On 3 January 1912 Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall and Mabel Batten attended Reinhardt and Vollmöller’s pantomime spectacle The Miracle at Olympia, Kensington. The next day they presented themselves to a priest who had a reputation amongst upper class and, notably, queer converts (Father Sebastian Bowden, ¹Kathryn G. Lamontagne, “‘Our Three Selves:’ Radclyffe Hall and Mabel Batten’s Lived Catholicism,” Ecclesial Practices 9, no. 1 (4 July 2022): 71.). Within a month Hall had completed the first two Rites of Initiation and confirmed within less than a year ²Lamontagne (2022), p. 71.. Hall took Antonia, after Saint Anthony, patron saint of lost things ³Lamontagne (2022), p. 75..

Their religious life was a lived practice beyond Sunday obligations: Te Deum, Benediction, Vespers, Masses said for friends, devotional objects throughout both homes ⁴Lamontagne (2022), p. 73.. In 1913 Hall and Batten had an audience with Pope Pius X – Hall prostrating herself despite the advice of a cardinal ⁵Una Troubridge, The Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall (London: Hammond Hammond, 1961), 36.. Batten spoke fluent Italian with the Pope, Hall was tongue-tied – Batten received a photograph signed ‘Alla diletta figlia Veronica’ while Hall received only an unadorned signature with a date and the mention that it had been signed at a private audience ⁶Troubridge (1961), p. 36.. The episode is vividly recounted in Una Troubridge’s posthumous biography of Hall.

In Rome, they purchased triptychs, gilt angels, and an alabaster Madonna, in their home, Hall and Batten used a portable prie-dieu (kneeler) for private home devotions and even bought an altar shrine specifically for it. When Batten had her car accident, Hall built a Marian shrine at White Cottage to memorialise Batten’s survival ⁷Lamontagne (2022), p. 76; Diana Souhami, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall (London: Quercus, 2014), 61..

When Troubridge first met Hall in 1915 she found her bigoted and extreme in matters of faith, a fanatic. Troubridge suggested Halls devotion was of the kind that she would torture heretics – “bigoted in the extreme” ⁸Troubridge (1961), p. 48.. Hall surrounded herself with the aesthetic and material objects of her faith, which some argue gave her a solid sense of belonging and an “emotive outlet” for her identity.

Halls short story The Recording Angel features the angel weighing souls at the gates of paradise, administering justice, and teaching that “kindnesses are priceless jems in the site of God”. ‘The Woman in the Cape Bonnet (1915) directly wrestles with the twin notions of infidelity and betrayal. Blending her Catholic guilt with her spiritualist belief in the soul’s supremacy, Hall uses the narrative to suggest that “perhaps there is a faithfulness of the spirit even when the body has betrayed”.

Hall frequently used spiritualist concepts to find safety and permanence in her relationships, arguing that the spirit could survive the failings of the body. In her poem ‘Re-Incarnation’ she explicitly linked love to spiritual survival, writing of “Sympathies, that rose again / After death’s ennobling pain.”

Batten died in May 1916 following a stroke that came, according to legend, in the wake of a bitter argument over Hall’s affair with Troubridge ⁹Souhami (2014), p. 79; Lamontagne (2022), p. 81.. She never regained consciousness. Hall was left without the possibility of seeking absolution from the dying woman ¹⁰Souhami (2014), p. 80..

The deferred reunion Catholic eschatology provides did not meet Hall’s need for immediate contact and immediate forgiveness ¹¹Souhami (2014), p. 86; Richard Dellamora,
Radclyffe Hall: A Life in the Writing (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 12.. Given this, Hall sought the support of guides and mediums to contact Batten long before their celestial reunion. Working with medium Mrs Gladys Osborne Leonard, Troubridge and Hall ran twice-weekly sessions from August 1916 through August 1917 ¹²Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall and Una Troubridge, “On a Series of Sittings with Mrs Osborne Leonard,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 30 (1919): 342. via a control spirit Feda mediating communications attributed to Batten under the codename A.V.B. ¹³Radclyffe-Hall and Troubridge (1919), p. 340.. Hall and Troubridge would go on to publish a 215-page paper “On a Series of Sittings with Mrs Osborne Leonard” was read to the SPR in 1918 and published in Proceedings in December 1919 ¹⁴Radclyffe-Hall and Troubridge (1919), p. 339.. In the report, Hall emphasised the trauma caused by the crash to Batten, and by proxy, Hall and Batten’s ultimate blessing on the union between Troubridge and Hall ¹⁵Radclyffe-Hall and Troubridge (1919), pp. 365, 425; Lamontagne (2022), p. 83.. Hall’s moral mishandling of Batten’s trauma landed in forgiveness and a blessing.

From then on Hall and Troubridge undertook what Troubridge calls a form of war work, handling bereaved correspondents on Lodge’s behalf – vetting credentials, escorting them to sittings, taking notes for Lodge’s review ¹⁶Troubridge (1961), p. 59.. Hall was elected to the SPR Council. The friction with Catholic doctrine was real but, in Troubridge’s 1961 account, more institutionally negotiated than internal debate. Going forward the pair would find more difficulty in public Catholic contexts. They could not find confessors or priests that would attend them. The priest at the Malvern parish church refused their request for a memorial tablet to Batten ¹⁷Lamontagne (2022), pp. 79–80; Souhami (2014), p. 97.. Though a Jesuit priest with an open mind did attend to them, Hall eventually resigned from the SPR Council in 1924 ¹⁸Souhami (2014), pp. 119, 136..

In 1943 Troubridge asked Hall whether, if Hall were the survivor, she would seek mediumistic contact. Hall’s answer was emphatic: “No; never… The Communion of Saints would be enough for me” ¹⁹Troubridge (1961), p. 60.. After twenty-seven years of psychical research Hall declined mediumship for her own bereavement and returned to orthodox Catholic eschatology in private. On her death bed Troubridge reports that Hall emphasised it was not only Gods will that her cancer was consuming her but also that she offered her suffering to God ²⁰Troubridge (1961), pp. 186, 188, 190.. The rendering is, in part, shaped by her grief and need, giving Hall’s death the shape of Catholic martyrdom – the same shaping that earlier relocated the cause of Batten’s own death from the 1916 dinner-table quarrel to the 1914 motor accident ²¹Troubridge (1961); Una Vincenzo Troubridge, The Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall (London: Read Books Ltd, 2013), 43; cf. Sally Cline, Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John (London: John Murray, 1997); Souhami (2014), who recount the crash without drawing the causal chain..

Across the rest of her life, her spiritual orientations blended seamlessly between Catholic devotion and spiritualist conviction, an extension of Hall’s need for absolution and expiation ²²Dellamora (2011), p. 13; Michael Baker, Our Three Selves: The Life of Radclyffe Hall (William Morrow & Company, 1985), 6, 82.. Her writing and daily practice evidence a highly spiritual person, devoted to believing in something greater than herself she is obligated to honour. Whilst entirely conventional – something deeply intertwined with the history of England itself – when contextualised in her same-sex, non-monogamous, and gender non-conforming relationships, this devotion is something other than simple obedience. Her, their devotion, was part of an eco-system that sustained the parts of their life that otherwise were contested, rejected, and isolating.