This collection of letters by Brilliana Harley (1598–1643) displays a remarkable woman, who died in the midst of the English civil wars, and who had a deep and vigorous ‘Puritan spirituality’. While Harley’s letters have gained the attention of academics who have scoured her correspondence for insights about mid seventeenth-century family life or details about the Civil War in English counties bordering Wales, this collection of thirty-eight letters has a different focus. Haykin’s collection gives attention to ‘what she herself would wish us to draw from her writing: namely, what does it mean to live a life according to biblical principle and for the glory of God’ (p. 3). Annotations throughout help readers identify persons, events and relevant literature.

The book’s title is drawn from a description in Thomas Froysell’s funeral sermon for Brilliana’s husband, Rober Harley. The preacher described Brilliana as ‘that noble lady and phoenix of women’ (p. 4). Haykin points out that in in Christian tradition, the phoenix had been symbolic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The bird was used as a symbol of literal and figurative resurrection. Gradually the bird was used to describe an exemplary individual – a tradition which included Queen Elizabeth i (1533–1603), who was called ‘the phoenix of the world’. Froysell was clearly lauding ‘the exemplary nature of Brilliana both as a Christian and as a woman’. Haykin speculates that perhaps the resurrection image was in mind as well, for ‘so vital were this woman’s life and letters that she would continue to speak long after her death’ (p. 6).

Brilliana was born in Brill (hence the derivation of her name), near Rotterdam in 1598. Her grandfather and great-grandfather were Protestants so she had what was described as ‘an exceptional Protestant heritage’ (p. 8). Her father served as a governor on behalf of what was then an English colony. On 17 April 1606, while her father was in England, Brilliana and three of her siblings were naturalised as English subjects. Her father, Sir Edward Conway, was appointed in 1623 as secretary of state to the English King James i (1566–1625).

Brilliana’s education included learning French and Latin and in a commonplace book, composed one year before her marriage, in 1623, she included citations from the Bible, but also from Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian religion and the ‘father of Puritan theology’, William Perkins (1558–1602), as well as Nathaniel Cole’s (1584/5–1626) The godly mans assurance: or, A Christians certaine resolution of his own salvation (1615). Particularly Brilliana focused on the topic of predestination and the forgiveness of sins (pp. 11, 12). She emphasised the prescriptive role of Scripture, writing: ‘Whatsoever we worship God in, it must be grounded in the Word of God’ (p. 12). Her future husband, Robert Harley (1579–1656) of Brampton Bryan Castle was, at that time, writing a small study of what it meant to be a Puritan.

Robert and Brilliana were married on 16 July 1623 by the Puritan preacher, Thomas Gataker (1574–1654). Robert’s family home was a castle (dating from the 1290s) in north-western Herefordshire, close to the Welsh border – a position that made it of vital military importance. The wealthy Robert was twice-widowed and had buried a number of his children. His mother had passed on her Protestant faith to her son who was described as ‘earnest for presbytery’ – and he became a ‘prominent and distinguished Presbyterian’ (p. 14).

Robert was elected a member of the Long Parliament in 1640, two years prior to the outbreak of the English Civil War (p. 16). He was appointed to lead the activities to demolish ‘monuments of superstition and idolatry’ and to reform the London Church by removing vestiges of Roman Catholic worship. At his funeral, the Revd Thomas Froysell said Harley was ‘a great saint by grace’ and ‘if other saints are candles, he was a torch’ (p. 18).

When the Civil War broke out, though the Harleys were ‘full-throated Puritans’, their surrounding areas were largely Royalist and therefore hostile to the Harley family (p. 23). With Robert away, Brilliana managed the castle while facing personal fears: ‘They [some of her wealthy neighbours] are in mighty violence against me … I never was in such sorrows … I hope the Lord will deliver me; but they are most cruelly bent against me’ (p. 24). She devised a plan for the defence of the castle.

