Society of Friends

MF composed her latest known work, An Epistle to Friends, urging the Society not to isolate themselves from society by adopting the distinctive dress with which they nevertheless proceeded to identify themselves.

MF was the most prolific, as well as one of the most influential, Quaker writers. She wrote letters; her single-volume collected works contained forty-five tracts, nearly all written in the 1650s and 1660s. They appeared...

Born in the English gentry and brought up an Anglican , she became a Quaker in middle age. After this she quickly became a leader in the movement. Her class status, unusual among Quaker preachers...

Thomas Fell's estate, Swarthmoor Hall in Lancashire, was MF 's home for most of her adult life, and has since become a shrine to the history of the Society of Friends .

In organising the Fund she was interested in promoting social cohesion among Quakers as well as relieving hardship.George Fox continued to frequent Swarthmoor, and at the time of the Restoration (May 1660) was...

MF was an important Quaker preacher; yet her own preaching was probably eclipsed in importance by her publications and by her facilitation of the publishing of other Quakers. George Fox 's journal includes a defence...

This text was highly topical. Manasseh ben Israel had arrived in England the previous October to negotiate with Cromwell over the return of the Jews to England, which had been legislated in December. MF asked...

Although not prone to harping on God's vengeance, MF here calls the rival sect of the Rantersbeasts who, because of their libertinism, tend downwards into the earth instead of upwards to God.

CF is interested less in appearances than how things work. On her first journey she made this observation of the spire of Salisbury Cathedral: being so high it appeares to us below as sharpe...

Punishments laid down in 1657 for members of the Society of Friends daring to come to Massachusetts consisted of physical violence: whippings, cropped ears, and tongues bored with a hot iron.

The reception in Izmir of MF and her associates shows that Quakers were as unacceptable to the English establishment abroad as at home. Her celebrated audience with Mehmet IV was reported in print a few...

MF herself wrote soon after her return from Turkey: I have borne my testimony to the king unto whom I was sent, and he was very noble unto me . . . . He received...

Her proselytising effort was courteously received. The Sultan apparently recognised and acknowledged the spiritual truth in MF 's speech. It also brought her an enduring fame, chiefly within the bounds of her own Quaker faith.

Soon after joining the Society of Friends , MF was sentenced to sixteen months of imprisonment in York Castle for her obstreperous activism.

MF , now a Quaker missionary to foreign parts, landed in the West Indies (that is Barbados) in time for news of her arrival to reach England on 15 October.