Prof Jackie Eales: Petitions, Spies and Sieges: The Fortunes of Women in the English Civil Wars

Sun 27 April, 1 - 2pm

Augustine Hall, AHg27, Augustine House, CT1 2YA

In August 1643, after a year of warfare, the Royalist commander John Scudamore commented on the surprising intervention of London women in Westminster politics. While some petitioned for peace, others had turned to violence to end the war:

“the women against the House of Commons in multitudes … Mr. Pym beaten by the women and with much difficulty escaped their fury by water”.

The London trained bands killed some of the women during the tumult and just a few weeks earlier, Lady D’Aubigny had been arrested in London while hiding a commission from the King in her impressive beehive hairdo.

Scudamore used these examples to persuade Brilliana Harley to avoid bloodshed and surrender her Herefordshire home, Brampton Bryan Castle, to the king. In response, Brilliana refused all offers of leniency and endured a siege lasting seven weeks.

This talk will follow the fortunes of women in the 1640s as they petitioned both king and Parliament, defended their homes against plundering armies and undertook dangerous spying missions. From the queen and the aristocracy to the fishwives of London, women were engaged at every level of society in the politics and fighting of the civil wars.

Jackie Eales is Professor Emeritus at Canterbury Christ Church University and President of the British Association for Local History. A former President of the Historical Association (2011 to 2014), she is an Early Modernist with specialisms in the English Civil Wars, Puritanism, and Tudor and Stuart women. Her publications include with Beverly Tjerngren (eds) ‘The Social Life of the Early Modern Protestant Clergy’ (University of Wales Press); ‘Women in Early Modern England’ (Routledge), and ‘Puritans and Roundheads: The Harleys of Brampton Bryan and the Outbreak of the English Civil War’ (Cambridge University Press). An essay on ‘Puritan Views of Society and Social Obligations’ for the Oxford Handbook of Puritanism is forthcoming.

Tickets

Tickets are £10 per event. If you are booking 10 or more tickets of any given type (e.g. 10 tickets to one lecture, or 1 ticket to 10 lectures) within a single transaction, then a discount of £2 per ticket will be applied at the checkout, and you will only pay £8 per ticket.

Student discounts

There are a limited number of £2 student tickets available for talks scheduled in Augustine Hall, AHg27; these are not available for tours, or talks taking place in AH3.31. To access this discount, please use discount code HISTORY2025 when prompted during the booking process. Please note that student ID must be presented with student tickets on the door of the events.