Astell and Drake: Tory Feminists

Astell was a prolific pamphleteer, a philosopher, and a writer of feminist tracts championing women’s education and criticizing marriage; her oeuvre totaled over eight publications. Drake’s only known writings are her Essay in Defence of the Female Sex and the preface to James Drake’s Anthropologia Nova, her husband’s treatise on anatomy. Both women were feminists, advancing the case for women’s education, and adopted similar anonymizing signatures—Drake as “a lady” and Astell as “a lover of her sex.” They also undoubtedly shared a flair for biting, sardonic rhetoric. Of the two, Astell is much better known, and it is perhaps owing to this that Drake’s Essay has been wrongly attributed to Astell for several centuries. Nonetheless, scholars have noted that this long-standing error is puzzling given the stark differences between Drake’s Essay and Astell’s writings (MacDonald Reference MacDonald2026; F. Smith Reference Smith1916; H. Smith Reference Smith2001; Upham Reference Upham1913). While Astell was inspired by René Descartes and his rationalist method, Drake recommended John Locke’s empiricist epistemology (Springborg Reference Springborg2005). Where Drake approved of sociability and conversation between the sexes, Astell sought to limit it (MacDonald Reference MacDonald2026, 62). And though Astell urged women to be more ambitious, Drake celebrated women’s more “bounded” ambitions (Bol, Reference Bolforthcoming). This article will zoom in on yet another crucial difference between Astell and Drake: they both criticized republican accounts of flattery, but, as we will see, they had opposing views on how the problem of flattery should be solved.

While Astell and Drake were both feminists, they were also undeniably Tories. Astell’s pamphlets supported Tory causes such as the occasional-conformity bills (more on this later), the union of church and state, and antitoleration. Drake’s husband penned infamous Tory pamphlets against the practice of occasional conformity. As Hannah Smith (Reference Smith2001) has shown, Drake’s approval of these Tory talking points suffuses her own Essay. Scholars have long been puzzled by the “contradictory,” “paradoxical” early modern phenomenon of Tory feminism.Footnote ⁴ How could feminists criticize men’s authority over women, but not that of the monarch over its subjects? Certainly, republicans might be hypocritical when it comes to conjugal authority—as evidenced in Astell’s ([Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 18) famous line, “If all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born slaves?”—but this was just a matter of oversight; an unfortunate blind spot. Surely there was far greater feminist potential in their progressive antiauthority principles than in the Tory’s staunch conservative royalism?

Not according to Astell and Drake—nor to their likewise-neglected Tory woman contemporaries, such as Eliza Haywood or Delarivier Manley. As we argue in this article, Astell and Drake were deeply suspicious of republican diagnoses of the harms of monarchy, in part because they failed to capture the harms of courtship. Turning to the issue of flattery, we show that Astell and Drake vehemently contested the republican diagnosis that locates the source of this vice in absolute monarchy. This regime, republicans argued, forced courtiers to resort to flattery—that is, to become deceptive and servile, thereby degrading themselves. By shifting attention from court to courtship, Astell and Drake contend that the republican account misunderstands the true problem of flattery: it was not deception or the degradation of the flatterer, but rather the flatterer’s subordination of the object of their flattery. This understanding of the wrong of flattery, resulting from the analysis of courtship rather than the court, offers a springboard to critique republican principles. Astell and Drake argued that harmful flattery is encouraged, not by absolutism, but by republican political environments. In this way, we show that Toryism and feminism are not at odds, but mutually reinforcing.Footnote ⁵

Flattery in Courtship

Let us begin with Drake. Her discussion of flattery appears as part of a broader examination of the vice of dissimulation. Dissimulation, Drake (Reference Drake1696, 111) explained, often involves “hiding or disguising our secret thoughts, or Inclinations under another appearance,” and flattery is the most common expression of this deception. She confirmed that “criminal” forms of flattery were often “practic’d in Courts … where policie and ambition reign” (114).

Yet Drake (Reference Drake1696, 114) emphasized that flattery was not confined to courtly life: “Nor is it the court only, but all places are infected with this vice.” She shifted her focus to the dynamics of courtship, identifying the “false love in men” as one of the most insidious and pervasive forms of flattery. Whenever men and women meet, Drake claimed, “the sham passion commences,” and men employ these “false arts” to manipulate women (115). She was particularly concerned with how men use flattery to take advantage of women sexually. This romantic conquest gives men not only sexual gratification, but also a kind of status and reputation as it allows them to offer “vain boasts” to others vying for women’s affections (116). Such flattery, Drake argued, is especially reprehensible because it functions by elevating the man’s status at the woman’s expense: “He thinks her ruin a step to Reputation, and founds his Honour on her Infamy” (115). A man who flatters a woman into a premarital relationship gains status among his peers precisely by lowering hers.

