Introduction: The Problem of Visibility
The historiography of the English Revolution has long
reflected a paradox. While the period is seen as a crucial point in the
development of modern political awareness—such as republicanism,
constitutionalism, and democratic activism—women involved in these struggles
have often been marginalised. History, and historians in general, have not been
kind to the Leveller women radicalised during the English Revolution. This
issue extends beyond archives to a broader historiographical problem: the
analytical frameworks used to interpret the Revolution frequently overlook
gender as a key factor. This essay explores how historians have studied
Leveller women, how Marxist scholarship has reinterpreted their importance, and
how contemporary research is working to incorporate gender, class, and
political radicalism into a cohesive analytical approach.
Marxist Historiography and the English Revolution
Christopher Hill’s work remains the foundational reference.
He argued that the English Revolution was not just a constitutional crisis but
a deep social upheaval. His observation that the Revolution “helped many women
both to establish their own independence and to envision a complete escape for
the poorer classes” is crucial. It positions women’s activism as a result of
structural changes—war, displacement, religious divisions, and the decline of
traditional authority—rather than an anomaly. Hill’s Marxist approach,
connecting ideology to material conditions, allowed for understanding women’s
political rise. However, Hill did not produce a detailed study of Leveller
women; his work is more suggestive than exhaustive.
The Levellers in Marxist Interpretation
Marxist historians have long debated the class identity of
the Levellers. Were they petty-bourgeois democrats, radical republicans, or
proto-socialists? John Rees’s view that the Levellers constituted a distinct
political organisation rather than just a faction within Independency is
significant. It helps us see Leveller women not as secondary figures but as
active participants in a coherent political movement.
The Levellers’ demands—such as sovereignty of the Commons,
legal reform, and expanding the franchise—were inherently limited by their
social class. Their exclusion of women from voting highlights the
contradictions of a movement rooted in small producers and artisans: radical in
opposing aristocratic dominance, yet conservative in gender roles.
According to The Lawes Resolutions of Woman’s Rights (1632),
married women were legally considered non-persons. This harsh fact has significantly
influenced feminist historiography. Researchers like Ann Hughes, Susan Amussen,
and Kate Aughterson have demonstrated that women’s political activities should
be interpreted within this context of legal invisibility. Consequently, women’s
petitions, protests, and pamphlets served as acts of political self-empowerment
— moments where women asserted agency despite its formal absence.
The 1649 women’s petition is among the earliest English
texts to advocate for gender equality explicitly. The quote — “we are assured
of our creation in the image of God, and of an interest in Christ equal unto
men” — uses theological reasoning to support political claims. Feminist
historians note that religious language was often the only available way to
express political equality. The petition’s call for equal legal protection —
“Are any of our lives, limbs, liberties, or goods to be taken from us more than
from men…?” — foreshadows later feminist demands for civil rights.
Class, Gender, and Contradiction
Soma Marik’s intervention is
crucial: she questions the economic factors influencing women’s activism. The
response reveals contradictions: women earned less than men; domestic work
could undermine patriarchal authority; and war brought both independence and
difficulties. This mirrors Marxist theory, suggesting women’s political
awareness arises from the conflicting forces within a society in transition,
rather than from ideology alone.
Ian Gentles challenges the simple narrative of poverty by
revealing that Chidley’s family thrived during the Commonwealth era. This is
significant for historiography, as it shows that radicalism did not necessarily
correlate with economic hardship. Chidley’s activism was influenced by her
religious beliefs, political background, and social mobility. Her pamphlet, The
Justification of the Independent Churches of Christ, demonstrates her ability
to craft nuanced polemics. Her defence of “the plaine truth of holy Scripture”
is not anti-intellectual but a conscious rejection of clerical authority.
Elizabeth Lilburne and the Politics of Survival
Ann Hughes’s research on Elizabeth Lilburne emphasises the
issue of sources: nearly all our knowledge comes via John Lilburne’s writings.
Despite this bias, Elizabeth appears as a politically engaged
individual—petitioning Parliament, negotiating with hostile authorities, and
supporting her family during persecution. Her activities show that women’s
political agency was frequently expressed through defending imprisoned men—a
form of activism influenced by gender expectations but capable of producing
significant change.
Lady Eleanor Davies represents a different strand of women’s
radicalism: aristocratic, prophetic, anti‑royalist. Her repeated imprisonments
and the burning of her books — “her books were burned by Archbishop Laud —
and, for good measure, by both of her own husbands” — illustrate the
breadth of female dissent. The fact that women’s printed work constitutes “less
than one per cent” of surviving texts underscores the archival challenge.
Feminist historiography must therefore reconstruct political agency from
fragmentary evidence.
Recent historiography, particularly Gaby Mahlberg's
research, reveals that wives of prominent republicans created informal
political networks during the Revolution. This challenges the traditional view
that women’s political involvement was just reactive, such as petitioning for
imprisoned husbands or seeking clemency. Instead, these women engaged in a
parallel realm of political communication, often more discreet, mobile, and
less detectable by authorities than formal Leveller organisations.
Edmund Ludlow’s recollection illustrates the sophistication
of these networks. He feared he would receive no royal pardon because, as he
recorded, “the wife of Sir Henry Vane had told Elizabeth [Lilburne] that
General Monck’s wife had said she would beg the king… to see Vane, Lambert, and
Ludlow hanged.” This was not idle gossip. It was political intelligence,
transmitted through a chain of women who understood its implications and acted
upon it. Information about Monck’s intentions, the king’s likely severity, and
the dangers facing republican leaders circulated through domestic spaces —
kitchens, parlours, marketplaces — where male surveillance was weakest.
