Lady Frances Berkeley/Amy Stallings: Bacon’s Rebellion, Colonial Virginia, and First-person Historical Interpretation

In this episode of Historically Thinking, we begin not with a historian’s voice, but with the voice of a seventeenth-century woman.

Lady Frances Culpeper Berkeley—born in England, twice widowed, and married in 1670 to Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia—speaks from the midst of crisis. Jamestown has burned. Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion has fractured the colony’s political order. Her husband has been recalled to England to answer charges before the Crown. Lady Berkeley, left behind, attempts to make sense of loyalty, loss, honor, and exile.

That voice is brought to life by my second guest, Amy Stallings, a historian and historical interpreter who believes the past is best understood not only through documents, but through embodied experience. Together, we explore Bacon’s Rebellion from an unfamiliar vantage point, the interior world of Lady Frances Berkeley, and the intellectual stakes of historical reenactment itself: what it reveals, what it risks, and what it makes newly visible.

00:00 - Introduction

00:28 - Lady Frances Culpeper Berkeley Introduces Herself

00:58 - Writing to Her Husband in England

02:55 - Sir William Berkeley's Accomplishments in Virginia

04:23 - The Royal Commissioners and Personal Betrayal

05:47 - Berkeley's Loyalty During the English Civil War

07:17 - Berkeley's Resistance to Parliament

08:15 - Berkeley's Return to Power and Jamestown's Glory

09:39 - Nathaniel Bacon's Rebellion Begins

11:08 - Bacon Surrounds the State House

12:57 - Introducing Amy Stallings

13:41 - Theater and History Intertwined

14:27 - The Dissertation on Ballroom Politics

21:40 - Dance as Political Resistance

24:25 - English Country Dancing Before the Waltz

28:53 - First Character: Susan Binks, Tobacco Bride

28:53 - Learning History Through First-Person Interpretation

39:14 - Developing Lady Berkeley's Character

46:52 - Lady Berkeley's Isolation and Loss

46:52 - Lady Berkeley's Inheritance and Legal Battles

55:00 - The Challenges of Colonial Communication

57:00 - Sewing Period Costumes

61:51 - Conclusion