Margaret Fell and the End of Time: The Theology of the Mother of Quakerism

Introduction

1 Q Introduction For those who savor history, early Quakers provide a dynamic challenge to the palette. This Christian movement, later to be known as the Religious Society of Friends, was a passionate wrestling between the rigors of religious self-discipline and the onus of apocalyptic prophecy. At the center of this often ecstatic tension was Margaret Askew Fell Fox (1614–1702), a woman destined to light fires of indignation in the religious establishment of her day. Known generally as Margaret Fell, she was equal parts warhorse and workhorse, and her home at Swarthmoor Hall in northern England became the center of gravity for Quakerism in its infancy. There she came into the fullness of her power during a time of intense social upheaval, working as organizer, leader, and lay theologian as the country descended into civil war and then regicide. The deposition and beheading of Charles I, in turn, beckoned the Interregnum and the social experiment represented by Oliver Cromwell and the period of the English Protectorate. Against this backdrop, where political tide turned on tide, the religious and political fortunes of Quakers experienced their own ebbs and flows. One of the original adherents to the nascent movement, Margaret Fell was numbered among the “First Generation of Friends” who experienced the inward revelation that fired and fueled early Quakerism. At the core were the “valiant sixty” who coalesced in leadership around founding member George Fox and proclaimed a unique millenarian vision for Christ’s triumphant returning in the flesh. For this they paid dearly in loss of liberty, property, and life under some of the most appalling circumstances imaginable. Of these first soldiers in what they called “the Lamb’s War,” George Fox and his early protégée Margaret Fell were remarkable in their very survival. 2 Margaret Fell and the End of Time The fervor with which Quakers proclaimed their often apocalyptic and antinomian gospel frightened, alarmed, and angered many, and within a decade the early leadership of this religious movement would be decimated by England and her people. This ecclesial tragedy secured the historical precedence of Fox and Fell in the story of Quakerism, and theirs became the dominant voice in the rescue and reorganization of the battered Society of Friends.1 In a regrettable twist, the role of Margaret Fell and her material and intellectual contributions to the survival of the Friends would itself quickly be eclipsed by the mythology of George Fox as sole founder of the movement. The scarce representation she would later receive in print was attached to her eventual marriage to a lionized George Fox and drew upon the comforting image of a matron who offered spiritual encouragement and a warm hearth to the much putupon first generation of Friends. But when attended to, archival information presents a different and much more dynamic portrait of Fell and her influence upon their fate and direction. Current scholarly inquiry takes place at a time when older hagiographic and one-dimensional portraits of Margaret Fell are falling by the wayside. The thumbnail sketch of Margaret as protecting mother of the Quaker hearth and wife to founder George Fox has been replaced by a newer, more socially and historically conscious model. She is no longer just an historical footnote to the halcyon days of early Quakerism , but an increasingly valued part of the Friends’ religious heritage. Equally significant for the present moment in scholarship, contemporary work in areas such as women’s studies has explored her ample catalog of extant writings. This has provided a wealth of information as well as a sense of historical solidity that must come as a relief to scholars charged with integrating “herstory” and history. Margaret Fell’s status is squarely conferred by her historic and sizeable contribution to Friends’ theology and polity and she is as worthy of reverence as any iconic figure in the English Reformation. This claim is solemnized by the fact that in her position as the wife of a judge, as well as a land-owning minor aristocrat in her own right, she was uniquely poised to lose more than others in the Society of Friends. Fortunately for us, her true importance as a religious reformer and theologian is now being recovered by the current generation of scholars, as is that of her contemporaries such as James Nayler and even George Fox himself. Although her importance has been underappreciated by succeeding generations, those who crossed paths with Fell in her own time were left with...