Why Women Found Charles Williams Irresistible
Charles Williams (1886–1945), often called “the oddest Inkling,” had a remarkable personal charisma that many contemporaries – especially women – found charming and irresistible. Numerous accounts by those who knew him, as well as later biographers, testify to his magnetic personality, “radiant” warmth, and captivating communication style. Female friends, students, and colleagues of Williams frequently described being deeply drawn to him, sometimes even “in love” with him in a platonic or spiritual sense theoddestinkling.wordpress.com pintswithjack.com. This report surveys historical testimonies from women in Williams’s life, analyzes biographical descriptions of his charm, and highlights comments from fellow Inklings (like C.S. Lewis) about Williams’s appeal – particularly his irresistible effect on women.
Accounts from Women Who Knew Charles Williams
Dorothy L. Sayers – Admiring Colleague: Detective novelist and scholar Dorothy Sayers was one of Williams’s close friends and admirers. Sayers “virtually adored” Williams vintage.isi.org, sharing his literary passions. After encountering Williams’s ideas (especially his work on Dante), Sayers began an ambitious Dante translation project under his influence wheaton.edu. She later joined C.S. Lewis in publicly celebrating Williams’s legacy. In a joint letter to The Times on the tenth anniversary of Williams’s death, Sayers and Lewis noted that “thousands… acknowledge him as a formative influence in their thinking” apilgriminnarnia.com. Sayers’s profound respect hints at why women found Williams so compelling: he offered intellectual inspiration and genuine friendship. As scholar Sørina Higgins summarizes, “By all accounts, Williams himself was like his writing: charismatic, saintly, loquacious, and inspiring” theoddestinkling.wordpress.com. He motivated those around him (Sayers included) to pursue their passions more seriously and spiritually.
Thelma Shuttleworth – Devoted Student: One of Williams’s longtime female disciples, Thelma Shuttleworth, first met him as a young adult in his London lecture classes. She remained his friend until his death two decades later. In a 1988 reminiscence, Shuttleworth struggled to convey his uniqueness: “This man was a poet – not a preacher or a teacher or any other sort of axe-grinder. He was a phenomenon – they come in ones, rarely, rarely, and wasn’t I lucky to bump into one and be absorbed!” wheaton.edu. Shuttleworth’s choice of words – calling Williams “a phenomenon” – reflects the almost mystical awe he inspired. She recalls endless conversations about grand ideas (such as Williams’s notion of “Co-inherence” or the spiritual unity of people wheaton.edu) and even his gently scolding wit. For instance, when Thelma once complained that a beautiful experience felt “spoilt” after it ended, Williams sharply told her, “Try not to be merely silly” wheaton.edu – implying that true beauty is eternal. Far from resenting his acerbic tone, she treasured such interactions. Shuttleworth’s testimony illustrates how Williams combined intellectual depth, “constant” philosophical conversation, and a personal interest in his protégés, making young women feel both challenged and “absorbed” in his presence wheaton.edu.
“Muses” and Disciples – Personal Devotion: Williams attracted a circle of female disciples – many of them young, educated women – who found him irresistible as a mentor and friend. According to C.S. Lewis, essentially “everyone who met Williams fell in love with him – including many young women who became his disciples” theoddestinkling.wordpress.com. Some of these women served as what Williams called his “muses,” inspiring his creative work and receiving affectionate attention (often in the form of intense spiritual friendship). For example, Anne Ridler and Alice Mary Hadfield – both of whom later wrote about Williams – were among his devoted followers and correspondents. Biographer Grevel Lindop notes that Williams “inspired great loyalty – and in many cases love – from the women who knew him” awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com. These relationships were emotionally charged but usually chaste. Williams was married (to Florence “Michal” Williams) and apparently never consummated any extramarital romances theoddestinkling.wordpress.com. Yet he often formed powerful bonds with female friends. Many of them exchanged intimate letters with him, assisted his writing, and even submitted to odd spiritual “exercises” he devised. For instance, Williams conducted quasi-ritualistic activities with some women – part mentorship, part mystical role-play. In letters and memoirs, women like Lois Lang-Sims (to whom Williams wrote the “Letters to Lalage”) describe being simultaneously exalted and distressed by Williams’s dominant mentorship. Lang-Sims recalled undergoing mysterious trials that left her emotionally exhausted, writing that after six months she “could hardly lift a knife and fork” due to the intensity of their spiritual relationship theoddestinkling.wordpress.com. Despite such extremes, most of Williams’s female followers cherished their connection with him. As one commentator observes, “in general, the young women did not much object, and most remained on very good terms with him”, even if his methods could be “appalling” to outsiders notionclubpapers.blogspot.com. This enduring loyalty suggests that these women were genuinely spellbound by Williams’s charisma, believing in his goodness and creative genius.
