Mary Howgill

Mary Howgill (c. 1618 – after 1669) 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. 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.

Life 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. It is also possible she was one of two women called Mary Howgill in Lancashire with surviving parish baptism records. 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. In 1660 a Friend wrote:

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.

Writings Letter to Cromwell She delivered her 1653 Letter to Oliver Cromwell, called Protector in person and subsequently had a lengthy discourse with him. She began the letter: When thou wast a soldier for the Lord, thou wast low, and little in thine own eyes; then thou remembredst the Lord, and stood in his fear, and he was thy strength; but now thou art in thy own strength, and hast forgot that time: I say, thou hast denied the Lord God, and thy own law with the pride of thy own heart; and the pride of the heart is now acting all manner of cruelty against them who are in the fear of the Lord — Mary Howgill

The persecution of Quakers and other Nonconformists did indeed significantly worsen in 1662 following the Act of Uniformity.