Unbridled Spirits: Women of the English Revolution, 1640-1660

by Stevie Davies

Unbridled Spirits is a vibrant and authoritative study of the women of the 17th century, women who found the means to speak out and demand change at a time when a woman could be publicly humiliated, bridled and tortured for scolding her husband.

Genres: History, Religion, English Civil War, Nonfiction

367 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Welsh born Stevie Davies is a novelist, literary critic, biographer and historian. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the Academi Gymreig and is Director of Creative Writing at the University of Wales, Swansea.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very powerful piece of historical research and writing and covers one of my favourite periods of history, the English Civil War. It focuses on women writers and preachers of the period.
Davies acknowledges a debt to historians like Christopher Hill. Hill and other radical and Marxist Historians of his ilk developed “history from below”; however she does point out that the male historians have tended to leave out women in their analyses of the period.
There was a massive increase in the printed word during the civil war. The Reformation led to the notion that anyone could read the Bible in their own language. It’s then a short step to the point where anyone can interpret it as well. This book covers a wide variety of women who spoke out, wrote, printed, prophesied and preached. There are Quakers (the more radical argued for class and gender equality), Fifth Monarchists (one of the many millenarian groups), Levellers (early socialists), women who were opposed to the war, women who were opposed to tithes, women who had founded their own churches and even women on the opposing side who supported the King. The civil war period produced all sorts of radical movements which harried and upset the established order. These women were certainly a minority as most women were mute through illiteracy or oppression.
Davies also outlines what these women went through as a result of their determination to speak out. They were imprisoned in appalling conditions, whipped or flogged (usually semi naked through the streets), fitted with a scold’s bridle, put on a ducking stool, publicly humiliated; some lost their lives. The price of speaking out was great; Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheever, two Quaker women travelling together, were imprisoned by the Inquisition on the island of Malta for three years. The Inquisitors attempted to convert them to Catholicism without success, using a variety of means, some very brutal. They withstood all efforts to undermine them. Davies says she wants to “haunt readers with the revolutionary women’s stories”; she succeeds.
The research is meticulous and Davies allows the women to speak for themselves. Much of the writing is, of course, religious, but there is a focus on equality and the pulling down of established authority and some writing feels very modern.
If you are interested in the social history of the civil war, this is a must read. If you are interested in the development of women’s voices and want to read about women who were determined to be heard and just would not be quiet then this is also for you.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a longstanding obsession with the French Revolution, but know a lot less about the English Revolution as it hasn't attracted my interest to anything like the same extent. In Unbridled Spirits: Women of the English Revolution 1640-1660, Stevie Davies provides a succinct explanation as to why:

The English Civil War has been called the 'last of the religious wars' rather than the first of the European Revolutions; and the temper of mind of its particpants seems foreign to moderns. [...]
The English Revolution was not a war waged by plebs and 'middling sorts' against the gentry. But it did involve an upheaval which challenged the social order, in which birth, affluence, and even gender came under fierce stress. The last might be the first and first be last; the poor might inherit the earth while the rich were tramped in the mire - next week perhaps.

The book is specifically concerned with women's involvement in the upheavals of the English Revolution. Davies draws upon many fascinating documents of the time, varying in tone from women's own writing to screeds by men condemning them. This is not a narrative popular history but an academic analysis of primary evidence. It is nonetheless highly readable to the non-historian, as Davies writes in a bracing, irreverent tone with considerable sympathy for the women whose experiences she recounts:

8 August 1643. Shoals of Peace Women wearing white ribbons in their hats and pinned to their breasts mobbed Westminster. With uproar, crying, "Peace! Peace!", they demanded an end to the civil conflict ruining livelihoods and killing their husbands. At one point they charged the entrance to the House and, crowding up the staircase, blocked it, creating pandemonium; soldiers beat them back with the flat of their swords. 'Yesterday in the afternoon,' reported the newspaper Certaine Informations, with the English press' legendary spirit of objectivity:

'two or three hundred oyster wives, and other dirty and tattered sluts, took upon them the impudency to come to the honourable House of Commons...'

I hadn't realised that England already had tabloids in the 17th century. Indeed, I learned a lot from Unbridled Spirits: Women of the English Revolution 1640-1660. The most interesting chapters for me dealt with gender roles in Quaker marriages (potentially more equal than you might assume for the time) and the paradoxical impact of civil war era political reforms:

By another irony, this class of women [single, widows, and property owners] was being stripped of political rights previously enjoyed. The seventeenth century, which seems to embody a spirit of liberation, actually witnessed a clamp-down on vestigal rights some women once held by default, and exercised in an age when property was the primary qualification for authority. From this perspective, we can see the period as the tail-end of an era for women rather than a libertarian dawn, even a false dawn. Just as women lost business parity with the decline of specialised craft guilds, where in medieval times married businesswomen had often enjoyed full status in their own right, so their vestigial rights both to vote at local and national elections and serve as local officials were drawing to an end.

Unbridled Spirits: Women of the English Revolution 1640-1660 is a refreshing and detailed look at the evidence of what roles women took during the English Civil War. Although I still find much more to compel me in the French Revolution, this is also a period with interesting resonances and links to the present day. In The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, Ellen Meiksins Wood argues that Cromwell's colonialist occupation of Ireland at the time trialed Britain's rapacious 18th and 19th century imperial strategy. For the current reader, the religious basis of 17th century politics seems opaque, but serves as a reminder that Protestantism and capitalism have been closely interconnected for many centuries. In a sense, America's Christian right is the latest iteration of a very old phenomenon. It was also helpful to recall that women have always been involved in politics and resistance to oppression, regardless of how willing authorities were to hear them.

[Bryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first glance a book about female radicals and prohpets from th 1600s may seem to be of limited appeal. But, this is a glorious book, powerfully written, constructing an alternative to mainstream history. If you care about women's history at all, or the history of alternative religious movements, or the history of radical politics, this is a great read. If you want to explore how people apparently powerless and on the fringes can get involved with monumetous social upheaval, this is a truly inspiring book. I loved it.

[Pippa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fascinating and well written. Reminded me slightly of what Showalter wrote about in The Female Malady, but in a different period (I don't think she covered this period at all, but I'm writing this some time later, so could be wrong).

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to get this one from InterLibrary Loan. Wild, angry, not-going-to-take-it-anymore women of the seventeenth century! And some of them were my spiritual ancestors, the early Quakers.

[Andrew H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stevie Davies is both a historian and novelist. Just as her novels benefit from detailed historical and literary wisdom, so her critical work is enhanced by a novelist's eye. No wonder that this book was valued by the notable John Carey. Unbridled Spirits breaths original insights and first-hand research. In this survey of women's writings and attitudes from 1640-1660, a crucial time in English history, Stevie Davies reveals the voices of women who refused to be silent. At times, the book had me rolling with laughter at the sheer audacity of the free spirited women. The section on Anna Trapnel would be one example of this. At the close of this book, I felt as if I had walked the seventeenth century's twisted paths towards political freedom and Heaven.

[Barb Drummond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, with lots of original research on a period that gets too little attention away from the battles of the civil war. These women were brave, tragic, clever and Davies brings them to life well. When a woman went traveling in Cornwall she was arrested for being a possible vagrant because she was without a man to supervise her. She defended herself by telling how much she had sacrificed for the war, then asked was I a vagrant then? Indeed. There is a lot of madness here, which fits as it was a mad time to be alive.
Davies covers a lot of ground, and brings the period to life. Well worth a read.