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Anne Wentworth was a seventeenth-century English prophetess and writer. Although a poor woman, she found followers and a patron prepared to fund the publishing of her religious writing. She was separated from her husband; their unstable relationship being the cause of her prophecies.〔p.207, Jane Stevenson, ''Women and the Cultural Politics of Printing''〕 ==Biography== Most of what is known about Anne Wentworth has been derived from her four extant texts, which are autobiographical in nature. They do not give specific details of her early life but do suggest that she was born into a Lincolnshire family between 1629 and 1630. In 1652/1653, she married William Wentworth of London (Gill 115). In the late 1660s, Wentworth gave birth to a daughter (Taft). Several years later, around 1670, Wentworth experienced a restoration of faith in God after eighteen years in her unhappy marriage. After this "visitation" from God, Wentworth spent almost seven years writing and perfecting her craft, before publishing her first work, a pamphlet entitled, ''A True Account of Anne Wentworth's Being Cruelly, Unjustly, and Unchristianly Dealt with by Some of Those People Called Anabaptists'' (1676), more commonly referred to as ''A True Account of Anne Wentworth'' (Taft). In this piece, Wentworth reflects on the patriarchal domination of her husband, understanding it as punishment from God (Taft). Despite the seven years it took for Wentworth to finally publish her first work, her life as a prophetess did not go unrecognized (Taft). Her husband and fellow Anabaptist comrades (today referred to as Baptists) began to persecute Wentworth during this time as she expressed her prophetic voice. In 1675, it is unclear whether Wentworth was excommunicated from their church after writing critiques on it (Gill 115) or whether she left it of her own free will (Taft); however, it is clear that the abuse from her husband and fellow Anabaptists intensified after she no longer belonged to their local church. In 1677, Wentworth published ''A Vindication of Anne Wentworth'', another autobiographical work like ''A True Account'' that attempts to "justify her prophetic voice as genuine, narrate the persecution inflicted upon her because of her prophetic activity, and predict the imminent coming of the Apocalypse" (Taft). At this time, she also sent letters to King Charles II and the Lord Mayor of London relating the coming Apocalypse "before New Year's Day, 1678" (Taft). This enraged her husband who enlisted the help of three of his cousins to remove Wentworth from her home in the summer of 1677 (Taft). And despite the decline in her popularity after her prophecy did not come true, Anne continued to write ''England's Spiritual Pill'', which "may have appeared in 1678, but its publication date is uncertain" (Taft) and ''The Revelation of Jesus Christ'', which was meant to record "the actual words Christ ... spoke to her" that incited her prophetic voice. This text also acts as proof that someone still supported her after 1678 due to the line, "Friend in love to Souls" that is recognized on the work's title page, recognizing the individual who financed its publication in 1679. That same year, Wentworth returned to her home. After ''The Revelation of Jesus Christ'' however, no other texts have been uncovered written by Wentworth. Her voice fell silent and there is some speculation that she is the Anne Wentworth who went on to live "in St John's Court and was buried on 22 May 1693 at St James's Church, Clerkenwell" (Gill 115), but there is no confirmation on this. During the time that Wentworth wrote, the fact that her pieces were published and she was recognized as a public figure of her community is astonishing. Her works not only spoke out against her husband but they were also religiously and politically charged—a dangerous combination for a woman of the time. Due to her departure from what was traditionally accepted behavior for women of her time, Wentworth's life was tainted by chaos and persecution. Despite this however, she persevered and was able to write and publish the work that was significant to her—a truly remarkable feat for a woman of her time. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Anne Wentworth (prophetess)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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