text:  In 1403 her father died leaving her the sole possessor of his wealth and rumour immediately disposed of her hand to all the young gallants of the quarter; but whether it was that grief for the loss of her parent had turned her head or that the gloomy fanaticism of that time had worked with too fatal effect on her pure and inexperienced imagination she took not only marriage and the male sex into utter abomination but resolved to quit the world for ever and to make herself a perpetual prisoner for religion's sake