The Grand Quarrel

This work draws together the memoirs of women involved in the English Civil War, on both sides. The accounts of wives and daughters provide an insight into women's experiences of the time for general reader and historian alike. They include the Duchess of Newcastle (who has been called "the first English woman writer") on her husband's role at the battle of Marston Moor in 1644; royalist Lucy Hutchinson, whose writing has the immediacy of a diary; Ann Fanshawe's memoirs of 1676, written so a son could know a father killed in battle (and valued by Virginia Woolf for their "candour and simplicity"); and Brilliana Harley, who describes her own active role in the fighting of the English Civil War for her son, Ned. The introduction sets the writings in historical context, describes the families of the women, and comments briefly on the writings' literary and historical value. Thh book also includes a chronology, biographical notes on the women and family trees.