SION 
were sixty Sisters, and twenty-five professed Brothers; thirteen 
of whom were priests. 
The monks and nuns lived entirely apart, but the chapels were 
under one roof, with twin choirs, and were connected by a grille 
in which was a gate allowing of the entrance and departure of the 
priests who said Mass in the chapel of the Sisters, and who carried 
on the order of divine service almost unceasingly, so that the 
sound of prayer and praise arising from the choirs, was rarely, if 
ever, silent. 
Henry V. presented to the Community the whole of his manor 
of Isleworth, and Henry VI. still further enriched it by valuable 
gifts of lands lying in many English counties. Its members, 
finding themselves cramped for room in the original buildings at 
Twickenham, soon after obtained leave of the King to remove. 
They chose a beautiful situation on the Middlesex bank of the 
river on the exact site of the present Sion House. 
For a century and a quarter the monastery prospered exceed- 
ingly ; and we are told that the nunnery “ abode at the head of 
all the Convents for women in England, in learning, riches and 
piety.” It had been by the advice of Chicherley, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, builder of the so-called ‘‘ Lollard Tower ’’ at Lambeth, 
that the Victor of Agincourt founded it; and it seems always to 
have had some connection with All Souls College, Oxford, of 
which Chicherley himself was founder, and which he had dedicated 
to the memory of the Lancastrian Princes who had fallen in the 
war with France. 
In 1539, under Henry VIII., the “Daughters of Sion,” as they 
were called, were turned out of their peaceful river-side home, 
and cast adrift on the world. The convent and estates reverted 
to the King, and the nuns then began a weary quest for another 
home in foreign lands. 
The story of the wanderings of these unfortunate ladies, all, 
it would appear, of gentle birth, is touching. Like the dove of 
the ark they could find no rest for the soles of their feet either in 
the Low Countries, or in France, and they finally settled at Lisbon, 
where, in the seventeenth century, their nunnery was destroyed 
by fire. By the aid of the charitable, however, they ultimately 
rebuilt it, but the new building was again destroyed in 1755, this 
time by the great earthquake of Lisbon. Once more it was rebuilt ; 
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