Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Christine de Pizan
- 2 Women of the Italian Renaissance
- 3 From Anne de Beaujeu to Marguerite de Navarre
- 4 Queen Elizabeth I of England
- 5 From the Reformation to Marie le Jars de Gournay
- 6 Women of the English civil war era
- 7 Quaker women
- 8 The Fronde and Madeleine de Scudéry
- 9 Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
- 10 Women of the Glorious Revolution
- 11 Women of late seventeenth-century France
- 12 Mary Astell
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Quaker women
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Christine de Pizan
- 2 Women of the Italian Renaissance
- 3 From Anne de Beaujeu to Marguerite de Navarre
- 4 Queen Elizabeth I of England
- 5 From the Reformation to Marie le Jars de Gournay
- 6 Women of the English civil war era
- 7 Quaker women
- 8 The Fronde and Madeleine de Scudéry
- 9 Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
- 10 Women of the Glorious Revolution
- 11 Women of late seventeenth-century France
- 12 Mary Astell
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
During the period of the interregnum in England, some members of non-conformist religious groups gradually discovered that the new political regime was little better than the old. In the 1650s, English society was still very much a society in which religious persecution and intolerance were the norms. Throughout this decade, members of the Quaker movement (or the Society of Friends, as it is now known) were particularly vocal in their calls for social justice. In his Collection of the Sufferings Of the People called Quakers (1753), Joseph Besse reports on a religious debate between two Quaker women and a group of scholars at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1653. The women, named Elizabeth Williams and Mary Fisher, reprove the scholars for their ignorance of ‘the true God and his Worship’,
Whereupon the Scholars began to mock and deride them: The Women, observing the Froth and Levity of their Behaviour, told them they were Antichrists, and that their College was a Cage of unclean Birds, and the Synagogue of Satan … Complaint was forthwith made to William Pickering, then Mayor, that two Women were preaching: He sent a Constable for them, and examined them … He demanded their Husbands Names: They told him, they had no Husband but Jesus Christ, and he sent them. Upon this the Mayor grew angry, called them Whores, and issued his Warrant to the Constable to Whip them at the Market-Cross till the Blood ran down their Bodies; and ordered three of his Serjeants to see that Sentence, equally cruel and lawless, severely executed.
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- Information
- A History of Women's Political Thought in Europe, 1400–1700 , pp. 162 - 179Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009