Personal Recollections – Kindness and Charisma: Women who worked or studied with Williams frequently mention his personal kindness and attentiveness. Poet Anne Ridler, who as a young woman helped Williams edit his poems, wrote that he treated every student with seriousness and care. “No one among his students was too dull to be listened to, or too grasping to be helped,” Ridler recalled, noting that Williams gave freely of his time and “energies,” sharing even personal confidences wheaton.edu. This generous mentorship made his female pupils feel valued and intellectually stimulated. At the same time, Ridler observed that Williams maintained “a certain inner detachment” – an independence of spirit that made him fascinatingly self-sufficient wheaton.edu. He could pour attention into others, yet “depended on no one”, which perhaps made women seek his approval even more. Several of Williams’s closest female colleagues (Ridler herself, novelist Dorothy Sayers, and others) later testified to how much they learned from him. They credited him with sharpening their minds and broadening their spiritual vision. In short, Williams’s mix of personal warmth, intellectual rigor, and mysterious aloofness left a profound impression on the women around him.
Charisma and Personality: Biographical Insights
Biographers and contemporaries alike have tried to pinpoint what made Charles Williams so charismatic. By most descriptions, he hardly cut a romantic figure at first glance – yet the moment he spoke or taught, he became “transfigured”. C.S. Lewis gave a vivid portrait of Williams’s paradoxical appearance and aura in a 1944 letter: Williams was “of humble origin (there are still traces of cockney in his voice), ugly as a chimpanzee but so radiant… that as soon as he begins talking… he is transfigured and looks like an angel. He sweeps some people quite off their feet… Women find him so attractive that if he were a bad man he could do what he liked either as a Don Juan or a charlatan.” pintswithjack.com. This remarkable testimony from Lewis – a fellow Inkling – confirms that Williams’s physical plainness was utterly outshone by his radiant personality and eloquence. When Williams spoke, whether in private conversation or public lecture, listeners felt an almost magical enthrallment. Skepticism turned to enchantment within minutes. Those who attended his lectures recalled initially snickering at his ungainly, monkey-like looks and theatrical gestures, only to become “enchanted” moments later by the passionate “living fire” of his wordsfirstthings.com. Williams had a booming voice with a Cockney accent, an actor’s flair, and an endless repertoire of poetry recitations and literary allusions. One peer remembered that “when he begins talking he emanates more love than any man I have ever known”, transforming the atmosphere of any room pintswithjack.com. This enthusiastic warmth and “love” he projected were key to his charm – women in particular felt uniquely seen and uplifted by Williams’s attention, as if basking in a benevolent glow.
