Memorable Women of the Puritan Times

This book describes the lives of fourteen women of the Puritan ranks, who had a profound influence on English history. It is sad that the modern connotation of the word, “Puritan,” is one of harshness, severity, and drabness, for that was not the case at all with these women. They were intelligent, knowledgeable and for the most part, very well-educated for women of the seventeenth century. Their dress does not fit modern-day stereotypes of “Puritans,” as can be seen from the illustrations added to this reprint edition. One of the most graphic pictures in the book is that of Agnes Beaumont, the friend of John Bunyan, who stood accused of intrigue and murder, with only God's grace and her own innocent heart to shield her. It is amazing story of how she returned home from one of Bunyan's prayer-meetings, where she had gone in pious disobedience to her father's wishes, to find that house shut up and her father bitterly incensed against her; how she remained all night in the barn, half- dead with cold and terror; then in the morning, meeting with her father, he angry and unappeased, she supplicating and clinging to him, piteously beseeching for pardon, which he would only grant her on condition – that she never associate with Bunyan again, how, by a strong effort, she at last gave in to his wishes, and promised that she would not disobey him again, and then how the reaction was too much for the high-tempered old man, and he was found dead soon after; and Agnes accused of his murder. The story of Margaret Charlton, afterwards the wife of Richard Baxter, is not very unlike that of John Knox and his young and highly-born bride, the winning of whom his enemies said he must have employed magic, so impossible would it have been, that an “old fusionless, feckless fellow,” should have honestly gained such a fair young lady.” Another somewhat remarkable figure among the less known characters is of Bridget Ireton, wife of Thomas Bendish, and Cromwell's favourite grandchild. A high-spirited, strong-minded woman was she, with a powerful will and great personal dignity, a woman who did not much regard what societal fencings she rode over. Every page teams with information of the highest order, presented in a winning and graceful manner. Read more