Drake’s account complicates the traditional republican critique of flattery in two key ways. First, she reframed the moral concern about flattery. She did not condemn flattery simply because it is deceitful, or because it aims to gain favor. Rather, she took issue with the fact that men use flattery to diminish the status and reputation of the women they flatter. Courtship flattery actively works to subordinate its target. This is decidedly different from the courtier’s flattery: courtiers did not seek to degrade the king’s reputation; rather, they depended on it.

Tellingly, Drake’s criticism of courtiers’ flattery did not target the monarch–courtier relationship itself, but the disingenuous performances between courtiers, suggesting a fundamental concern with status-diminishing flattery. Indeed, she commended the relationship between the king and his courtiers, mocking men who thought “it impossible for [the king] to have any but evil counsellors” (Drake Reference Drake1696, 88). Yet when courtiers interacted with one another, “[y]ou may see Enemies hugging and caressing one another … while they are secretly contriving each others [sic] ruine … Flattering those they despise and rail at behind their backs” (114). Thus, we see that for Drake, whether in court or courtship, the most problematic flattery aims to injure the status of the flattered, and hence is directed not at those who hold absolute power, but at those whose social status is unstable.

Second, Drake’s description of courtship complicates the suggestion that flattery is a “tool of the weak” or something that flows upward in social hierarchies. On the contrary, Drake (Reference Drake1696, 115) maintained that the marginalized—particularly women—are not the agents of flattery but “the common Object on which it is daily practic’d.” She noted that women “want the means of Obtaining so useful an art” because their “sedentary Life, and the narrow Limits to which our Acquaintance and business are Circumscrib’d, afford us so little variety” (112–13). In contrast, men were afforded “liberty of Conversation and promiscuous Business,” which exposed them to a “Variety of Contingencies” and the “Diversity of Tempers.” These varied experiences allowed them to “turn themselves into all Shapes, and accommodate themselves to all Humours” (113). Flattery is a skill that requires diverse social and rhetorical experiences to cultivate—opportunities from which women were often barred.

We are now in a position to see how the focus on courtship challenges republican accounts of flattery, which often depict it as a self-serving tactic used by the weak to curry favor with the powerful. Drake used courtship to show that the most insidious forms of flattery are status diminishing, aimed at subordinating or harming the reputation of the flattered. Because the courtier’s flattery relied on the monarch’s stable status and ability to bestow favor, it did not seek to degrade the monarch’s reputation and thus lacked the status-diminishing quality that defines courtship flattery. This status-diminishing flattery was also not necessarily practiced by those most marginalized or dependent in social hierarchies. Drake pointed out that it was women’s marginalization that made them especially vulnerable to this criminal flattery.

Taken together, Drake’s account of courtship illuminates the distinctive harms of flattery as a mechanism for subordinating women and diminishing their social status. Across both court and courtship, she emphasized that the most pernicious forms of flattery are not those aimed at those in power, but those directed at individuals whose social status is precarious—particularly women. As we will see in the next section, Drake’s analysis parallels Astell’s: both authors were centrally concerned with how flattery functions to injure or subordinate women to men, producing not only moral but also social harms.

Astell certainly agreed with Drake that women, sent out into the world naive and uneducated, were at high risk of being taken advantage of by male suitors. Astell also thought that flattery was the primary tool that such men used to “trick” women into marriages that would benefit themselves, but harm the women. These “fine Speech-makers” were really just “Leeches, who only hung upon her for their own Advantage” (Astell [Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 45, 40). As Forbes (Reference Forbes2025, 13) has shown, flattery lowered women’s epistemic agency, making them vulnerable to male suitors who sought to “rule over them.” Once a woman was tricked into marriage by such a flattering suitor, Astell ([Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 60) predicted “she will find a terrible disappointment.” It was not just the flatterer who was to blame: it was society, too, that taught women from a young age that finding and securing a husband was their most important task.

What did Astell find so problematic about flattery? Some scholars suggest that she condemned courtship flattery because it led women to value the wrong things (Blank Reference Blank2015, 60; Forbes Reference Forbes2021, 498). If women were continually flattered for their good looks, fashion choices, or charms, they would come to view these characteristics as the most important things about themselves. This in turn threatened their salvation: as a result of such flattery women were likely to focus on improving their appearance as opposed to their virtue, harming their prospects in the next life. Or, if women were instead flattered for being perfectly virtuous when in reality they were not, this was “only a malicious way of continuing and encreasing their Mistakes,” which would likewise endanger women’s salvation (Astell [Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 44).

