Mary Howgill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mary Howgill | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | c. 1618 |
| Died | after 1669 |
| Nationality | English |
| Denomination | Society of Friends |
Mary Howgill (c. 1618 – after 1669)[1] was a prominent early member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in England. She is regarded as one of the Valiant Sixty, the principal early preachers of Quakerism.[2][3] She is best known for her preaching and for her writings, especially her 1656 Letter to Oliver Cromwell, called Protector, a lengthy public defence of the Quakers personally delivered to Cromwell.[4][5][6]
Early life and Quaker ministry
Mary Howgill’s early life and family background are uncertain and no birth record exists. She was probably the sister of Francis Howgill, another early Quaker preacher from Grayrigg in Westmorland.[1][7] It is also possible she was one of two women called Mary Howgill in Lancashire with surviving parish baptism records.[1] The Dictionary of National Biography suggests she was likely born sometime around 1618.[1]
Coincidence suggest that Howgill was a convert of the first great wave of Quaker enthusiasm in 1652, when George Fox began preaching in Lancashire and Westmorland. Within a year, in 1653, she was in prison in Kendal for preaching Quaker ideas.[5] This suggests that her ministry may have followed swiftly after her conversion.
She travelled extensively across the British Isles in the course of her ministry, preaching in Lancashire, East Anglia, Devonshire, London, and in Ireland. While delivering her letter she apparently had a long conversation with Protector Oliver. As with almost all the early preaching Friends, she suffered spells of imprisonment, both in Lancashire and in Devonshire.[8][9]
Controversy with other Friends
In 1658, while she was travelling in the ministry in the east of England, Richard Hubberthorne, another early Quaker pioneer, suggested to George Fox that Howgill’s preaching was becoming unhinged, and that Friends were beginning to refuse to have her visit their meetings.[10] In 1660 a Friend wrote:
"She much opposes us, yet for the world's sake she is borne, it were well she were stopped."[11]
Another contemporary described her as "distracted". Part of the background to these objections was a fear of public scandal and anti Quaker persecution in the aftermath of the Naylor case of 1656. Howgill was apocalyptic in her theology and may have shared some of James Naylor's radical tendencies. It is also likely that the near universal consensus against women preaching meant Howgill’s very public ministry courted persecution.