It is a common view that in the history of political thought there are no female figures on a par with men such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. Our background and training in philosophy gave us little reason to doubt this received wisdom. But our first defence – to quote Judith Drake (fl. 1696–1723) – is that a man ought no more to boast of ‘being Wiser than a Woman, if he owe his Advantage to a better Education, and greater means of Information, then he ought to boast of his Courage, for beating a Man, when his Hands were bound’. When it comes to the history of ideas in Europe from 1400 to 1700, women had their hands bound in many respects: through their lack of formal education in political rhetoric, their official exclusion from citizenship and government, the perception that women ought not to be involved in political affairs, and the view that it was immodest for a woman to write at all. But there is a remarkable number who escaped their bonds: some were educated to a high degree, some were self-educated, some attained the highest levels of government and political authority, others were counsellors and companions to queens; many wrote political commentaries in the guise of religious or prophetical works, and many of them defended their writings with appeal to biblical and secular precedent.