Abstract
This article explores some of the possibilities for female political agency afforded by discourse of religion in revolutionary England. Focusing particularly on the proceedings of the General Council of the Army between 28 December and 5 January 1649, it attempts to demonstrate how one woman, the Baptist Elizabeth Poole, could subvert masculinist regicidal discourses surrounding the trial and execution of Charles I through subtle and purposeful manipulation of Old and New Testament figures and tropes. In spite of recent historiographical work which has dismissed Poole as insignificant, insane and politically illiterate, this article brings Poole's own texts to bear on the selective official reports made by the Council's secretary, William Clarke, thereby enabling a more finely nuanced picture of female political agency to emerge
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