Yet this effect cannot be what vexed Astell about flattery specifically. After all, genuine but untrue praise can have the same effect: sincerely praising women for their good looks can also lead them to value the wrong things. Yet Astell ([Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 45) was adamant that untrue praise was not the same as flattery:

To Astell, untrue praise differed from flattery because the former was sincere whereas the latter was not. This seems to suggest that what she truly took issue with was not its effects but its deceptive nature. But again, this does not explain her preoccupation with flattery in particular: why not just focus on deception more generally? Like Drake, then, Astell did not regard deception as the true moral fault of flattery. What distinguished flattery from simple false praise or ordinary deceit was its function as an instrument of subordination.Footnote ⁶ Subordination should be distinguished from subjection. Whereas subjection entails full domination or control, subordination involves the lowering of another’s status or standing. To Astell and Drake, flattery was morally objectionable when it functioned as a practice of subordination, even where it did not culminate in subjection.

But of course, oftentimes such flattering suitors did succeed in subjecting the women they flattered. Astell stressed again and again that flattering suitors were not acting out of love, but were “seeking only to be Masters of her Estate” (Astell [Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 43). In seventeenth-century England, “estate” referred not only to wealth, but also to one’s rank or status in society more broadly.Footnote ⁷ The true “Idol the Man adored” was not the wife, but her wealth and rank. “[A]nd now he has got that into his possession, she must make court to him for a little sorry Alimony out of her own Estate” (39).

As Astell saw it, then, the true motive of flattering suitors was to usurp the wealth and rank of their prospective wives. This meant that these men by definition did not possess equal rank and wealth as the women whose hand in marriage they coveted. Such suitors used flattery to marry “up,” meaning the marriage must be an unequal one. As scholars have pointed out, Astell was highly critical of unequal marriages (Bejan Reference Bejan2019, 787; Lister Reference Lister2004; Perry Reference Perry1986, 154–59). First, because the prospects of a woman who married beneath herself were inauspicious: this was a “Demonstration that the Man is Sordid and Unfair.” After all, if the suitor truly loved her, he would not wish to “lessen her way of Living to better his own” (Astell [Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 52).Footnote ⁸ But more importantly, Astell (Reference Astell1704, 4) conceived of social hierarchy as ordained by “the God of Order.”Footnote ⁹ God placed human beings in different ranks, “put[ting] some in a higher and some in a lower Station” (Astell [Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 52). Therefore, “we are to be content in whatsoever state God has placed us in in this world” (Astell [Reference Astell and Broad1705] 2013, sec. 314). In other words, in marrying up and subordinating their wives, these men were subverting God’s perfect order, a feat they achieved through flattery.

Strikingly similar to Drake, then, Astell’s account of courtship flattery shows that the true wrong of flattery was not that it consisted in false praise, deception, or self-interest. Rather, it was that through flattery, men illegitimately gained wealth, rank, and status by degrading, and even usurping, the legitimate, God-given status and estate of women. To Astell, this destabilization of social hierarchy rewarded deceptive, inferior men while harming women whom God had intended as their superiors.

This suggests that flattery is not straightforwardly or necessarily a tool of the weak. Yet, one may ask, is it not the case that the male suitors were in fact inferior to the women they sought to seduce? Did they not possess relatively inferior rank, wealth, and status? Was flattery in their hands then not a tool of the weak? But in the context of courtship male suitors did not occupy a weak or marginalized position (Blank Reference Blank2015, 55). Women were at a relative disadvantage because they were conditioned to value marriage above all else: from a young age they were “taught to think Marriage her only Preferment, the sum-total of her Endeavours, the completion of all her hopes, that which must settle and make her Happy in this World” (Astell [Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 60). Besides, due to their lack of education and relative inexperience with the world—reminiscent of Drake’s characterization of women’s “sedentary lives” as less varied and diverse than men’s—women were ill-prepared for courtship and its potential dangers.

The analysis of status-diminishing flattery we find in Astell and Drake is strikingly different from that of their republican contemporaries. They were not primarily worried about the self-interested or deceptive nature of flattery, but rather with how flattery can function to subordinate its object. Their analysis also complicates attempts by scholars like Kapust (Reference Kapust2018) to theorize flattery as a tool of the weak and marginalized. Unlike their male peers, Astell and Drake recognized that hierarchies are decidedly messy: they are almost never easily or straightforwardly split into the weak versus the powerful, especially when they intersect with gender. The view of flattery that emerges from Kapust’s analysis of early modern men does not capture this complexity.

Flattery in Politics

Although scholarly treatments of Astellian flattery have exclusively focused on courtship and marriage—with Blank (Reference Blank2015, 61) even asserting that “Astell clearly restricts her analysis to the structure of manipulative flattery in gender relations”—Astell also saw flattery as an important political problem.Footnote ¹⁰ Yet she disagreed with republicans like John Milton or Algernon Sidney that it was a problem characteristic of (absolute) monarchy. It was not the royal court that was the primary political site of flattery, but rather the political party.Footnote ¹¹ Therefore, far from a problem distinctive of monarchies as republicans maintained, we can surmise that in Astell’s view, flattery would be far more pervasive in regimes where partisanship was far more dominant, such as democracy.

