Hester (or Esther) Biddle (c. 1629–1697) was an English Quaker writer and itinerant preacher who "addressed pugnacious pamphlets to those who persecuted religious dissenters, worshipped in the Anglican church, or refused to help the poor.
Her husband was the shoemaker Thomas Biddle (died 1682), with whom she lived in the Old Exchange area of the City of London until the Great Fire of 1666, and then in Bermondsey, on the South Bank.
Her first two broadsides (similar in content) appeared in May 1665 and proclaimed "wo" (woe) to Oxford and Cambridge for their financial and ideological domination.
[1] Here she insisted that "we are not like the World, who must have a Priest to interpret the Scriptures to them... the Lord doth not speak to us in an unknown Tongue, but in our own Language do we hear him perfectly."
She also rounded on her hearers for their sinful lives: "Drunkenness, Whoredom, and Glutony, and all manner of Ungodliness, Tyranny and Oppresion, is found in thee; Thy Priests preach for hire, and thy People love to have it so... Stage-Playes, Ballad Singing, Cards, and Dice, and all manner of Folly... wicked words & actions are not punished by thee.
Having previously visited Mary II of England, she obtained permission to address Louis XIV of France, during which – in line with her Quaker beliefs – she urged him to pursue policies of peace.