself to reclaiming Henrietta from atheism as she sinks into the grave. The whole story appears to be heading toward complete tragedy but thanks to some dying revelations from Henrietta, her dad is exposed as a philanderer. It seems one of his parishioners left town to go visit her aunt (as folks used to say), because her religious raptures with the vicar led to something more physical. When Mrs. Cartwright learns about her husband’s love child, the spell he held over her is broken. But, by the logic of the 19th century novel, this doesn’t mean that the vicar must die, it means Mrs. Cartwright and her innocent infant child must die, and they do. At the reading of the will, we learn that although Mrs. Cartwright was virtually kept a prisoner by the vicar, she managed to secretly change her will to reinstate her three children.
Happy Ending
Fanny recovers from her obsession with death and salvation and regains her mental equilibrium, Charles, no longer penniless, is free to propose to Rosalind, while Helen marries Colonel Harrington. The vicar leaves town with his still-loyal followers and the remaining villagers resume their old lives. "[T]he pretty village of Wrexhill once more became happy and gay, and the memory of their serious epidemic rendered its inhabitants the most orderly, peaceable, and orthodox population in the whole country.”
Even if you are not conversant with, or could care less about, the battling doctrines of "faith" versus "works" in The Vicar of Wrexhill, you might be interested in Mrs. Trollope's portrayal of a power-hungry person who exploits an uncompromising dogma which splits families and friends apart. This phenomenon, I do believe, is entirely relatable to modern times.
Fanny recovers from her obsession with death and salvation and regains her mental equilibrium, Charles, no longer penniless, is free to propose to Rosalind, while Helen marries Colonel Harrington. The vicar leaves town with his still-loyal followers and the remaining villagers resume their old lives. "[T]he pretty village of Wrexhill once more became happy and gay, and the memory of their serious epidemic rendered its inhabitants the most orderly, peaceable, and orthodox population in the whole country.”
Even if you are not conversant with, or could care less about, the battling doctrines of "faith" versus "works" in The Vicar of Wrexhill, you might be interested in Mrs. Trollope's portrayal of a power-hungry person who exploits an uncompromising dogma which splits families and friends apart. This phenomenon, I do believe, is entirely relatable to modern times.
 Satiric 1832 American cartoon of Frances Trollope with her family in Cincinnati (detail) About the Authoress Frances Trollope (1779-1863) is the mother of the better-known novelist Anthony Trollope. Space prevents me from recapping her full biography in this post, but she had an interesting and difficult life and published 40 books in her twenty-year career. As the Victorian Web explains: "Although born in 1779, just four years after Jane Austen, she started writing long after Austen's death, when she was over fifty. Published during the Victorian era, her novels mix an eighteenth century sensibility with a reforming zeal common to the nineteenth century. Her work varies greatly in subject matter, genre, and merit; she quickly published novels that could have benefited from extensive editing." Frances Trollope's first book was a caustic commentary on America which sold well but of course angered Americans. When she turned her scrutiny to the evangelical movement in England she roused considerable ire at home. An anonymous reviewer for Fraser’s magazine said Mrs. Trollope: “had much better have remained home, pudding-making or stocking-mending, than have meddled with matters which she understands so ill.” (Fuller quote below) When The Vicar of Wrexhill was published, it was thought that the character of the vicar was based on a real evangelical minister, John William Cunningham, whom Frances Trollope knew and disliked. I think she is not lampooning one man but an entire religious movement. But ewwww, just suppose Rev. Cunningham really spoke to the teenage girls in his parish the way that Rev. Cartwright speaks to Fanny in the novel!
One of Mrs. Trollope's friends, Henrietta Skerrett, had a miserable experience with evangelism, though I don't know the details. But surely this is why the vicar's daughter in the book was named Henrietta. Mrs. Trollope also wrote a pro-abolition novel and a novel exposing the harsh life of children who worked in factories. In other words she was much more outspoken than Jane Austen. Fraser's Magazine, January 1838 "With a keen eye, a very sharp tongue, a firm belief, doubtless, in the high church doctrines, and a decent reputation from the authorship of half-a-dozen novels, or other light works, Mrs. Trollope determined on no less an undertaking than to be the champion of oppressed Orthodoxy. These are feeble arms for one who would engage in such a contest, but our fair Mrs. Trollope trusted entirely in her own skill, and the weapon with which she proposed to combat a strong party is no more nor less than this novel of The Vicar of Wrexhill. It is a great pity that the heroine ever set forth on such a foolish errand; she has only harmed herself and her cause (as a bad advocate always will), and had much better have remained home, pudding-making or stocking-mending, than have meddled with matters which she understands so ill. "There can be little doubt as to the cleverness of this novel, but, coming from a women's pen, it is most odiously and disgustingly indecent. As a party attack [on the Whigs], it is an entire failure; and as a representation of a very large portion of English Christians, a shameful and wicked slander." Previous post: Guest post: Jane Austen, anti-capitalist Next post: A Spinster's Tale (book review) |
 In the second novel of my Mansfield Trilogy, an unctuous clergyman, the Reverend Edifice, becomes interested in Fanny Price, especially because he thinks she will receive a handsome bequest when her friend Mrs. Butters dies. My story also features Lord and Lady Delingpole, an older couple who quarrel a lot but ultimately feel a lot of respect for each other, rather like the baronet and his wife in Trollope's story. For more about my books, click here. |
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