“Between 1600 and 1700, 153 nuns born and raised in East Anglia and mainly from gentry families were to be found in 23 ‘English’ convents on continental Europe: 96 of the nuns were from Suffolk; 40 from Norfolk; and 7 from Cambridgeshire. The Bedingfeld family of Oxburgh Hall provided the largest number of these nuns; totalling more than 30, if mothers as well as fathers who were part of the extended family are included. Sir Richard Bedingfeld (1726-95) was the head of the family at the time of the French Revolution, and, like his father, he was educated in France, at the Jesuit College in St. Omar. His son, the 2nd Baronet (1767-1829), had to end his French education and return to England to escape the French Revolution. “
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