These networks show that women were more than just channels
for male political ideas. They made collective judgments, evaluated risks, and
offered advice to their husbands. Elizabeth Lilburne’s persistent urging that
John “make peace with Cromwell,” which he dismissed as “mournfull arguments,”
was actually a realistic political assessment of their circumstances. Like many
Leveller women, her advice came from a clear understanding of the changing
power dynamics and the dangers of ongoing conflict.
Recognising these informal networks forces a reconsideration
of women’s political agency in the English Revolution. It shows that women were
embedded within the organisational fabric of radical politics, even when
excluded from formal structures. Their communication networks linked
households, circulated intelligence, and sustained political coordination
during periods of imprisonment, exile, and repression. Far from being marginal
actors, Leveller women were integral to the revolutionary movement’s ability to
survive and adapt — operating in spaces where political power was exercised
quietly, strategically, and with remarkable courage.
Conclusion
The recognition of women’s informal political networks
compels a fundamental rethinking of the English Revolution. It reveals that
women were not simply petitioners at the margins of male politics, nor passive
observers of events unfolding around them. They were active participants in the
circulation of intelligence, the formation of political judgement, and the
maintenance of radical organisation under conditions of repression and
uncertainty. Their work took place in spaces historians once dismissed as “domestic.”
Yet, these spaces proved essential to the survival of republican and Leveller
politics when formal structures were disrupted by imprisonment, exile, or
military defeat.
By foregrounding these networks, we gain a clearer sense of
the Revolution’s social depth. Radicalism did not reside solely in pamphlets,
army debates, or parliamentary confrontation; it lived also in households,
marketplaces, and the everyday exchanges between women whose political insight
was sharpened by necessity and sustained by solidarity. Their contributions
were rarely recorded, often undervalued, and almost always overshadowed by the
writings of their husbands — yet without them, the Leveller movement would have
been immeasurably weaker.
To restore these women to the historical narrative is not an
act of token inclusion but a recognition of political reality. They were
organisers, strategists, communicators, and, in many cases, the last line of
defence for imprisoned radicals. Their presence forces us to see the English
Revolution not only as a struggle over constitutional forms but as a profound
reordering of social relations, in which women carved out new spaces of agency
within — and sometimes against — the constraints of patriarchal society.
In acknowledging their role, we enrich our understanding of
the Revolution itself. We see more clearly how deeply its currents ran, how
widely its ideas travelled, and how fiercely its participants — men and women
alike — fought to shape the future. The Leveller women, in their petitions,
pamphlets, and networks of quiet but decisive influence, remind us that the
struggle for equality has always depended on those whose work is least visible
but most essential. Their story is not an appendix to the Revolution; it is one
of its most radical expressions.
Sources and Bibliography
Primary Sources
- “Women’s
Petition” (1649). In J. O’Faolain and L. Martines, Not in God’s
Image. New York: Harper and Row, 1973, pp. 266–267.
- Elizabeth
Lilburne. A Petition of Women (5 May 1649).
- William
Clarke Manuscripts. In A. S. P. Woodhouse (ed.), Puritanism and
Liberty: Being the Army Debates (1647–9). Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1951.
- Simonds
D’Ewes. Diary entries relating to women’s demonstrations, 8 August
1643.
- Katherine
Chidley. The Justification of the Independent Churches of Christ
(1641). Printed by William Larner.
- Thomas
Edwards. Gangraena (1646).
- *The
Lawes Resolutions of Woman’s Rights (1632).
- Lady
Eleanor Davies. Prophetic writings and trial records (1633–1636).
Secondary Sources
Historiography and Marxist Scholarship
- Hill,
Christopher. Women Turning the World Upside Down.
- Hill,
Christopher. Irreligion in the Puritan Revolution.
- Rees,
John. The Leveller Revolution: Radical Political Organisation in
England, 1640–1650. London: Verso.
Social and Gender History
- Durston,
Christopher. The Family in the English Revolution. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1989.
- Hughes,
Ann. “Gender and Politics in Leveller Literature.” In Susan Amussen
and Mark Kishlansky (eds.), Political Culture and Cultural Politics in
England: Essays Presented to David Underdown. Manchester: Manchester
University Press; New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995, pp. 162–188.
- Aughterson,
Kate (ed.). Renaissance Woman: A Sourcebook: Constructions of
Femininity in England.
- M’Arthur,
Ellen A. “Women Petitioners and the Long Parliament.” The English
Historical Review, Vol. 24, No. 96 (October 1909), pp. 698–709.
- Marik,
Soma. “Women, Radicalism, and the English Revolution.” Social
Scientist, Vol. 32 (2004), pp. 50–70.
Leveller Studies
- Gentles,
Ian. “London Levellers in the English Revolution: The Chidleys and
Their Circle.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 29 (1978),
pp. 281–309.
- Mahlberg,
Gaby. The History Woman (blog). Commentary on republican
networks and women’s political communication.
Biographical and Contextual Works
- Woodhouse,
A. S. P. (ed.). Puritanism and Liberty. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1951.
- Underdown,
David. Works on political culture and popular radicalism (referenced
indirectly through Hughes).
Digital and Reference Sources
- “Simonds
D’Ewes.” Wikipedia.
- Gaby
Mahlberg, thehistorywoman.com (blog).
- Archival
materials relating to Lady Eleanor Davies (British Library, State Papers).
