On 12 June 2023, Stephen Barker spoke about Six Warrior Women of the English Civil Wars.
Stephen began by setting the scene, talking about the three Civil Wars of the 1640s and the position of women at the time. The Civil Wars were bloody and brutal on a scale that is perhaps not appreciated today. Women had few rights, being unable to own property and subject to their father before marriage and their husband afterwards. But through the roles they played in the Civil Wars, the six women that Stephen spoke about helped to change the beliefs that people had about women and their capabilities.
Lady Mary Bankes defended Corfe Castle for three years against sieges by Parliamentary forces. Mary Overton was a prominent Leveller who was jailed for publishing seditious pamphlets, written by her husband, whom she later petitioned Parliament to have released after he too had been imprisoned. Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle, was a spy and double agent, working at various times for both sides in the conflict. Women proved to be excellent spies for both sides. Dorothy Hazard was a dissenter who established a Baptist church in Bristol and was active in the defence of the city against the Royalist besiegers. Lady Jane Whorwood was an ardent Royalist who acted as a spy and smuggler, and engineered a plot (which proved unsuccessful) for Charles I’s escape from imprisonment on the Isle of Wight in 1648. Lady Mary Verney, originally from Abingdon, married Ralph Verney whose estates in Buckinghamshire were sequestered by the government in 1646 during his exile in France. Mary returned to England to oppose the sequestration in Parliament and was eventually successful.
On 10 July 2023, Christine Bovingdon-Cox will speak about 50 Years in the Thames Valley Police.