Discussion Papers 2025

CIRJE-F-1242	"Washerwomen, Invisible Agency and the Making of a Constitutional Crisis in Charles I's London"
Author Name	Yamamoto, Koji
Date	March 2025
Full Paper	PDF file
Remarks

Abstract
Recent scholarship has shown that women contributed to almost every aspect of the early modern economy. This article suggests society's reliance upon women's essential work may have given them greater political agency than hitherto appreciated. It focuses on the Westminster Soap Company under Charles I, a notorious monopoly that disrupted the laundry trade needed for keeping linens clean. Washerwomen possessed tacit knowledge about soap quality. So their judgement could undermine the reputation both of the monopoly product and of those involved. By combining state papers, parish records and legal testimonies often studied separately, the article then identifies Elizabeth Tucker living in one of the poorest London parishes who petitioned against the monopoly soap. Women like Tucker indeed confronted a London mayor, sparking widespread rumours about the king's displeasure at his alleged cowardice. Women’s refusal to work with the inferior soap contributed to the company's collapse, rejection that was soon co-opted into the emerging critique of monopolies. The case thus questions the assumption that ordinary women's political participation was largely local and non-ideological. Yet their remarkable contributions remained invisible in the rights-based discourse that emerged. The article ends by considering how to reappraise women's political agency without discounting their invisibility.
Keywords: gender, work, manual labor, consumption, political leverage, pre-industrial economy, early modern, London

Abstract

Recent scholarship has shown that women contributed to almost every aspect of the early modern economy. This article suggests society's reliance upon women's essential work may have given them greater political agency than hitherto appreciated. It focuses on the Westminster Soap Company under Charles I, a notorious monopoly that disrupted the laundry trade needed for keeping linens clean. Washerwomen possessed tacit knowledge about soap quality. So their judgement could undermine the reputation both of the monopoly product and of those involved. By combining state papers, parish records and legal testimonies often studied separately, the article then identifies Elizabeth Tucker living in one of the poorest London parishes who petitioned against the monopoly soap. Women like Tucker indeed confronted a London mayor, sparking widespread rumours about the king's displeasure at his alleged cowardice. Women’s refusal to work with the inferior soap contributed to the company's collapse, rejection that was soon co-opted into the emerging critique of monopolies. The case thus questions the assumption that ordinary women's political participation was largely local and non-ideological. Yet their remarkable contributions remained invisible in the rights-based discourse that emerged. The article ends by considering how to reappraise women's political agency without discounting their invisibility.

Keywords: gender, work, manual labor, consumption, political leverage, pre-industrial economy, early modern, London