The writing of women exerted formative pressure upon not simply what it meant to be an English Protestant, but also what it meant to be an English Protestant poet. This study has thus far assessed how the figure of the religious female lent authority to the writing of women, and how, in turn, women used this authority in the arena of religious polemics. This is not to say that women were not participants in what we regard (in post-Romantic terms) as literary production. On the contrary, women were crucial agents in the development of a religious literary tradition in England. The influence of martyr narratives and private prayer upon later literary language has been widely researched and described. It is impossible to trace that influence to a single work – it is only possible to demonstrate the prominent place of certain women's works within these generic conventions.