Women all on fire - Alison Plowden

An account of the heroic women who played an active part in the war between King and Parliament in the 17th century. The Royalists include Queen Henrietta Maria, who fled abroad with some of the Crown jewels to raise money for the cause; and Mary Banks, wife of the King's Privy Councillor, who defended Corge Castle during an epic three-month siege, forcing the storming Roundheads to withdraw by heaving hot embers over the battlements. On the opposing side, there are the letters of Puritan Lady Brilliana Harley, revealing her constant fear as she guarded Brampton Bryan Castle in Herefordshire; the writing of Anne Fairfax, wife of Cromwell's northern General, who was taken prisoner after the battle of Adwalton Moor near Leeds; and a classic account of the war from a Puritan's view by Lucy Hutchinson, wife of the Governor of Nottingham.;The book also offers first-hand accounts by the oyster wenches of Parliamentary London, who laboured beside the men digging trenches around the City, and women who helped prisoners to escape, such as Anne Murray, who provided clothes for the Duke of York, and Jane Lane and Juliana Coningsby who risked their lives for the King after his flight from Worcester.