The 16th century Protestant leader and author of The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, John Knox would not have enjoyed this article at all. His book was aimed against rule by females but nonetheless would be spinning in his grave at the escapades of Kit Cavanagh aka Mother Ross.
Christian Davies (1667-1739) was an Irishwoman who joined the British Army in 1693 disguised as a man and served successfully until 1706 when her true sex was discovered.
Her family were ruined by their support for the Jacobite cause and she ended up living with her aunt who ran a pub in Dublin. She later inherited the pub and married Richard Welsh with whom she had two children and was pregnant with a third when her husband disappeared. There is debate as to whether he joined the Army or was “pressed” but she received a letter from him saying that he was with the British Army in Holland.
She placed her children with her mother, cut off her hair, dressed as a man and joined the Army to look for her husband.
Campaigns
She initially served as an infantryman and fought at the Battle of Landen where she was wounded and captured by the French. In 1694 she was exchanged and returned to the British Army – her secret still intact. She later got involved in an argument with a sergeant over a woman and killed him in a duel, leading to her discharge from the Army.
She immediately re enlisted in the 2nd Royal North British Dragoons (The Scots Greys) and continued in the fighting of the Nine Years War and the War of the Spanish Succession. How she managed to pass herself off as a man nobody knows but she was obviously very good at it as at one point that a prostitute claimed that she was the father of her child! She apparently enjoyed her life in the ranks – especially the looting and marauding.
She was wounded in the thigh at one battle but carried on and fought at the Battle of Blenheim. After this she was told to guard French prisoners and finally found her husband who was trying to pick up a Dutch woman. She was furious and the two never continued as man and wife but instead pretended to be brothers and the deception continued even though she was known as the “pretty dragoon”.
Unmasked!
Her secret was finished though in 1706 at the Battle of Ramilies. She was wounded with a fractured skull and the surgeon treating her revealed that she was a woman. The news spread rapidly and the Brigade Commander Lord John Hay became involved. Having heard the whole story though he ordered that her pay be continued whilst she was in the care of the army. She stayed on with them acting as a sutleress (selling provisions). Her husband died at the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709 and she spent the whole of the next day searching the battlefield for his body to bury him.
She became involved with a Captain Ross of the regiment and was always thereafter known as “Mother Ross”. She never married Captain Ross but did marry another dragoon who was killed in action in 1710.
Home
At the end of the war she returned home and was presented at court to Queen Anne who granted her a bounty of £50 and a pension of a shilling a day for the rest of her life.
She returned to Dublin, married again, and ran another pub before being admitted to the Royal Hospital Chelsea as one of its pensioners. She was buried with full military honours there in 1739 at the age of 72.
Royal Hospital Chelsea today
If you are fascinated by this story check out the extraordinary lives of Hannah Snell and Dr James Barry.