The Prophetess and the Patriarch The Visions of an AntiRegicide in SeventeenthCentury England

Published for the first time in full, a common womans writings reveal the startling role she played in Englands revolt against the monarchy. In 1649, a seamstress named Elizabeth Poole appeared at the Whitehall debates in London to prophesy in front of Parliaments 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 kings 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 Pooles pamphlets in full for the first time.