Unbridled Spirits: Women of the English Revolution: 1640-1660 (review)

Book Reviews Edited by Thomas D. Hamm Unbridled Spirits: Women of the English Revolution: 1640-1660. By Stevie Davies. London: Women's Press, 1998. xii + 356 pp. Notes, bibliography , and index. £17.99 The Religious Society of Friends, growing up in seventeenth-century England at the time of the Revolution, incorporated many of the ideas current in the left wing ofthe Puritan movement. Among these ideas was the concept ofthe spiritual equality ofwomen. Ranters, Levelers, Fifth Monarchists , and other groups were notable for the number of women members who felt liberated to preach and prophesy despite universally held beliefs that women should remain silent. Stevie Davis, an historian ofthe EnglishRevolution as well as a novelist, has written about the women ofthis period, fromLady EleanorDavies, who began writing prophecies dictated by the Holy Spirit in 1625, to Anna Trapnell, who saw her FifthMonarchy hopes dashed in the restoration ofthe king in 1660. In between we meet groups of women who raised their collectivevoices totryto alterthe course ofthebloody revolution, including the Peace women who marched on the House ofCommons in 1 643 with the demand of an end to the bloody civil war, and Leveler women who petitioned Parliament for economic justice. Quaker women are of course included in Davies' narrative. The author writes about the 700 Quaker women who signed a petition to Parliament in 1659 demanding an end to religious intolerance as well as the sale of all church lands and colleges. She follows Mary Fisher from Lancaster prison to Boston, from her visit to the Sultan of Turkey to her old age in South Carolina. She describes the imprisonment of Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers by the Inquisition, tells ofBarbara Blaugdone's travels, sketches in Mary Dyer's travail and martyrdom. In a chapter on Margaret Fell, she draws on recent scholarship to make the point that she could be a ruthless adversary as well as a nursing mother. Especially interesting to me was a chapter on three Puritan marriages. Drawing on the diaries oftwo Puritan men and one woman, Davies sketches in a picture ofmarriage that was far more loving and egalitarian than most previous accounts would leave us to believe. While the Puritan ideal placed the husbandatthe headofthehousehold, toberuledas alittlekingdom, these more intimate portraits suggest that the stem concept was modified by affectionate concern. To cover all this in 290 pages is a tall order. In addition, the author brings her narrative skills to bear in making the story come alive. She often writes in the present tense, and she does not miss a chance to emphasize the humorous and ironic side ofthe events she describes. Although she does not Book Reviews61 make any obvious factual mistakes, this treatment tends to rob her subjects of their full dignity, and to suggest their motivation came more from the unconscious need to overcome their social oppression, which was certainly necessary, than from a genuine movement of the Holy Spirit. While her treatment ofQuakerwomen is more respectful thanthat ofsome ofherother subjects, one might wish for a less arch tone. Readers wishing a more indepth treatment ofthe same period would do well to go on to read Phyllis Mack's Visionary Women, or the anthology by Mary Garman, Judith Applegate, Margaret Benefield, and Dortha Meredith, Hidden in Plain Sight, for treatment with more depth. One might wish also that Davies had examined the origin ofthe Quaker women's business meeting, that seedbed ofQuaker gender democracy that protected the ideas ofthe English Revolution and nursed them into flower forcoming generations. While Quakerwomenmight seemat one with many oftheir Puritan sisters, their roles as foremothers oflater leaders ofwomen resulted from the institutionalization oftheir pioneering. Formanyreaders, however, this lively book will serve as an introduction to a fascinating subject that must be understood before the advances of women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can be evaluated. One hopes Stevie Davies has many readers. Margaret Hope BaconKennett Square, Pa. TheLife ofHerbertHoover. Vol. Ill: MasterofEmergencies, 191 7-1918. By George H. Nash. New York: Norton, 1996. 672 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. 945. George Nash has dedicated himselfto researching and revealing the life of Herbert Hoover in extensive detail, and this volume meets the high...