The Prophetess and the Patriarch ¿ The Visions of an Anti¿Regicide in Seventeenth¿Century England

Published for the first time in full, a common woman-s writings reveal the startling role she played in England-s revolt against the monarchy. In 1649, a seamstress named Elizabeth Poole appeared at the Whitehall debates in London to prophesy in front of Parliament-s army shortly after it had defeated the crown in the English civil wars. Invited to help deliberate the fate of Charles I, Poole advised the army to spare the king-s life but to put him on trial for tyranny and to enter into a new compact with the people. After her visions proved controversial, she was defamed as a prostitute and a witch. She retaliated by printing her prophecies, along with two new defenses of her original revelations. This collection publishes Poole-s pamphlets in full for the first time.