Women in Early Modern England, 1550-1720

ing Glass makers Wives, on behalf of themselves, Husbands and Children, who by reason of the said duty are almost redy to Perish'.³¹⁵

As electoral contests became more regular by the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, new patterns of political protest evolved. During the 1705 elections, Southwark women took exception to a Tory JP who had declared 'that he had rather see a Sow and Pigs, than a Woman and her children'; the women turned up to shout 'No Sow and Pigs'. In Coventry, 'Captain Kate' made a speech to the electoral crowd in support of a Tory candidate. According to The Observator, she clapped the candidate on the back, and declared 'Now, boys, or Never, for the Church.'³¹⁶ Women were also participants in political crowds, street demonstrations, and riots throughout the eighteenth century.³¹⁷

By the 1690s, women's relationship to the political sphere had changed in many respects compared to their position in earlier centuries. Broadly speaking, the formal rights of propertied women which were under male institutional control, such as officeholding and parliamentary suffrage, suffered a relative decline; this downward trend continued over the course of the eighteenth century.³¹⁸ Nor did the prerogatives of Queen Mary II and Queen Anne represent an advance on those of their Tudor predecessors. Indeed, because Mary's husband William was in a strong position to negotiate the terms of his acceptance of the English crown, Mary's monarchical powers were somewhat diminished compared to those of the unmarried Elizabeth 1.

By the end of the century, both political theory and political institutions were more clearly defined as male. After 1690, women were explicitly excluded from parliamentary suffrage because of their sex. In the eighteenth century, women were barred from listening to debates in the House of Commons. However, such developments do not necessarily indicate that women played fewer or less active roles in politics. Male-centred political theory may have been in part a response to women's greater participation

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