Tyrants and Tyrannicide in Mid-seventeenth Century England : a Woman’s Perspective ?

Abstract

In the wake of the execution of Charles I, a few Englishwomen either denounced (like John Milton) the tyrant or condemned the tyrannicide. Breaking the taboos inherent in patriarchal society, they deliberately used the genre of prophecy to address the issue of regicide in way that was both personal and rational. Discussing the writings of Mary Pope, Elizabeth Poole, and Mary Cary, this paper aims to show that their arguments illuminate an event that has so far been almost exclusively debated from a male point of view.