free citizen unless one owned land independently. The holding of political offices, similarly, seems to have been only suitable for men; nowhere in Irish historical tracts is any female High Queen or chieftain mentioned, and warfare and political affairs were generally all-male. However in the late 17th century there are numerous accounts in Burke's Peerage of women inheritimg noble estates and or men inheriting via female lines. These heiresses were English and increasingly more Irish families. Even with these legal restrictions placed upon women, they retained some legal capacity. The arrival of St. Patrick and the introduction of Christian Roman law affected the medieval Irish view of marriage. By the eighth century, the preferred form of marriage was one between social equals, under which a woman was technically legally dependent on her husband and had half his honor price, but could exercise considerable authority in regard to the transfer of property. Such women were called "women of joint dominion". Adult sons appear to have gained rights under the new Christian laws as well, as surviving texts seem to indicate that sons could impugn bad contracts that would harm his inheritance. Daughters, however, continued to have little or no legal independence, although after the eighth century they could no longer be forced into marriage by their parents. England In about 60 AD, Boudica, a Celtic queen in East Anglia, led a nearly successful battle against the Roman Empire, seeking to preserve her daughters' rights to inherit, a right they held under pre-Roman systems, but which the Romans prohibited. England has a complex history of legal rights for women. Significant documentations of women's rights occurred after the Norman conquest of England. These documentations reversed some laws the Conquest imposed in 1066, and caused divergence with Continental, Irish and other Holy Roman Empire laws. This divergence, where England gave more rights to women, became a factor in conflict with the French and other Holy Roman Empire monarchies for centuries, including the Hundred Years' War, the attempted invasion by the Spanish Armada and the War of Austrian succession. These documentations included Magna Carta in 1215 and the 1689 Bill of Rights, which both gave rights to women that were prohibited in the Holy Roman Empire systems. Also, the reign of Elizabeth I from 1558–1603 was significant in its visible and successful assertion of rights of single women to inherit property, to earn money, to