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THE WOMAN WARRIOR. 257 |
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THE WOMAN WARRIOR,
Who liv'd in Cow-Cross, near West-Smithfield; who, changing her apparel, entered herself on board in quality of a soldier, and sailed to Ireland, where she valiantly behaved herself, particularly at the siege of Cork, where she lost her toes, and received a mortal wound in her body, of which she since died in her return to London.
From Durfey's Pitts to Purge Melancholy, v. 8.
Cork was taken September 27-29, 1690, by the Duke (then Earl) of Marlborough, with the cooperation of the Duke of Wirtemberg. The Duke of Grafton, then serving as a volunteer, was mortally wounded while advancing to the assault. Croker suggests that this lamentation for the heroine of Cow-Cross, " the Mary Ambree of her age," was one of the many indirect efforts made to bring the military skill of Marlborough into popular notice.
Let the females attend
To the lines which are penn'd,
For here I shall give a relation Of a young marry'd wife, Who did venture her life, a
For a soldier, a soldier she went from the nation.
She her husband did leave, And did likewise receive
Her arms, and on board she did enter, And right valiantly went, io
With a resolution bent
To the ocean, the ocean, her life there to venture. VOL. VII. 17 |
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