Women and the Glorious Revolution

The role of women in revolutions has recently excited a good deal of scholarly interest. Innovative studies have appeared on women in the English Civil War, the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution that have not only rescued women from oblivion but also modified and enlarged understanding of the revolutions themselves.' But for the English Revolution of 1688-89 there has been, aside from biographical studies of the two future queens, Mary and Anne, very little published work on the role of women.2 My purpose is to remedy that situation, and to broaden the inquiry by addressing four major questions: (1) what role did women from all social groups, lower, middle, aristocratic and royal, play in the Revolution: (2) why, in view of customary restraints, did they enter the public arena; (3) what influence did they have on the Glorious Revolution; and (4) what influence did the Revolution have on women? Underlying these queries is the basic question of what are the contextual conditions that encourage or even make possible women's participation in revolutions? Such a topic requires changes in the questions customarily used in studying political history. If politics is defined in traditional terms simply as the competi-