`NOW FAREWELL TO THE LAWE, TOO LONG HAVE I BEEN IN THY SUBJECTION': EARLY MODERN MURDER, CALVINISM AND FEMALE SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY.

The article discusses the portrayal of Elizabeth Caldwell as a female spiritual authority in the prose murder pamphlet "A True Discourse of the Practices of Elizabeth Caldwell," by Gilbert Dugdale. The pamphlet is said to narrate Caldwell's attempt to murder her husband, as well as her trial and execution. It is said that Calvinist theology interprets the narrative in a way that the interlocking patterns of Caldwell's subjection and authority are exposed. Also, Caldwell's words are found to contain a spiritual power, which is denied to women in the 1600s. Caldwell's death, said to be the price of her spiritual power, is one of the paradoxes revealed in an analysis of Dugdale's rhetorical strategy.