Katherine Chidley

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KC was the first woman to take up her pen in the political and religious crisis of the mid seventeenth century. Her pamphlets urge parliament to replace Anglicanism not by Presbyterianism but by Independency . This religious movement preceded the founding of the Society of Friends in advocating broad involvement of ordinary people regardless of gender. KC advocates toleration and respect for the spirituality of people of both sexes: her message deserves to be regarded as early feminist theory, especially when she uses the argument from natural rights.
Gillespie, Katharine. “A Hammer in Her Hand: The Separation of Church from State and the Early Feminist Writings of Katherine Chidley”. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Vol.
17
, No. 2, pp. 213-33.
215, 213-14

Milestones

After 6 June 1641

KC published her first attack on Thomas Edwards : The Justification of the Independant Churches of Christ.
McDowell, Paula. The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, 1678-1730. Clarendon.
152
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

23 April 1649

KC may have been one of the Leveller women who petitioned Parliament for the release of John Lilburne ; she may also have been the chief writer of the petition.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Gillespie, Katharine. “A Hammer in Her Hand: The Separation of Church from State and the Early Feminist Writings of Katherine Chidley”. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Vol.
17
, No. 2, pp. 213-33.
225

Biography

Obscure Birth and Background

KC was probably born late in the sixteenth century, most likely by about 1596, though this is speculation.

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