A PIONEER of women's education has been honoured with a Yorkshire Rose plaque.

The Yorkshire Society unveiled an inscription in memory of Mary Ward at the Bar Convent in York.

Mary, who lived between 1585 and 1645, fought lifelong for the right of nuns to lead a life outside convent walls, and set up schools across Europe.

But she suffered for her efforts, being declared a heretic and even imprisoned for a time by the Papal Inquisition.

In 1609, she dared to found an order of religious women governed by its own Superior General - but that aroused fierce opposition from within the Catholic Church, and in 1631, Mary's Institute was suppressed by Pope Urban VIII.

In 1639, she returned to her native Yorkshire, and lived with a few of the original companions at what was then Hewarth, a village outside York.

She died on January 30, 1645, and was buried in the churchyard at Osbaldwick where her tombstone can still be seen. Her Institute did not receive the definitive approval of the church until 1877, and Mary was not acknowledged as its founder until 1909.

The two branches of the Mary Ward foundation are now known as the Congregation Of Jesus and the Institute Of The Blessed Virgin Mary.

Peter Barber, of the Yorkshire Society, said: "Mary herself possessed all the qualities of a true Yorkshirewoman - courage, tenacity, deep faith, cheerfulness and a forthright common sense.

"The distances she travelled between the family homes, often during a bitter Yorkshire winter, prepared her for the many journeys she made through Europe by land and sea, including several crossings of the Alps on foot and in winter.

"With a few companions she walked the 1,500 miles from Flanders to Rome to present her plans for her Institute personally to the Pope, and she appeared several times before the Cardinals to plead her cause."

At St Omer, in 1617, Mary wrote: "There is no such difference between men and women that women may not do great things, as we have seen by the example of many saints who have done great things."