If we are nominating influential women who incite rebellion then I must nominate John Ashby's wife of Ashby's Fort during the French & Indian War. Several time's Mrs. Ashby must have caused such disruption at the fort and inciting mutany that GW wrote to John Ashby that if he didn't get his wife under control that GW himself was going to come to the fort and remove her himself. LOL. Ahhh the powerful women behind the powerful men, eh? ----- Original Message ----- From: <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 9:27 AM Subject: Re: Great/Important 17th Century Virginian Forget Pocahontas! Seventeenth Century Virginia’s real feminist icon was an intelligent, ambitious, and well-connected blonde who married three Royal Governors and left an indelible mark upon the colony’s political history. For more than three decades, “Lady” Frances Culpeper Stephens Berkeley Ludwell was unquestionably Virginia’s most politically powerful woman. An astute political operator in her own right, she used her high-level contacts in London and Virginia to bolster her husbands’ careers and her personal estate. Her influence upon her second husband, Governor Sir William Berkeley, was so great that some historians have blamed her for the outbreak of Bacon’s Rebellion. Following Berkeley's death, she led the “Green Spring Faction’s” resistance against London’s efforts to impose more direct bureaucratic control upon Virginia. Daniel Lovelace, President The Friends of the National Park Service for Green Spring, Inc. To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html