To Astell, the problem that flattery posed to politics was twofold: first, it was used by partisans to advance their own wealth, standing, and power; second, it bred false friendship among partisans, which obstructed frank political debate. There are clear parallels between Astell’s account of partisan flattery and courtship flattery: like suitors, flattering partisans were deceptive and used the language of flattery to improve their rank and wealth by harming and degrading others. Yet as we will see, there are also important differences. First, whereas Astell portrayed the relationship between the flatterer and the flattered in courtship as an unequal one, in the political realm it was a more reciprocal relationship between partisans of similar standing. Second, and relatedly, unlike suitors, factious partisans were not only agents but also simultaneously objects of flattery.

In her 1704 pamphlet An Impartial Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil War in This Kingdom, Astell ([Reference Astell and Springborg1704] 1996a, 139) wrote that factious partisans were “the Flatterers of Mens [sic] Follies, and the Panders of their Vices” just “to gain them to their Party” (emphasis added). This language is strikingly similar to that found in Some Reflections, where Astell noted that a suitor used flattery to draw a woman “over to his Party” (Astell [Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 71). Likewise, the verb “court” is used in both the pamphlets and the marriage tracts to describe the flattering behavior: just as the suitor had “the Lady he Courts” (Astell [Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 50; emphasis added), so “Fawning Sycophants … make court” to politicians (Astell Reference Astell1704, xxii; emphasis added). It is clear, then, that Astell’s diagnosis of flattery in courtship is central to her later understanding of it as a political problem. Her reflections on flattery in A Serious Proposal and Some Reflections predate her engagement with its political dimensions, which emerge only in her 1704 pamphlets. Unlike republicans such as Milton and Sidney, who immediately turned to politics for their analyses of flattery, Astell began with courtship. Her language makes evident that her critique of flattery’s harms in private relationships directly informed her account of it as a tool of political domination.

In Moderation Truly Stated, also published in 1704, Astell noted that factious partisans “sneak and cringe” and “convey their Favours on such only as will purchase them as dear as themselves have done.” In other words, flattery was a currency partisans used to “purchase favours” from other flattering partisans. Those favors did not serve the public good or even that of the party, but were directed at their own selfish interests: that of accumulating riches or gaining power. Still further, Astell (Reference Astell1704, 113) contended that

In other words, when factious partisans identified someone they could exploit for their own advantage, they immediately flattered them to ensure they would become their copartisan. As long as the subjects of flattery were of an estate high enough to “make him Considerable,” the flatterer would attempt to “draw him over to his party.” However, Astell did not think that partisanship inevitably invited the vice of flattery: it was possible to be a partisan and not resort to flattery. Unsurprisingly perhaps, given her own allegiance to the Tory party, she argued that the main culprits were the Whigs and religious dissenters. In her view, these particular groups were becoming increasingly powerful and successful by flattering the right individuals, seeking to subordinate them for personal gain—and, in the process, subordinating the public good to their selfish interests.

Yet flattery did not only corrupt partisanship; it also polluted political debate. To see why, we first need to consider the role of admonition in Astell’s thought. Scholars agree that, to Astell, admonitions were crucial for self-improvement: they were a central component of her theory of friendship (Bol Reference Bol2025; Nguyen Reference Nguyen2022; Stanton Reference Stanton2007). Mutual and honest criticism was essential to moral and intellectual improvement. Nowhere was such improvement more necessary than in the political realm, which was, on the whole, wicked. Astell often juxtaposed honest admonitions with flattery.Footnote ¹² She saw flatterers as false friends: flattery was “an intimacy” that people “very unjustly” called “a Friendship” (Astell [Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 70; cf. Bol Reference Bol2025, 94). These so-called friends “expect[ed] to be followed right or wrong in their principles, party, and passions, looking for a blind approbation” and wished to “be flattered as if they were so [excellent] already, when alas they are nothing like it” (Astell [Reference Astell and Broad1705] 2013, sec. 209). They in turn would not “tell you of your Faults for fear of disobliging you; for he judges others of himself, and is certainly disobliged if you venture to meddle with his” (Astell Reference Astell1704, 5). In other words, false friends would deceive and flatter rather than frankly disagree because they did not wish to be offended nor risk offending others in return.Footnote ¹³

We can thus see that Astell condemned flattery not only as a partisan vice, since it was the chief tool factious partisans used to increase their own wealth and power at the expense of the public, but also because it stood in the way of frank political debate. After all, the aim of flattery was to “sooth” and deceive, which was incompatible with “the Truth” that sometimes “wounds” (Astell [Reference Astell and Broad1705] 2013, sec. 209). In a manner akin to the Greek ideal of parrhesia, Astell contended that if a truth was painful, this meant it was especially important to speak out. She saw frank political debate—which involved pointing out the flaws of one’s copartisans as well as those of opponents—as the only way to improve the realm of politics, where “virtue was rare, if not non-existent” as it “attracted the power-hungry, hypocrites, and the self-interested” (Bol Reference Bol2025, 89). Partisan flattery thus thwarted the one way in which this wicked realm could be improved. This rendered it all the more vicious.

