Jane Barker - Faith and Exile

Faith and Exile

Barker was baptized on May 17, 1652 according to the rites of the Church of England; however, she converted to Catholicism under the Catholizing reign of James II (of England), between 1685 and 1688. After James’ defeat by the Prince of Orange (William III) in the Glorious Revolution, London became a dangerous place for Catholics. This prompted Barker, along with 40,000 other people, to seek refuge in France. Once there, she took lodging at St-Germain-en-Laye, where James II established a court-in-exile in an old royal palace borrowed from Louis XIV, from 1689 to 1704.

Barker’s Jacobite involvement is further proven in her letter to James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, who had been organizing a Jacobite invasion from France. Dated March 19, 1718, the letter implicitly informs Ormonde that his supporters in England await his invasion. However, the letter was intercepted in that same year by the British Secrete Office, the anti-Jacobite intelligence organization. Since Barker’s name and handwriting were unknown to the government authorities, it is suspected that she was used as a ghost-writer for the letter—a technique used to protect plotters whose identities and handwriting are already well-known by authorities.

Also linking Barker to the Jacobites is a letter addressed to an unidentified person in 1730. This letter further underscores Barker’s firm belief that James II—not William III or his wife Mary II—was the legitimate ruler of England. Enclosed in the letter was a rather odd present: a tumour expelled from her breast years before she wrote the letter.

While she apologized to the receiver for sending such a seemingly inappropriate present, she announced her intention to use the breast tumour as evidence of the intercession of the "holy king" (James II). As she describes in the letter, James’ blood, soaked in a rag, had been applied to her breast to cause the expulsion of the tumour cells. Barker, along with her contemporaries, believed the miraculous bodily event to be a signifier of the divine will and message conveyed through the human flesh, confirming James II as the legitimate ruler.