On 26 July 1643, Royalist forces attacked and besieged the castle with a force of 700 soldiers (p. 26). Inside the castle were around 100 men, women and children as well as fifty soldiers and fifty civilians, including Brilliana and her three youngest children along with a number of friends. The castle was held until 9 September. It was bombarded nearly every day and the neighbouring village was burned. Though the castle was left roofless, remarkably, only one death and a few injuries occurred. The Royalists lost nearly seventy men (p. 28).

On 21 August 1643, King Charles i wrote to Brilliana and encouraged her to surrender (Appendix 4). Brilliana refused, arguing: ‘I have the law of nature, of reason, and of the land on my side, and you [that is, the King and his troops] none to take it from me’ (p. 29).

The siege was lifted on 9 September, though a second siege took place in spring 1644. In three weeks, the Royalists took the castle using mines and powerful artillery, inflicting susbstantial damage. When the castle was surrendered, the building were sacked and burned, with the ruins still standing. Sixty-seven persons were imprisoned for a year (p. 29).

But Brilliana had died on 31 October 1643. She experienced an ‘exceeding great cold’ and had an attack of kidney stones a week before she died, accompanied by a stroke. A parliamentary soldier, Samuel More (1594–1662), wrote that Brilliana ‘went to keep the eternal sabbath in heaven, where she can never be besieged’. Her death was described as ‘an apoplexy with a defluxion of the lungs’ (p. 30). With the siege continuing, the place of her burial is unknown (p. 33).

Haykin’s history of Brilliana sets the context for the thirty-eight of the some 400 letters Brilliana wrote from 1623 until her death. Her love for her absent husband and her children as well as her anger with neighbours who had turned on her ‘blaze off the page’ (p. 33). Most of her letters were to her oldest son, Edward (Ned, as she called him), to whom she wrote weekly letters from 1638 to 1640. Edward was later described as ‘a good and religious man’ – surely affected by his mother’s piety.

Haykin discusses Brilliana’s piety. She emphasised living to the glory of God, having written in her commonplace book (1622) that ‘It is God that first turns our will to that which is good and we are converted by the power of God only’ (p. 36). The influence of Calvin was pervasive as well as was her ‘Augustinian conception of the innate sinfulness of humanity’, with Brilliana telling Ned that that ‘nothing hurts the soul like that deadly poison of sin’ (letter 26, p. 109, cf. letter 36).

Unconditional election was important in Brilliana’s theology. She prayed that Ned would receive those ‘choice blessings of his Spirit, which none but his dear elect are partakers of; so that you may taste that sweetness in God’s service which indeed is in it; but the men of this world cannot perceive it’ (letter 5, p. 55, cf. letter 11, p. 73; letter 18, p. 91). Haykin notes that ‘it is significant that Brilliana yokes together here the doctrine of election with the believer’s experience’ (p. 37). Her commitment to the doctrine was ‘profoundly experiential’.

In addition to her profound love for her husband (pp. 38, 39, 42) was Brilliana’s love for God and for godly living. Throughout this selection of her letters are her ‘nuggets of spiritual advice’, emerging from her readings, from Calvin and Perkins and even Roman Catholic works. Brilliana urged Ned to regular prayer for: ‘O it is a sweet thing to have private conference with our God’ (letter 16, p. 87, cf. letters 8, 11, 27). Regular Scripture reading formed a core for living: ‘We must feed upon the Word of God, which when we have done we must not let it lie idle, but we must be diligent in exercising of what we know, and the more we practice the more we shall know’ (letter 8, p. 65, cf. letters 2, 11, 17). Sabbath observance was another admonition to Ned: ‘Be careful to keep the Sabbath’ (letter 4, p. 53, cf. letter 28). Haykin notes that ‘what is conspicuous by its absence, though, is any reference to the Lord’s Supper’ (p. 42).

Brilliana Harley was an extraordinary seventeenth-century woman in many ways. This book gives us an excellent ‘inside look’ at aspects of her life. Haykin has clearly conveyed that her vivacity was ‘ultimately informed by a deep commitment to the Puritan vision of Christian godliness’ (p. 43).