Over 7,000 women signed this anti-tithe petition in 1659, delivered to Parliament. Organized by the Society of Friends, or ‘Quakers’ not all signatories were followers of the faith, but all disagreed with the taxes imposed by the Church of England.
The year 1659 was a relatively chaotic one across England: The Protectorate collapsed in and the Rump Parliament was re-established. Quaker responses to the political and social changes were not uniform. During that year, two anti-tithe petitions were delivered to Parliament by Quakers. One of these was transcribed from the original in the 1900s. This petition voices an unfavourable opinion of taxes applied by the Church of England. This index is created from that transcription, which was made available to FindMyPast within the content of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.