Katherine Chidley

Katherine Chidley was a religious and political activist who dissented from the established church; supported the parliamentarian cause against the royalists during the English civil wars of the 1640s; and sided with the proto-democratic Levellers against the more authoritarian regime of Oliver Cromwell. Between 1641 and 1645, Chidley published three works disputing Thomas Edwards' anti-separatist arguments, and promoting the far-reaching principle of the separation of church and state. These are reprinted in this volume and are accompanied by the editor's excellent introduction to Chidley's life and works.