Margaret Fell
Margaret Fell or Margaret Fox (1614 - April 23, 1702) was one of the founding members of the Religious Society of Friends, and was popularly known as the "mother of Quakerism". She is considered one of the Valiant Sixty, early Quaker preachers and missionaries.
She was born Margaret Askew in Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, England. In 1632, she married Thomas Fell, a barrister, and became the lady of Swarthmoor Hall. (Thomas Fell became a judge and a member of Parliament, but disapproved of Oliver Cromwell's assumption of authority, and so later ceased to actively participate in government.)
In 1652, Margaret first heard the ministry of George Fox and became convinced of its truth. Over the next six years, Swarthmoor Hall became a center of Quaker activity; she served as an unofficial secretary for the new movement, receiving and forwarding letters from roving missionaries, and occasionally passing along admonitions to them from Fox, Richard Hubberthorne, James Nayler, and others. She also wrote many epistles herself as part of her activity, as well as collecting and disbursing funds for those on mission trips. After the death of her husband in 1658, she retained control of Swarthmoor Hall, and it remained a meeting place and haven from persecution, even though it was sometimes, in the 1660s, raided by government forces.
Because she was one of the few founding members of the Religious Society of Friends who was an established member of the gentry class, she was frequently called upon to intercede on their behalf in case of persecution or arrest of leaders such as Fox. After the Stuart Restoration, she traveled from Lancashire to London to petition King Charles II and his parliament in 1660 and 1662 for freedom of conscience in religious matters. A submission signed by George Fox and other prominent (male) Quakers was only submitted subsequently in November of 1660. Although the structure and phraseology of these submissions were quite different, the import was similar, arguing that, although Friends wished to see the world changed, they would use persuasion rather than violence towards what they regarded as a "heavenly" (i.e. spiritual) end.
In 1664 Margaret Fell was arrested for failing to take an oath and for allowing Quaker Meetings to be held in her home. She defended herself by saying that "as long as the Lord blessed her with a home, she would worship him in it". She spent six months in Lancaster Gaol, whereafter she was sentenced to life imprisonment and forfeiture of her property. She remained in prison until 1668, during which time she wrote religious pamphlets and epistles. Perhaps her most famous work is the one known as "Women's Speaking" or "Women's Speaking Justified", a scripture-based argument for women's ministry, and one of the major justifications for equal rights for women in the 17th century.
Having been released by order of the King and council, she married George Fox in 1669. On returning to Lancashire after her marriage, she was again imprisoned for about a year in Lancaster for breaking the Conventicle Act. Shortly after her release, George Fox departed on a religious mission to America, and he too was imprisoned again on his return in 1673. Margaret again traveled to London to intercede on his behalf, and he was eventually freed in 1675. After this, they spent about a year together at Swarthmoor, collaborating on defending the recently created organizational structure of separate women's meetings for discipline against their anti-Fox opponents.
George Fox spent most of the rest of his life thereafter abroad or in London until his death in 1691, while Margaret Fell spent most of the rest of her life at Swarthmoor. Surviving both husbands by a number of years, she continued to take an active part in the affairs of the Society including the changes in the 1690s following partial legal tolerance of Quakers, when she was well into her eighties. Somewhat imperious in manner, she took strong positions, as for example in the last decade of her life when she firmly opposed the effort of her fellow believers in Lancashire to uphold traditional standards of conduct against more lenient ones coming from London.
In literature
Margaret Fell's meeting with George Fox and her subsequent conversion are the subject of the first part of the novel The Peaceable Kingdom by Jan de Hartog.
External links
- Swarthmoor Hall Website
- Women's Speaking
- Excerpted in the Norton Anthology of English Literature
- Margaret Fell's Letter to the King and Parliament On Religious Persecution, 1660