Only one convent remains abroad to this day. The Bruges Augustinians fled to Suffolk in 1794 but voted to return to Bruges in 1803. The convent remains in the historic Belgian city and its chapel bears witness to the artistic and architectural patronage of the English nuns in exile.

They are examples of that much-trumpeted phenomenon: living history. When visiting the Carmelite convent in Darlington, founded in Lierre in 1648, I was shown the profession book by one of the sisters. In this book was the religious vow of every woman who had entered the convent since its foundation and my guide pointed to her own testament in its latter pages. That the order was still using the same profession book reveals something of the historical identity of these establishments.

Yet, last year, that convent also closed, partly due to excessive running costs and a community growing in age rather than members. With the curtain coming down on the Bridgettines, who even sat out the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, a chapter of English history is ending. With the closure of these communities of English women religious, it appears that where persecution, exile, civil war and violent revolution failed, aggressive secularism and religious indifference is now succeeding.