Beyond his oratorical skills, Williams’s “electrifying personality” manifested in the content of his teaching and conversation. He tackled spiritual and poetic topics with a fervor that made abstract ideas feel intensely personal. Williams often spoke of grand mystical concepts (such as exchanging one another’s burdens through love) in everyday language, making the profound palpable. Many of his female students were thrilled by this union of intellect and mystery. “There was nothing esoteric about our way of talking,” Thelma Shuttleworth insisted, meaning Williams made mystical theology accessible in ordinary dialogue wheaton.edu. At the same time, his unconventional ideas lent him an alluring mystique. He founded a small fellowship called “The Companions of the Co-inherence,” dedicated to practicing his doctrine of spiritually bearing each other’s burdens theoddestinkling.wordpress.com. He had also spent years in occult circles (a fact he kept quiet around his Christian friends) and wove occult symbols like the Tarot and Grail legends into his writings vintage.isi.orgtheoddestinkling.wordpress.com. This blend of Christian faith and hidden knowledge gave Williams an otherworldly reputation. Some of his devotees half-jokingly viewed him as a magus or saint. Indeed, poet T.S. Eliot (another admirer) wondered if Williams might actually be a saint in disguiseawfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com. For women drawn to spiritual depth, Williams’s persona – the kindly Christian and the mystic sage – was magnetically attractive.
Biographers consistently emphasize Williams’s need for creative muses and the reciprocal devotion this engendered. “Like [Robert] Graves, [W.B.] Yeats and many other famous poets, he needed a female ‘Muse’ to fire up his deepest creativity,” notes Grevel Lindop awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com. Williams would single out talented young women as inspirers of his work – discussing poetry with them, sometimes giving them romantic or mythic nicknames, and even incorporating them into his poems as charactersawfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com. For example, he dubbed one muse “Celia” after a figure in his mythology, and called another “Lalage” (an endearment from poetry) in their correspondence. Naming and symbolically elevating these women made them feel uniquely connected to his imaginative world. In return, they often became fiercely loyal collaborators. Lindop recounts that all five of the former muses he interviewed “challenged [Williams], debated with him, and in some cases went over his poems and helped edit them”awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com. This dynamic – half mentor–protégé, half creative partnership – clearly fueled Williams’s charm. Women were drawn not only to him, but to the exhilarating sense of purpose he gave them as part of his artistic and spiritual mission.
However, Williams’s charismatic influence on women was not without controversy. Some of his peers observed an almost “cult-like” atmosphere around him firstthings.com. During his years in Oxford (1939–1945), Williams gathered a “household” of devoted female students who met for evenings of discussion and prayer. C.S. Lewis’s brother Warren Lewis wryly noted that Williams’s relocation to Oxford brought “a whole cycle of Kings and Queens (mostly Queens) revolving around him” – suggesting that many ladies of Oxford eagerly sought Williams’s company notionclubpapers.blogspot.com. Williams did little to discourage such adulation. In fact, he sometimes pushed boundaries by introducing what he termed “experiments” in courage or faith that had a sensual element. According to Sorina Higgins, Williams “practiced semi-sexual, semi-magical rituals of transference to heighten his creativity” with his female disciples theoddestinkling.wordpress.com. For instance, he would enact rituals of symbolic sacrifice or restraint: spanking a female follower on the hands with a sword or ruler as a form of spiritual “discipline,” or lifting a female disciple onto a church altar as a test of devotion theoddestinkling.wordpress.com awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com. Such practices were strange and dubious, and were kept very private. Yet surviving accounts suggest the women involved accepted these acts as part of Williams’s mentoring. In later reflections, one disciple, Anne Barrington (pseudonym “Celia”), described these ritualized encounters as spiritually intense experiences – simultaneously frightening and exalting (Lindop, Third Inkling, ch. 10). This darker aspect of Williams’s charm – a mesmerizing authority that could blur into manipulation – may explain why even those aware of his faults remained under his spell. As Lewis observed, “if he were a bad man” Williams could have been a dangerous seducer or fraud pintswithjack.com. Crucially, Williams was not a cynical exploiter: he seemed sincere in his odd methods, and he inspired genuine virtue in many followers. Still, the quasi-romantic intensity of his female friendships was a key part of what made him irresistible to them.