This shows that to Astell the most harmful kind of flattery—which was not only deceptive and self-interested, but also served to subordinate others—was not found in the monarchical court. It was actually found in Parliament and political parties—that is, in republican spaces. Such partisans were certainly not only present in monarchies but were simply a fact of political life. Unlike her republican peers, then, Astell contended that absolutist regimes did not have a monopoly on flattery. Far from it: other regimes like democracies or republics promoted the vice, too, and likely to a greater extent than monarchies.

In Drake we get a different picture. We saw that she described a kind of criminal flattery—often found in courtship—whereby flattery is used to undermine the flattered party’s status and reputation. Interestingly, however, she also defended a form of gallant flattery. Indeed, part of Drake’s critique of republicans was that they lacked an appreciation for the value of certain forms of flattery in political life. While Astell identified parliamentary politics as being prone to pernicious forms of flattery, Drake pointed out that other sites of popular politics lacked the gallant flattery necessary for productive and civil conversation.

After introducing flattery as a vice found in courtship, Drake pointed out that it was not inherently objectionable. Flattery, she wrote, involves “hiding or disguis[ing] our secret thoughts, or Inclinations under another appearance,” which, she argued, could be used “with innocence enough” (Drake Reference Drake1696, 111). Indeed, she even claimed it was often necessary:

Here, we see that Drake offered a Machiavellian defense of flattery: it is a form of deceit, but deceit is not necessarily “criminal.” Since “the World is too full of Craft, Malice, and Violence, for absolute simplicity to live in it,” Drake suggested that various forms of dissimulation, including flattery, should be understood as a component of prudence. By concealing one’s true feelings, flattery enables individuals to protect themselves from the “snares” of malicious actors and serves as a kind of social lubricant—a gallant gesture—between parties in disagreement (111).Footnote ¹⁴ Tellingly, Drake shifted from calling flattery a vice to calling it an art (112).

While Astell focused on how parliamentary politics bred the kind of “criminal” flattery found in courtship, Drake shifted attention to critiquing republican politics for their lack of artful flattery or gallantry. This diagnosis was most clearly expressed in her discussion of coffeehouses. By the end of the seventeenth century, the coffeehouse had become an important institution in English political life. Relatively inexpensive to frequent and staffed by “runners”—early journalists who ferried news between press and shop—these establishments granted men from different classes access to the latest news and a space to debate it.Footnote ¹⁵ Jürgen Habermas (Reference Habermas1989) has famously identified the coffeehouse as a foundational site in the emergence of England’s public sphere, paving the way for the Enlightenment and liberal democracy.

Drake’s evaluation of coffeehouses was far less optimistic. Unsurprisingly for a Tory, she condemned these sites of popular politics. She associated the coffeehouse with Whig and republican sentiment, and mocked the “Coffeehouse Politician” who championed Whig causes like occasional conformity—a controversial practice in which dissenters occasionally took part in the sacraments of the Church of England to qualify for public office under the 1661 Corporation Act and the 1673 and 1678 Test Acts, while continuing to attend nonconformist religious gatherings. She wrote:

The debates about occasional conformity emerged from broader discussions of religious toleration at the turn of the century. The practice was defended by Whigs as a moderate response to religious dissent. Tories, including Astell as well as Drake’s husband James, wrote pamphlets opposing the practice, viewing it as a loophole that undermined the integrity of the Church of England and the constitution of England more generally.Footnote ¹⁶ Thus, for Drake, the coffeehouse was an objectionable site of popular, partisan discourse—something closely associated with Whig and republican ideology.

Yet the problem with coffeehouses, for Drake, was not merely their association with Whig policies, but the manner in which those policies were discussed. She identified two related problems with the political discourse fostered in coffeehouses: impertinence and violence. Impertinence, according to Drake (Reference Drake1696, 84), occurred when we “bus[y] our selves … unseasonably in things of no concern to us, or wherein we are able to do nothing to any Purpose.” Coffeehouses, by providing easy access to news and gossip, encouraged men to concern themselves with affairs far removed from their everyday lives. She ridiculed the newsmonger who

For Drake, “prepetually [sic] talking of Politicks, State Affairs, and Grievances” led men to become distracted from the responsibilities of their private lives (86). They “busie themselves so much and so earnestly about affairs, which all their care and Sollicitude could have no more influence upon, than over the Weather” (90).

