ABSTRACT
The scholarship concerning Mary Astell has consistently viewed her royalist politics and Anglican loyalties either as a significant drag on her feminism, or as barriers which she successfully overcame. Astell considered the principles as outlined by those seeking greater religious and political flexibility and involvement in contrast with traditional royalist and Anglican values, and found the former wanting. The development of Astell's feminism out of the dialectical conflicts implicit in her thought did not result in the shifting of political loyalties; rather her own Tory feminism is tied to a critique which employs progressive arguments to undermine parliamentarian and sectarian understandings of family and gender relationships. While Astell took part in contemporary political disputes through publishing Tory tracts, she was first and foremost a feminist intellectual. She strongly believed in the importance and reliability of Cartesian epistemology, and applied Descartes' critical methodology to English institutions broadly.