In summary, biographical sources paint Charles Williams as a man of striking contrasts whose overall effect was intensely charismatic. He was outwardly unprepossessing yet inwardly brilliant and benevolent. He was erudite and mystical yet also playful, even flirtatious, in conversation. Women found in Williams both a wise teacher who took their minds seriously and an affectionate friend who could ignite their hearts and imaginations. This rare combination of qualities goes far in explaining why so many women (from famous authors like Sayers to young students like Thelma) fell under his enchantment.
Inklings’ Commentary on Williams’s Appeal
Williams’s close friends in the Inklings circle took note of his special appeal – sometimes with astonishment. C.S. Lewis, who became one of Williams’s dearest friends in the 1940s, marveled at his effect on people. In a letter to his childhood friend Arthur Greeves, Lewis famously wrote:
“As for the man, he is about 52… ugly as a chimpanzee but so radiant… that as soon as he begins talking whether in private or in a lecture he is transfigured and looks like an angel. He sweeps some people quite off their feet and has many disciples. Women find him so attractive that if he were a bad man he could do what he liked either as a Don Juan or a charlatan.” pintswithjack.com
Lewis’s awe underscores that Williams’s charisma transcended his looks – it was a kind of spiritual magnetism. Notably, Lewis explicitly acknowledges Williams’s power over women, using half-amused, half-admiring language. Lewis himself was deeply impressed (he later said Williams “emanates more love than any man I have ever known” pintswithjack.com) and he understood why young women in particular gravitated to Williams’s “radiance.” In fact, Lewis observed that “everyone who met Williams fell in love with him,” and he did not exclude himself from that statement theoddestinkling.wordpress.com. Lewis became an ardent disciple of Williams’s ideas; he referred to Williams as “my dearest friend” and was instrumental in commemorating Williams after his sudden death in 1945 apilgriminnarnia.comapilgriminnarnia.com.
Warren H. Lewis, C.S. Lewis’s brother (who also knew Williams through the Inklings meetings), provided an insightful outside perspective. In a eulogy, Warren noted that Williams had “a galvanizing effect” on those around him, attracting “many followers” with his “evasive personality” and “unusual point of view.” apilgriminnarnia.com. He observed that Williams’s arrival in Oxford set off a sort of minor sensation: academics and students alike – “especially the ladies” – flocked to him. Warren Lewis’s tongue-in-cheek remark about Williams’s “household” of followers hints that other Inklings sometimes viewed Williams’s female entourage with a mix of amusement and concern. J.R.R. Tolkien, for his part, respected Williams’s knowledge but grew wary of his influence. Tolkien detected the occult strains in Williams’s work (such as references to Tarot cards) and “smelled a rat”, suspecting that Williams’s spirituality hid unorthodox elementsvintage.isi.org. Tolkien did not directly comment on Williams’s appeal to women in surviving letters, but he did find Williams’s persona perplexing. After Williams’s death, Tolkien confessed that he felt a “sense of strain” during Williams’s time in the Inklings, implying that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the almost cultic devotion Williams inspired (particularly in others like C.S. Lewis). In a letter, Tolkien diplomatically described Williams as “a great influence – not wholly for good” on Lewis, alluding perhaps to Lewis’s uncritical admiration vintage.isi.org. This suggests that Tolkien recognized Williams’s charm but remained immune to it – or at least skeptical. Tolkien’s wife Edith is reported to have quipped that she never cared for Williams’s “Kaballah hokey-pokey,” indicating that not everyone was enchanted by the mystical scholar in their midst (Carpenter, The Inklings, p. 197).