More dangerously, this impertinence could spill over into violence. Drake (Reference Drake1696, 94) warned that men may attempt to “thrust themselves into others’ affairs,” as if political conversation grants them authority or agency they do not possess. Describing reactions to the siege of Namur, she mocked those who, stirred by reports from abroad, formed imaginary militias in response:

The danger lay not only in distraction, but also in emotional “overheating” (87). Because men “are desirous the World shou’d have as great an Opinion of ’em as they have of themselves,” they “impertinently interpose their own Authority and Sense” (94). In doing so, they risked inciting unrest. Drake’s critique anticipated concerns that would become common in the eighteenth century: that coffeehouses were not only hubs of gossip but also fomented civil disorder.

Drake’s concern with these sites of popular politics was not that they produced flattery, but that they lacked it. These were spaces of frank and honest discussion, which boiled over into destabilizing incivility in light of the profound political disagreements between participants. Whereas Astell warned of the dangers of excessive flattery in Parliament, Drake worried about the absence of politeness, gallantry, and artful dissimulation in the populist spaces of the coffeehouse. Crucially, both Astell and Drake suggested that women had a particular role to play in moderating this balance—which for Drake meant encouraging useful flattery and rooting out the criminal forms.

A Political Place for Women?

Although Drake condemned the boisterous, uncivil behavior in coffeehouses, she did not call for their closure. Rather, the aim of her essay was to show how unsavory male characters—like the coffeehouse politician and newsmongers—might be improved by female conversation. Her implication was not that coffeehouses should be shut down, but that women should be allowed to participate. According to Drake, women would enhance coffeehouse discussions precisely because they would encourage flattery.

Drake (Reference Drake1696, 143) suggested there was a natural tendency in men to flatter women, a tendency that, she argued, stemmed from physical differences between the sexes:

These natural physical differences, Drake argued, gave rise to a form of flattery she called gallantry and complaisance—a desire “to oblige people” by “complying with their humors” (139). While this may be somewhat deceptive, involving the masking of one’s true feelings, Drake clearly endorsed it as a form of polite flattery.

This tendency in heterosexual discourse, according to Drake, would solve both problems associated with coffeehouse discussions. First, it would allow women to redirect conversation from impertinent, abstract affairs to matters closer to home. “State News, Politicks, Religion, or private Business take up the greatest Part of their Conversation, when they are among themselves only” (Drake Reference Drake1696, 136). In mixed company, Drake argued, men would oblige women by making such discussions more relevant to domestic concerns—such as “the Order, Distribution and Contrivance of Houshold Affairs … the Regulation of the Family, and Government of Children and Servants” (85). While men often viewed these topics as “light and inconsiderable,” Drake asserted this was “only because they understand not the value of it.” Without attention to these domestic affairs, she claimed, conversation would be no “higher or more refin’d than those of Brutes” (86). In this way, women’s participation eliminated the impertinence of male-only coffeehouse talk, as men’s natural complaisance toward women anchored political discussion in everyday life.

Second, this dynamic of flattery would prevent disagreement from escalating into hostility. When discussing “News, Politics, and Religion,” Drake claimed men often “raise too much heat.” Since they “defend their opinion as their property,” men were willing to come to blows even over differences in opinion (Drake Reference Drake1696, 136). Yet Drake observed “that when such Arguments have been introduc’d even in our Company,” men “affect Indifference” (137). Political conversations in mixed company proceeded more civilly, as men “never oppose us but with a great deal of Ceremony.” Notably, Drake did not suggest that women’s presence would suppress disagreement but rather would foster it, as they would disagree to “maintain a pleasant argument, or heighten by variety of opinion an agreeable entertainment” (138). Indeed, Drake suggested women’s participation in these discussions would allow a greater freedom of expression, as men would “let their thoughts play at Liberty” while only being “very careful of the Expression” (138–39).

In this way, Drake suggested that women’s presence—and the flattery it inspires—not only civilized conversation but also yielded epistemic benefits. Flattering women encouraged men to relate abstract political arguments to the realities of daily life, find common ground in disagreement, and conduct themselves with decorum. Heterosexual conversation, then, fostered “invention” and “novelty.” Thus, women’s participation in political debate addressed both major flaws in male-dominated spaces like the coffeehouse.

Drake’s proposal for reforming coffeehouse culture was not merely a speculative exercise but an early intervention in a live debate about the nature of sociability and civil discourse.Footnote ¹⁷ One place where this is especially visible is The Tatler, a Whig literary magazine that frequently set dialogues within coffeehouses. By 1709, Whig writers were eager to counter portrayals of coffeehouses as boisterous, uncivil spaces. The Tatler instead depicted them as venues that polished manners and fostered sociability. Yet this revalorization of the coffeehouses rested on a rejection of the very mechanism Drake identified as civilizing: flattery inspired by women’s presence. Richard Steele—a prominent contributor to the magazine—rejected flattery, claiming that “assent is more agreeable than flattery” ([Steele] Reference Steele1710). Steele acknowledged that women tend to inspire—or, as he put it, “demand”—flattery. It is perhaps for this reason that women are conspicuously absent from the portrayals of coffeehouses that continually crop up in The Tatler. Whig writers reimagined civility as emerging from frank, male-only conversation, rather than the gallant dynamics of heterosexual conversation that Drake celebrated.

