The Agapemonites: Victorian Britain’s premiere sex cult
Boasting red velvet sofas and wide hearths, there were definitely worse places to await the end of days than the central chapel of The Agapemonites’ very own “Abode of Love“. In the evenings, light from the setting sun would peel through its stained glass windows, casting pools of ruby light on soft cushions, billiard tables and old furnishings of oak and brass – all set below the sacred symbol of the Lamb and Dove, itself supported by a rack of billiard cues. It was in the adjoining mansion where Reverend Henry Prince, the Holy Ghost himself, resided. Surrounded by his harem of “soul brides”, he was the charismatic leader of the Victorian era’s most scandalous religious cults, one plagued by strange sex rituals, attacks in the popular press, and even the odd rescue attempt.
Henry James Prince could be incredibly persuasive. Born to a West Indian plantation owner, he was raised by his mother and her devoted catholic lodger, Martha. In 1934, Prince underwent conversion, later abandoning his blossoming career in medicine to enrol at St David’s College Lampeter in 1836. Shortly after his arrival, he began hearing voices. Assuming these to be the word of God, he set about forming a system of belief that earned him a significant following. The followers of the Lampeter Brethren, also known as the Priceites, the Community of the Son of Man, and the Children of The Ressurection, believed, like Prince, that the end of the world was coming and that he was their sole salvation. Around this time, Prince married and converted Martha, a significantly older woman by even the most lenient standards.
With Prince leading the charge, the Lampeters rebelled against the college hierarchy, accusing their superiors of giving in to the “insinuations of carnal desire” and thus bringing about the world’s end. To secure their salvation, the sinful were to unite with the Holy Spirit, body and soul. Wary of Prince’s sway over his followers, they assigned the newly-ordained reverend to the village of Charlinch the Quantocks in the hope that the fresh air would cleanse his mind. It did nothing of the sort. On arrival, Prince began preaching to the local populace. Again he accused them of possessing sinful flesh, sin that could only be purged by physical communion with the Holy Spirit.
The sinful flesh, it turned out, always belonged to rich women of independent means. The Holy Spirit, meanwhile, was Prince himself. He argued that they must first free themselves from sexual repression to free themselves from original sin. Oh, and give him their money: Prince’s 500-person following members were also commanded to hand over their wealth and possessions. None refused; they were only too glad to free themselves of this burden, especially if it meant getting closer to their beloved leader.
When The Church of England finally defrocked Prince, he used the wealth of his devoted Agapemonites to secure a 200-acre estate in Paxton, Somerset. Concealed behind an enormous wall and dotted with lush gardens, the Abode of Love was a fully functional community populated by 500 wealthy professionals and their families, including, rather helpfully, lawyers, doctors and an estate manager. Martha was, by this point, dead and buried, leaving Prince to take on numerous spiritual brides. He also married three of his closest ‘saints’ to the Nottidge sisters, who had provided £6,000 each to the Abode.
The oldest sister, Agnes, was appalled by the set-up and not unsurprised that she was expected to remain celibate throughout her arranged marriage. Prince, meanwhile, was eyeing up another younger Nottidge sister, Louisa. Agnes urged her not to come to Paxton, but the would-be bride was already under Prince’s spell. Her brothers would later attempt a rescue, bundling her into a carriage under cover of darkness, only for her to be declared insane by the family and packed off to a lunatic asylum. Her inheritance was spent on two bloodhounds to ward off further kidnappings.
By this time, The Agageponites had quite a reputation in the popular press. Prince was painted as a despot, ruling over his followers from a lavish mansion where he lived surrounded by only the most desirable women. Everyone else worked in the fields or in the gardens; husbands separated from their wives. Then there was the bizarre ritual known as The Great Manifestation. As the self-proclaimed Son of God, Prince was beyond fallibility. Even when he had sex with one of his spiritual brides, a 16-year-old girl called Zoe Patterson, in front of his congregation, he offered theological justification, calling his rape of the young virgin a “divine purification.”
Prince had demanded that a selection of maidens be presented to him in the chapel. On selecting Zoe, he is reported to have had sex with the hypnotised girl to the sound of the chapel organ and the singing of hymns. Prince claimed that the divine union would produce no offspring. And yet, Zoe still fell pregnant. Prince rejected the child, blaming the pregnancy on Luciferian meddling. But the spell was broken, and Prince’s newly disenchanted followers left in droves. Zoe, meanwhile, took her place as the First Bride of The Lamb. She gave birth to her “child of Satan” soon afterwards. Eve was raised in the community, growing into a quiet and shy girl as Paxton grew increasingly isolated from the outside world.
In 1867, a writer called William Hepworth Dixon was granted entry into the Abode of Love. What he found was a thriving community with Prince at its very heart. Like journalists before him, Hepworth Dixon had expected to find the people of Paxton rolling around in their own filth. Instead, he found the very epitome of gentile Victorian society. The Agapemonites had their own distinct style, the men keeping their hair short and their cheeks shaved.
The women also wore their hair cropped – a shocking revelation by Victorian standards. They held a healthy reverence for the outdoors, raised horses, loved hockey and billiards, and had access to their own banqueting house. Rather surprisingly, Prince’s “sex cult” also boasted its own blend of tea, which was served every afternoon at 4pm. I can’t imagine the Manson Family sharing a nice cup of Ceylon, can you?
