The Phrase Finder observes that the popular theory that the cat in this expression is not actually a mammal of the Felidae family but the multi-tailed whip called a cat o' nine tails, and so comes from naval slang, appealing as it is, has little documentary support, since the first attestation of the phrase occurs in Richard Kephale's Medela Pestilentiae (1665): "They had not space enough (according to the vulgar saying) to swing a Cat in" (the parenthesis clearly indicating that the phrase was already in use); while the first mention of the cat o' nine tails is in William Congreve's Love for Love (1695): "If you should give such language at sea, you'd have a cat-o'-nine-tails laid cross your shoulders." Both examples are probably taken from the earliest attestations given in the OED, under swing (7a) and cat-o'-nine-tails.
Another interesting instance is recorded by M. P. Tilley in The Proverbs of England:
C603a A CONSCIENCE wide enough to swing a cat in
1666 TOR. Prov. Phr., s.v. Ciapelletto, p. 38: A large conscience, as one would say, that one might swing a cat in't. Ibid., s.v. Conscientia, p. 44: The English say, to have a wide conscience, as one may swing a cat in't.
This points to Giovanni Torriano's Piazza Universale di Proverbi Italiani:, or, A Common Place of Italian Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (1666; copy at IA). However, this is not from Piazza Universale but from Torriano's The Second Alphabet consisting of Proverbial Phrases (1662; IA copy; excellent online edition at EEBO). Tiller's confusion is understandable, if one considers that Torriano seems to have published at least four different collections of Italian proverbs. Be that as it may, the entries in question read:
Ciapelletto, the proper name of a man. *Far la confessione di Ser Ciapelletto, i. e. quella di coloro che dicono i peccati veniali, e ritengono i mortali, to make Sir Ciapelletto's confession, viz. the confession of such as confess venial petty sins, and suppress mortal sins. *Haver la conscientia di Ser Ciapelletto, i. e. la conscientia molta larga, to have Sir Ciapelletto's conscience, viz. a large conscience, as one would say, that one might swing a cat in't; The French say, large comme la manche d'un Cordelier, as wide as a Capucin Fryers sleeve.
Conscientia, conscience. Haver la conscienza dov' hanno la croce i corbelli, i. e. in fondo, to have the conscience where baskets have their cross, viz. in the bottom. Haver la conscienza un poco tonda, i. e. d'uno che non hà per peccati certe cose, che pur son peccati, to have ones conscience somewhat round, viz. not to allow certain actions for sins, which notwithstanding are sins; the English say, to have a wide conscience, as one may swing a cat in't. Haver la conscienza cauterizzata, to have a sear'd conscience. *Pigliar cose da far rizzar la conscienza, i. e. pigliar cose che spingano alla concupiscenza, et alla lussuria, to take things for to erect the conscience, viz. to eat, or drink provocatives unto concupiscence, or lust; conscienza there being taken as gingling with concupiscenza.
This pushes back the earliest example of "swing" a few years (1662), again with the suggestion that it was already commonplace.
But it is really possible to find it three decades before that, in The Lavves [=Law's] Resolvtions of Womens Rights: or, The Lavves Provision for Woemen (1632; Google copy; again online edition at EEBO). This compilation is notable in law history for being the first publication of its kind. As one writer points out,
The book was presented as specifically intended for women, and topics covered included women's inheritances as well as legal issues related to marriage and divorce. Though by no means a protofeminist text, the Lawes Resolutions did recognise the particular difficulties of being a woman controlled by a law she had no say in. […] Although women could not be involved in the making of laws, this text reflects the recognition, by men as well as women, that they were still affected by the laws that were instituted and had a right, and a desire, to know to what regulations they were beholden. (Z. Jackson, "An Early Legal Handbook for Women")
Book II Section 61 "Of what things Dower is not granted" (p. 100) establishes that a dowager may choose for her habitation some tenement within the manor-house;
And where there is none such to choose, shee shall haue one clapped vp for her in aliqua platea competenti de communi bosco: as long and broad as the third part of her husbands chiefe house: A cottage of clay and splints set close in a corner of a cold Common, which is but a rewmaticke Lodge to welcome Suitors to. But how if the Common and all things bee so inclosed that there is not roome to swing a Cat in, women are not put in Rogum with their Husbands any where but in the Indies, and I thinke that custome is left there also by this time.
This irruption of the popular phrase in the legalese of the time is striking, but it still makes the connection with naval slang unlikely.
For what it's worth, the cat o' nine tails can be found in a number of sources from the 1670s, a couple of decades earlier than the OED's first example; still not enough to have any impact on the elucidation of the phrase's origin:
First he'l have the wretches stript
And by the common hangman whipt,
With Cat a nine tails, until blood
Shall run down sides in purple flood,
And then they shall be packing sentTo be on scurvy gibbet pent,
Thus they shall be us'd worse than dogs,
Hang'd, drawn and cut abroad like hogs,
And quarters shall be stuck 'pon hooks
To be devour'd by pies and rooks.
Her Girdle only fit for murder
Like Twist of the Franciscan Order:
A certain knottie Cat-a-nine-tails
With which she ferks the poor souls entrails.(John Phillips, Maronides or Virgil Travesty, 1673)
In the afternoon one Martin Juy a stripling, servant to Captain Thomas Cammock was whipt naked at the Cap-stern, with a Cat with Nine tails, for filching 9 great Lemmons out of the Chirurgeons Cabbin, which he eat rinds and all in less than an hours time.
(John Josselyn, An Account of Two Voyages to New-England, 1674)
(The first two are parodies of Book VI of Virgil's Aeneid, and it is probable that one depends on the other.)
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