[2] On 14 September 1580 Berkeley received the Benedictine habit at the French monastery of Saint-Pierre-les-Dames, Reims, in a clothing ceremony that was recorded in some detail.
[2] On 14 November 1599 Mathias Hovius, the third Archbishop of Mechelen, installed Berkeley as the first abbess of the English Benedictine monastery in Brussels.
The new convent had been approved by the pope and the local authorities and it was funded by novice nuns, Mary Percy,[2] Dorothy and Gertrude Arundell.
[2] In 1608 Mary Lovel entered the English Benedictine convent in Brussels, attracting criticism for giving her two children into the care of others in order to do so.
The abbess first sought to establish a separate house for those nuns who insisted on having Jesuit confessors, but was unable to get the necessary permission.