Despite some private reservations, the consensus among the Inklings was that Charles Williams was an extraordinary soul. C.S. Lewis in particular could not say enough about Williams’s joyous, infectious spirit. In a touching tribute, Lewis hailed Williams as “the greatest Arthurian poet of the twentieth century” and praised the “unabated humanity” of his friendships awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com apilgriminnarnia.com. Both Lewis and Tolkien included Williams as a character in their fiction (Lewis’s That Hideous Strength and Tolkien’s Notion Club Papers draft, respectively), portraying him as a wise, charismatic sage. It is telling that Lewis dedicated his book The Great Divorce to Williams, calling him “My friend: Charles Williams” – a mark of deep affection. Furthermore, when an American woman (author Joy Davidman, who later married Lewis) first corresponded with Lewis in the late 1940s, it was partly Williams’s writings that had drawn her interest. Davidman wrote that she was “entranced” by Williams’s novel Descent into Hell, illustrating that Williams’s allure extended even to those who never met him in person (Davidman, letter to Chad Walsh, 1946).
In sum, Williams’s fellow Inklings noted with amazement how women and men alike were drawn into his orbit. Lewis’s testimony stands out: he frankly acknowledged Williams’s “irresistible” appeal to women pintswithjack.com, attributing it to a rare combination of love, intellect, and almost angelic fervor. While not all his friends were quite as smitten (Tolkien remained more cautious), even they conceded that Williams was extraordinary. His ability to captivate hearts and minds left a lasting impression on the entire Inklings circle.
Conclusion
Charles Williams’s life offers a fascinating study in personal charm. Primary accounts from women who knew him – from celebrated writers like Dorothy Sayers to young students like Thelma Shuttleworth – depict a man who engaged both their minds and emotions at the deepest level. Williams’s blend of intellectual brilliance, spiritual intensity, personal warmth, and playful humor proved tremendously attractive. He mentored women as equals in thought, inspiring fierce loyalty and love awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com. His physical presence, once he spoke, was often described in rapturous terms – “transfigured” like an angel, “sweeping people off their feet” pintswithjack.com. Biographers confirm that Williams cultivated close relationships with a circle of female muses and disciples, some of which involved unconventional (even “semi-magical”) practices theoddestinkling.wordpress.com. These relationships, though controversial, attest to the almost hypnotic hold Williams could have on admirers. Fellow Inklings like C.S. Lewis were struck by how women “fell in love” with Williams’s persona theoddestinkling.wordpress.com, and they too fell under the spell of his companionship and conversation.
In the end, what made Charles Williams “charming and irresistible” to so many women was likely the unique combination of qualities he embodied. He offered intellectual enchantment – opening vistas of poetry, myth, and faith – while also radiating an immediate, heartfelt kindness. He could make a person feel part of a grand spiritual adventure, yet also tease them with down-to-earth wit. Such a rare blend of sage, mystic, and friend created an allure that transcended the ordinary. As one contemporary summed up, “they come in ones, rarely, rarely” wheaton.edu – Charles Williams was indeed one of those one-of-a-kind personalities, and the women who knew him couldn’t help but be captivated by his charm.
Sources:
- Primary letters and reminiscences of Williams’s contemporaries (C.S. Lewis, D.L. Sayers, T. Shuttleworth, et al.).
- Charles Williams: The Third Inkling – Grevel Lindop, 2015 (biographical details and newly revealed letters) theoddestinkling.wordpress.com theoddestinkling.wordpress.com.
- Sørina Higgins, The Oddest Inkling blog – “Introduction to Charles Williams”theoddestinkling.wordpress.com and related articles.
- The Inklings – Humphrey Carpenter, 1979 (group biography with accounts of Williams’s Oxford years).
- C.S. Lewis, Letter to Arthur Greeves, 30 Jan 1944 (as quoted in various sources) pintswithjack.com.
- First Things magazine – “Haven’t an Inkling” (2014) firstthings.comfirstthings.com.
- Interviews and essays from the Charles Williams Society Newsletter and Seven journal (Wade Center) wheaton.eduwheaton.edu.
- Dorothy L. Sayers and C.S. Lewis: Correspondence and secondary analyses vintage.isi.orgapilgriminnarnia.com.
- Letters to Lalage: The Letters of Charles Williams to Lois Lang-Sims – ed. Lois Lang-Sims, 1989 (firsthand insight into Williams’s mentor–disciple dynamics).
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