ABSTRACT
Elizabeth Cary showed great bravery not only in translating a controversial work such as the Reply, but in openly advertising both her gender and her faith in her address To the Reader: I am a Catholique, and a Woman: the first serues for mine honor, and the second, for my excuse, since if the worke be but meanely done, it is noe wonder. By translating du Perron's Reply, Elizabeth Cary helped spread his reconciliatory message, an act which clearly ties her work to a larger context of eirenic aspirations. However, even before her conversion Elizabeth Cary had striven for rapprochement between the English Church and the Roman, as a member of the Arminian Durham House circle. However, Cary must have worked on her translation in a period of relative tolerance, even if the penal laws against Catholics were still in effect. Through her translation, Cary demonstrated that Roman Catholicism posed no threat to the liberty and integrity of England.
