Miss Beth Bourn Williams

My research interests lie in political culture, consortship, and gender during the seventeenth century. My current research examines the wife and daughters of Oliver Cromwell between 1647 and 1664, and argues that exploring how Elizabeth, Lady Protectress, and her children were represented and received can provide a new perspective on how power and authority were conceptualised, created, and enacted. It aims to integrate the study of the Cromwell family into the historiography surrounding Oliver Cromwell and the politics and political culture of the Interregnum, in order to reach new conclusions about the nature of protectorate governance, how it was represented, and how it was perceived.  It will also contribute to questions surrounding the role of women in seventeenth century politics, and to studies on queenship. The roles of domesticity and the family within the protectorate have been largely ignored: this is perhaps the most significant contribution a study of the Cromwells can offer to the historiography of the 1640s and 1650s. Not only does it offer a new perspective on better studied areas such as the degree to which Cromwell was king in all but name, but it integrates the approaches and methodology of gender history and women's history, and expands how historians view the political culture of the Interregnum.