Read in this light, The Tatler’s defense of coffeehouses is not simply a claim about civility in the public sphere but a distinctly masculine one. Against Drake’s argument that coffeehouse culture could be refined through women’s participation, The Tatler insisted that civil discourse required neither female presence nor the gallantry or complaisance that accompanied it. The magazine thus offered a rival vision of civility—one that treated flattery not as a productive social lubricant, but as an impediment to sincere masculine exchange.

Drake’s intervention in debates about sociability at the turn of the eighteenth century also complicates prevailing interpretations of coffeehouse culture, including Habermas’s claim that it marked the emergence of a civil public sphere. Critics have long questioned whether this period—and its ideals of sociability—ought to serve as a model for liberal democracy today. Judith Shklar, for instance, challenges Habermas’s valorization of sincerity—reminiscent of Steele’s own celebration of frankness and honesty—as a condition of democratic civility. As Shklar (Reference Shklar1984, 78) warns, “honesties that humiliate and a stiff-necked refusal to compromise would ruin democratic civility.” From this perspective, the concealment of one’s true feelings through practices such as flattery may be not a democratic failing but a political necessity in conditions of deep disagreement. Feminist critics have likewise challenged Habermas for using the coffeehouse as a model of democratic inclusion. Nancy Fraser (Reference Fraser and Calhoun1992, 116) argues that it functioned as an exclusionary male space, an assessment later contested by historians such as Steve Pincus.Footnote ¹⁸ Drake anticipated, and blended, both of these criticisms. Coffeehouses were masculine spaces precisely because they were structured by ideals of sincerity and sociability that were widely understood to exclude women. They were hostile not only to women’s presence but also to the forms of flattery through which, Drake argued, women could reform political discourse.

From its early Whig proponents to contemporary historiography, the coffeehouse has been celebrated as a public space capable of sustaining civil discourse. Drake’s analysis reveals, by contrast, not only a Tory critique of coffeehouses as uncivil venues for popular politics, but also an implicit critique of the masculinist ideal of civility that continues to shape historical and theoretical accounts of the public sphere and civil discourse.

While Drake claimed that women should be included in political debate precisely because it would promote flattery, Astell was persuaded of the contrary. Women like herself, she thought, were perfectly placed to pierce through and censure the flatteries of partisans. This becomes clear from her imagined debate on a bill to prohibit occasional conformity between two opposing partisans: a Tory, Mr. Nokes, and a Whig, Mr. Styles. Suddenly, the two are interrupted by a woman: “Now if Women are such despicable Creatures,” she sharply remarked, “pray what’s the plain English of all your fine Speeches and Dedications to her Majesty, but Madam we mean to Flatter you?” (Astell Reference Astell1704, lii–liii). While no one “deserve[s] loftier Panegyricks than her Majesty,” it was clear from the partisans’ conduct—“pretend[ing] to prescribe Measures to her Majesty to tell Her what is Right and Safe” and what she “ought to do”—that they were not sincere in their praise. For had they been, they would recognize that the queen was “much better able to discern what is fit for Her to do,” and cease to attempt to tell her what to do (Astell Reference Astell1704, liii). Through their flattery, then, partisans like Nokes and Styles were in fact attempting to subordinate the queen to their own designs—to control her behavior.

It is important to note that this dynamic between flatterers and the monarch is vastly different from that envisioned by republicans. First, because the wrong of flattering the queen did not lie in the degradation of the flatterer, but rather of its object. This was all the more pernicious because Anne was evidently superior to the partisan flatterers, who were her subjects. Through their flattery they thus attempted to subvert social hierarchy ordained by God. Second, it seems that Astell did not pick the example of Queen Anne primarily because she was a monarch: she also did so because of Anne’s gender. The issue did not lie with the flattery of monarchs in general, but with inferior men using flattery to subordinate and control a superior woman—in this case, the superior woman.

