‘Give mee a Souldier's Coat’: Female Cross‐Dressing during the English Civil War

Abstract

Abstract This article lifts the veil on the women who dressed as men during the English Civil War –and on contemporary reactions towards them. The piece begins by noting that – although it is often claimed that the armies of king and parliament were accompanied by many females who had ‘counterfeited their sex’ in order to march into the field – those claims rest on a surprisingly slim evidential base. Next, the article considers the ways in which both cross‐dressed women and women in quasi‐masculine attire were viewed during the half century before the war began – and suggests that attitudes towards such women may sometimes have reflected broader politico‐religious attitudes. Finally, the article explores the handful of cases in which the presence of cross‐dressed women in the rival armies is genuinely attested to – and asks what these cases reveal about reactions to such women during the conflict itself.

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