ABSTRACT
In some contexts, almost any woman’s action can be seen as political, when we think of the modernday feminist adage, “the personal is political.” But in the early modern period women’s participation in specific political action and activism was increasing, especially in the mid-seventeenth-century English Civil War, and most of the women in this section come from one side or the other of that divisive combat. Some acted as royalist agents and spies and carried secret messages for the king, writing attacks on Cromwell, influencing politicians, or helping the Duke of York escape imprisonment. Others were involved in radical movements such as the Fifth Monarchists. Some, however, are those from earlier in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries whose actions had direct political impact, such as wives who supported their husbands in rebellions, or one who led a women’s protest against the export of grain. Political participation cut across social classes and evidenced many women’s awareness of their potential impact and authority.
