Visions of monarchy and magistracy in women’s political writing, 1640–80

This chapter analyses early-modern English women writers and the number and patterns of their publication of religious and secular texts between 1640 and 1680. The chapter’s focus is on the impact of the English Civil War and Cromwellian Republic on women’s political thought, particularly their ideas about temporal monarchy and the highest magistrate, or God. The women writers featured include the puritan and parliamentarian writers Eleanor Davies, Mary Pope, Katherine Chidley and Mary Cary, and the Catholic, Anglican and royalist writers Helen More, Elizabeth Major, Dorothy Pakington and Rachel Jevon. Quakers examined include Margaret Fell, Dorothy Burch and Priscilla Cotton. Margaret Cavendish’s work is classified as uniquely secular at a time when women’s political thinking was almost entirely shaped by religion.