The French and the Tories King William will rout,'
From City to Castle he'll course them about,
We'll make the poor Teagues to quite change their Tone,
From Lilli burlero to Ah! hone, Ah! hone.

With Conquering Sword we'll King William proclaim,
And Crown him with Trophies of Honour and Fame.

The French-Men the height of our Fury shall feel,
We'll Chase them with Swords of true tempered steel,
They Food for the Ravens and Crows shall be made,
And 3 teach them hereafter that Land to Invade:

54

Then thro' the whole Nation our King we'll proclaim,]
And Crown him with Trophies of Honour an[d Fame.] 60

Printed for P. Brooksby, J. Deacon, [J. Blare, and J. Back]. [In Black-letter. Mutilated at end. Date, June, 1690.]

This line may be read in two ways, with directly opposite meanings. A safe prophecy, thus far.

2 See p. 302, and later.

3 T. Crofton Croker suggested, unnecessarily, that we should read (instead of this supposed misprint) "To teach them," &c.

[This cut in the original stands to the right of those on p. 305.]

Valorous Acts of Mary Ambree.

"The days have been

When not a citizen drew breath in Ghent

But freely would have died in Freedom's name."

Sir Henry Taylor. Philip Van Artevelde, i. 7.

WE reserve for the Introduction to Bagford Collection, ii. 95,

some general remarks on such a "Female Warrior" as is there celebrated; "The Woman Drummer;" and the "Maiden Warrior; or, the Damsels Resolution to fight in the Field by the side of Jockey," etc. We need add little here to Bishop Percy's brief account of Mary Ambree, in his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, vol. ii. Book Second, No. xix. p. 216, 2nd edition, 1765:

"In the year 1584, the Spaniards, under the command of Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, began to gain great advantage in Flanders and Brabant, by recovering many strong-holds and cities from the Hollanders, as Ghent (called then by the English GAUNT,) Antwerp, Mechlin, etc. See Stow's Annals, p. 711. Some attempt made with the assistance of English volunteers to retrieve the former of those places probably gave occasion to this ballad. I can find no mention of this heroine in history, but the following rhymes rendered her famous among our poets. Ben Johnson [sic, and correctly, for thus Ben spelt his name, as claiming descent from the Johnsons of Annandale,] often mentions her, and calls any remarkable virago by her name. See his Epicone, first acted in 1609, Act iv. sc. 2. His Tale of a Tub, Act i. sc. 4.1 And his masque intitled the Fortunate Isles, 1626[7], where he quotes the very words of the ballad,

MARY AMBREE,

(Who marched so free

To the siege of Gaunt,
And death could not daunt,

As the ballad doth vaunt)
Were a braver wight,

[And a better sight] &c.

"She is also mentioned in Fletcher's Scornful Lady, Act 5. sub finem:

My large gentlewoman, my MARY AMBREE, had I but seen into you, you should have had another bedfellow.'

"This ballad is printed from a black-letter copy in the Pepys Collection, improved from the Editor's folio MS. The full title is, "The valorous acts performed at Gaunt by the brave bonnie lass Mary Ambree, who in revenge of her lovers death did play her part most gallantly. The tune is, The blind beggar, §c.'"

Here are the passages referred to, from Ben Jonson.

Morose." Mistress Mary Ambree, your examples are dangerous."

Turfe.-"My daughter will be valiant,

Silent Woman, iv. i.

And prove a very Mary Ambrey in the business."

Tale of a Tub, i. 2. 1633.

This, with exception of two brief notes to his lines 5 and 11, (which in our version are lines 9 and 15) is the whole of Dr. Thomas Percy's account. The notes are simply, 1.-" Sir John Major so [in Folio] MS.; Serjeant Major in P[epys] C[oll]." 2.-"A faire shirt of Male: A common phrase in that age for a Coat of Mail. So Spencer speaks of the Irish Gallowglass or Foot-soldier as 'armed in a long Shirt of Mayl.' (View of the State of Ireland.)"

Percy is believed to have worked considerably on the fourth edition of the Reliques, 1794, but nevertheless to have encouraged the idea that he (being now Bishop of Dromore) had relinquished all the editorial labour to his nephew. Lawn-sleeves seem unfavourable wear for candour and liberality: "No courtier could, and scarcely woman can, Gird more deceit within a petticoat." In this, the Bishop's final edition, we read an extra paragraph (as indicated by Mr. Furnivall, P. Folio MS., i. 516) :

"It is likewise evident, that she is the virago intended by Butler in 'Hudibras' (P. i. c. 3. v. 365), by her being coupled with Joan d'Arc, the celebrated Pucelle d'Orleans.'