From the imagined debate between Nokes and Styles, we can see that Astell viewed women such as herself and her imagined female intervener (whom the men finally managed to “silence … with some difficulty” [Astell Reference Astell1704, lv]) as perfectly placed to recognize the pernicious flatteries of partisans and to puncture their “masculine pretensions” (Bejan Reference Bejan2019, 787). Yet it seems that women could only fulfil this crucial political role if they stayed outside the thick of politics themselves. While at this time women were certainly barred from holding office or casting votes, it is not true that they were therefore always on the outside or the margins of politics. As Mark Goldie (Reference Goldie, Kolbrener and Michelson2007, 84) points out, Astell was well aware of “the prominence of women among the Dissenters.” Like many of her fellow Anglicans and Tories, she was convinced that “the Dissenters indecently flattered female religiosity.” In particular, these factious partisans used flattery to get “the Young and the Handsom, the Witty and the Gay, and the Intriguing and Politick Ladies” on their side, as this would greatly strengthen their party and result in “the greatest number of followers.” Indeed, “whoever has a Mind to disturb the State,” as in Astell’s view the Dissenters’ party did, “will always Court them.” By contrast, factious partisans did not find “the Old and the Ugly, the Praying and the Women of Thought,” among which Astell derisively counted herself, worth flattering (Astell Reference Astell1704, li). It was precisely because these women were themselves not its targets that they were able to expose the harmful flattery present in politics—much like the “Lady” who interrupted Nokes and Styles.

In the previous section we saw that Astell condemned flattery in politics for two main reasons: first, it allowed factious partisans to unfairly increase their own wealth and political power; second, it stood in the way of frank political debate. The presence of “unpopular” women like herself in politics—women neither vulnerable to flattery nor considered its proper objects—would mitigate both harms by exposing partisan flattery for what it truly was: insincere praise that subordinated others for personal advantage. Such women were capable of “speaking truths which no man would say” (Astell [Reference Astell and Broad1705] 2013, sec. 351)—being, after all, “more a Friend to Truth” than to flattering men (Astell [Reference Astell and Springborg1706] 1996b, 78). By contrast, we saw that Drake proposed the inverse. She thought that the women Astell described as “popular”—those who would incite male flattery in republican spaces—were precisely what was needed to civilize and thereby improve political debate. While Astell was also concerned with the dismal state of political debate, she was of the opinion that less civility, not more, would render political debate franker and more productive, and thereby improve it. As she put it, more “sharp Wine,” less “Balsom.”Footnote ¹⁹

Astell’s critique of flattery was not lost on her audience. Once more, The Tatler proves revealing. A 1709 essay, most likely written by Richard Steele, satirized Astell’s stance on flattery. The essay discussed how to seduce a “professed Platonne” who was impervious to flattery of her “flesh and blood” ([Steele?] Reference Steele1709). The first suggestion, to “make use of a little force” and (rather shockingly) “put her to the rack and the torture, only to convince her, she has really fine limbs,” was quickly discarded. The author of the essay assured his reader that as “[f]lattery is the general way” with women, so it was with women like Astell. Such women were full of “Heaven and their own thoughts” and were “not to be touched with” praise of their appearance. Rather, flatterers should direct their attentions to the woman’s words and actions. Steele dramatized this possibility by relaying a tale of a “famous rake” who successfully infiltrated a “Protestant nunnery”—a clear reference to Astell’s female retreat as outlined in her Serious Proposal. The Rake ensnared the platonic ladies into marriage—including the head of the retreat “Madonella” (that is, Astell)—by deceptively admiring (that is, flattering) their minds rather than their bodies.

It is not hard to discern the moral of Steele’s tale—namely, that no woman was impervious to flattery. In fact, a learned lady like Astell could be just as easily manipulated and seduced by a rake as any other woman. In other words, such women were hypocrites, pretending to reject flattery when in reality they were highly susceptible to it. Steele portrayed Astell as being even more vain than other women for requiring such extraordinary flattery. It is telling that of all the controversial aspects of Astell’s works (which by 1709 had all been published), Steele foregrounded flattery, likely because it most troubled the Whig men who constituted The Tatler’s target audience and was therefore the most effective object of ridicule. Astell’s sharp analysis of flattery clearly touched a nerve. As she had noted astutely in The Christian Religion, “a book is only so many words to no manner of purpose, except the reader … finds his own picture in it, and is forced to say to himself, ‘I am the man’” (Astell [Reference Astell and Broad1705] 2013, sec. 351).

We saw earlier that Steele (much like Astell) celebrated frank and nonflattering political debate. This ran antithetical to Drake’s arguments for women’s inclusion: namely, that women encouraged flattery and thereby civilized and improved political discussion. But Steele also dismissed Astell’s assertion that women, by being able to resist and pierce through flattery, could cultivate frank political debate. In arguing that (1) women, even those like Astell, would inevitably demand flattery, and (2) that flattery corrupted political debate, he refuted both women’s attempts at inclusion and concluded that women should not participate in public life. Steele’s interventions reveal that the “public sphere” in this period was not simply incomplete or imperfectly inclusive. The Whig hostility to flattery as politically illegitimate was precisely because flattery was associated with women.