Dr Erica Canela’s debut history work, Zealous: A Darker Side of the Early Quakers, published by Pen & Sword History in the UK in late September 2025, focuses on the oft-sidelined history of the early Quakers, bringing to life these unconventional and fascinating people in Stuart Britain – with their many trials and tribulations. This period was at… Read on
‘In his journals, George Fox wrote of an occasion when he joined a gathering of men and women of all faiths in a steeple house near his home in Leicester. The discussion of the Book of Peter inspired a woman to speak out and ask a question, what was birth. The priest bade her sit down for he would not permit her . . . or perhaps any woman . . . to speak in his church, though before Fox understood that the priest had given liberty to all who wished to speak. A debate of what constituted a church followed.’