Brilliana Harley (née Conway) (1598–1643) is known as a committed puritan, a prominent Parliamentarian, and the defender of her marital home from Royalist attack in 1643 during the first English Civil War. Nearly four hundred of her letters written between 1623 and her death in 1643 have survived, together with her commonplaces compiled in the 1620s. Harley’s papers show her to have been a well-informed reader of the Bible and of practical theology, and an active contributor to the circulation of family, local, national, and international news. As the daughter of a soldier and diplomat, she was well prepared for the outbreak of civil war: in the autumn of 1642 she garrisoned her home with fifty Parliamentarian troopers. After her death, Captain Priam Davies praised Harley as his commander-in-chief for her unequalled bravery, resolve, wisdom, and strategic skill.