Mary Cary (prophetess)
Mary Cary Rand (c. 1621–1653) was an English writer, prophetess, and pamphleteer who supported the Fifth Monarchists during the English Civil War. She lived in London and, after starting as a Presbyterian, became a Fifth Monarchist who prophesied about church reform, women’s rights, and poverty. She followed thinkers Thomas Brightman and Henry Archer.
Cary believed the New Model Army showed the coming of the Two Witnesses and that Charles I was the little horn in Daniel 7. She saw Charles I’s death as a sign of Christ’s return. Her prophecies said Parliament’s victory would bring God’s kingdom on earth by 1701.
Her first pamphlet, The Resurrection of the Two Witnesses (1648), introduced her ideas. In 1651 she published The Little Horns Doom and Downfall and A New and Exact Mappe or Description of New Jerusalems Glory. Hugh Peters and Christopher Feake wrote introductions, and the books were dedicated to Elizabeth Cromwell, Bridget Ireton, and Margaret Rolle. She urged Parliament to help the poor, end tithing, and fund impoverished preachers and scholars with university scholarships.
Her last work (1653), The Resurrection of the Witnesses and England's Fall, claimed Christianity would spread across Europe after England lost the Anglo-Dutch Wars. Until 1651 she wrote under the initials M.C., and readers didn’t know her gender. Some of her writing uses anagogical interpretation (spiritual readings). Little is known about her personal life; she likely began forming her ideas after studying the Bible from age 15. She was born Mary Cary around 1621 and died in 1653. She was married to a man with the surname Rand or Rande.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 12:42 (CET).