From Courtiers to Courtship: Tory Feminism and the Political Dangers of Flattery

Flattery appears to be a trivial vice, yet it receives a curious amount of attention in contemporary political analysis. Scholars often view flattery as a symptom of autocratic regimes, an association with a much longer history. In seventeenth-century England, republicans likewise understood the courtier’s flattery as a humiliating sign of slavish dependence on the ruler. This article complicates this position by turning to an understudied perspective in the history of political thought: Tory feminism. We show how two Tory feminists, Mary Astell and Judith Drake, challenged the standard republican narrative by drawing on a broader set of experiences—namely, the dynamics of flattery in courtship. We argue that they used the example of courtship to isolate the true wrong of flattery: its employment to subordinate the flattered. Astell and Drake applied this insight to the political realm, contending that the most morally troubling forms of flattery emerge not in monarchical courts, but in republican political spaces. Recovering the perspectives of Astell and Drake is not merely a matter of diversifying the canon; it also shows how gendered assumptions have shaped our conceptual history of flattery. A more complete account of flattery—its value, dangers, and the political environments in which it flourishes—requires attention to the insights of these Tory women.