A bold virago stout and tall

As Joan of France, or English Mall.'”

This is, however, a mistake on the part of the Bishop, or his convenient "nephew" (a near kinsman, perhaps, of the apocryphal "Mrs. Harris"): Butler's "English Mall" was not Mary Aumbree. Nor was she Mary Carlton, better known as "the German Princess;" who, despite her good looks and youth, which ought to have obtained mercy for her, was hanged, 22 January, 1672-3, and celebrated in many ballads. One was, "Some Luck, some Wit, being a Sonnet upon the merry life and untimely death of Mistress Mary Carlton, commonly called the GERMAN PRINCESS. Printed for Ph. Brooksby. To a new tune [its own], the German Princess's Adieu." It begins "Farewell, German Princess, the Fates bid adieu;" and is found in Roxb. Coll., iii. 35. The other ballad, 2.-The Westminster Wedding; or, Carlton's Epithalamium. This is in Douce Collection, ii. 254, and begins" Will

Dr. Percy was evidently still afraid of the recurring criticisms of Joseph Ritson; who was not awed by "the divinity that doth hedge a" Bishop, even in days when the Bench was filled by more illustrious men than a later generation can boast. Verbal exactitude, and scrupulous honesty in reproducing ancient records, had not been so urgently demanded until Ritson fought bis single-handed battle. All honour to him! although, as Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1823 :

BAGFORD.

"As bitter as gall, and as sharp as a razor,

And feeding on herbs as a Nebuchadnezzar,
His diet too acid, his temper too sour,

Little Ritson came out with his two volumes more."

Y

you hear a German Princess, How she chous'd an English Lord ?" Tune of "Would you hear a Spanish Lady." Cf. Rox. Col. ii. 73.

Dr. Zachary Grey, by a note in loco, asserts the identity of Mary Carlton with "English Mall;" but the date of publication seems to invalidate his theory. The first part of Hudibras (the reference therein to " English Mall" being in its second canto; not third, as mis-stated by Percy) appeared in 1663, but had been licensed by Sir John Birkenhead, Nov. 11th, 1662: Mary Carlton being at that time only twenty years of age! She was not transported to Jamaica until 1671. It is true she was sometimes called "Kentish Mall." But, to our mind, the lady alluded to by Butler was one who had been much earlier and more widely known: no other than Mary Frith, generally called MOLL CUTPURSE, or, "The Roaring Girl." Her portrait, in male attire (with a drawn sword in one hand, and a pipe of tobacco in the other), adorns Nat Field's comedy of "Amends for Ladies," printed in 1618 and 1630. The picture is reproduced in Thomas White's edition, Old English Drama, vol. ii. 1830. She was born in 1584, and had died before 1660. General Fairfax was robbed by her on Hounslow Heath. She is mentioned in many plays and books. Richard Brome calls her "honest Moll; others name her " Merry Moll of the Bankside." We claim for her the Hudibrastic title of "English Mall."

The tune assigned to "Mary Ambree" is "The Blind Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green." The words of this ballad, whether it were Elizabethan or still older, are found in the Percy Folio MS., p. 276 (ii. 281, printed text), there entitled "Bessie of Bednall." Also in our Bagford Coll., i. 29; ii. 108; Roxb. i. 10, beginning "It was a blind Beggar that long lost his sight." Two versions of the tune are in Popular Music, pp. 159, 160.

Another copy of the "Mary Ambree" ballad-broadside (which we suppose agrees with our Bagford) is the one mentioned by Dr. Percy it is in the Pepys Coll., ii. 132. The words are also found in the Vocal Magazine, 1781, p. 153; Child's Eng. & Scotch Ballads, vii. 109 (from Percy, as also in Select Ancient Poems, 1794, p. 87), &c. But the only important version, independent of the blackletter broadsheet, is found in the celebrated Percy Folio MS., fol. 186, 187. Than the publication of that large collection of early ballad-poetry no equally important gift has been made to English literature in this century.

In Percy Folio MS. the ballad begins without the word When," i.e. "Captaine couragious, whome death cold not daunte, beseeged the Citye brauelye, the citty of gaunt!" Our second verse is omitted. This prepares us to find the P.F. MS. version corrupt, although no doubt from an early text.

[Bagford Collection, II. 92.]

The Valarous Acts performed at GAUNT, Bp the brave Bonny Lass Mary Ambree, who in Revenge of her Love[r]s Death, did play her part most gallantly.

THE TUNE IS, The blind Beggar.

Hen Captain couragious, whom death could not daunt,'
Had roundly besieged the City of Gaunt,

And manly they marched by two and by three,
And the foremost in battel was Mary Ambree.

2 Query, read Then the, &c.

4