Katherine Chidley

Katherine Chidley (fl. 1616–1653) was a religious controversialist & Leveller.

Her origins and background are unknown but by the late 1640s she had emerged as the leader of Leveller women.

In 1649 several hundred Leveller women besieged Parliament in support of the Leveller leader John Lilburne who was on trial for high treason and they were instrumental in gaining his release after he was found not guilty but nevertheless not released.

In their second petition Petition of Women, Affecters and Approvers of the Petition of 11 September 1648, 1649, which may have been written by Chidley, the Leveller women justified their political activity on the basis of 'our creation in the image of God, and of an interest in Christ equal unto men, as also of a proportional share in the freedoms of this Commonwealth'.^[1]

When John Lilburne found himself on trial again in 1653, Chidley rallied to his defence organizing a petition to Barebone's Parliament that reportedly gathered over 6000 female signatures. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography reports that they were informed Parliament could not notice the petition, 'they being women and many of them wives, so that the Law tooke no notice of them'.^[2]

Nothing further of her is documented after 1653 and her date of death is not known. She is treated in George Ballard's Memoirs of British Ladies (1752) and mentioned in episode 9 of Simon Schama's BBC History of Britain (at 12:30 minutes into the episode).

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